Out of spoons

L is home.  Doctor Jim Bob came by to see her about 6:30 this evening while M and I were visiting, looked at her throat, asked how she was feeling, wrote scripts for an antibiotic (Augmentin) and pain relief (Vicodin), and said “go in peace.”  We filled the scripts on the way home (the pharmacy appeared to have switched the pharmacist with a snail tonight; I was told 30 minutes’ wait and I know I waited far longer than that), and I got her some Diet Coke, which she has been pining for all week to cut the cotton out of her mouth.  Her mood didn’t improve when she told Doctor Jim Bob this tonight and he said, “Oh, you could have had that,” which didn’t help a bit ’cos nobody told her she could.  She’s crashed out on the sofa now, as she’s still too weak to climb into our enormous tall bed.  M’s next to her on the floor in her sleeping bag.

I ran completely, totally out of spoons today.  Trying to juggle caring for M, who has been as self-centered as only a six-year-old can be all week, fretting over L and running to the hospital daily, coping with being completely iced in for three days with M and still trying to get as many hours of work done at the Empire as possible by logging in remotely over an iffy connection (I worked enough that I only had to use eight hours’ sick leave across four days) and managing the demands of customers and technicians, all week long without any relief, any letup, any time out—I couldn’t do it.  I tried my damnedest, and I STILL couldn’t do it.  I managed, just barely, not to break down at work today, and to do almost all of a full day’s work.  (Being in chat with technicians, often two and three at a time, approving requests and handling case escalations all day every day for the past month has contributed a lot to grinding me down.)  When we got into the house tonight and I put down the groceries, I stood in the kitchen, held L, and cried.  I couldn’t make myself do anything else.

While she was in the hospital, L was on a liquid diet—that is, when she could manage to force anything at all down her throat despite all the swelling, which was rare.  Tonight, as we were driving home from the grocery, she was talking about how she had only been able to eat soups and puddings, and not much of them, and then she said “You know what I’ve really been wanting?  I’ve wanted a soft-boiled egg on toast. I’d like to have that since I have to take my antibiotic with food.” So once we got home, I made her a three-minute egg.  With soldiers.