The Daddy Diary 2: Cut the Russian

If you find that you are routinely getting too much sleep, having a child in the cardiac ICU will take care of that. You get the joyous experience of waking up 13 times a night mentally playing out every possible scenario even though you have no control over any of them. It’s healthy from a psychological, physical, and emotional standpoint.

I decided to go ahead and throw out my back because things weren’t stressful enough in our household. That’s what happens when you try to rush in a quick workout when you are 47 years old. If there’s one thing I’ve learned by now, it’s that if I’m going to work out first thing in the morning, I need to start warming up the night before. Last week when Michelle was recovering, from her surgery, she was walking pretty slowly. Deep down I kind of chuckled when the desk agent would open the automatic doors to the ICU and Michelle couldn’t make it down the hall in time before the doors closed. Payback is a bitch. I’m just waiting for a member of the medical staff to see me walking with Michelle and ask her if her father needs a wheelchair.

The only person who doesn’t seem stressed is Ella. Injured Daddy = another week at Camp Evans. And she thought it was hilarious when I had to tip over her crib and let her crawl out because I physically couldn’t lift her overly healthy body out. (Of course, my two-year-old toddler is already wearing 4T clothes).

Every day it’s something new with little Audrey. I just wish just for once that new news would equal good news. She’s had kidney problems, respiratory defects, bacterial infections, basically, anything that could possibly delay her surgery (which was supposed to be tomorrow but has been delayed again). Are these other defects temporary or permanent? We don’t know yet. It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you aren’t sure if you’ve even entered the tunnel yet.

Sometimes it starts to feel hopeless. In Rocky IV, Rocky faced a hopeless situation. He was fighting Ivan Drago, a Goliath-like Russian boxer who couldn’t be beaten. Rocky’s fate seemed doomed early in the fight as he was getting pummeled. Then, it all changed. In the second round, Rocky landed one good punch. One shot. That’s all it took. When the announcer said, “He’s cut! He’s cut! The Russian’s cut!” you knew the fight was on.

That’s all I want today, just one piece of good news. One shot. One punch. Just one data point that could signal a positive trend.

That’s my prayer for today – “God, please cut the Russian.”