Making Peace

Time gives us clarity. While still reeling from all the news and decisions from last week, I could hardly get a breath, let alone think straight to get past it all. Luckily, I was able to proceed calmly and find some options and hopefully solutions. I saw my mom this past weekend and she is still very upset about everything and trying not to get overwhelmed by it all, but she is ready for the fight. She will need an MRI on Wednesday to see if the doctor can get a clearer picture of the extent of the cancerous cells. She tried to get an MRI a few weeks ago and just couldn’t do it – apparently, you have to go into the machine on your stomach with  your arms pinned to your side and something on top of you holding you down. She had tried taking some Ativan but it didn’t really help her stay calm enough to complete the hour long test. Wednesday she must try again. Later this week she will have a meeting with a whole host of medical professionals to discuss her treatment options and she has a lot of questions for them. She has been a nurse for over 30 years and so naturally she has a lot of good medical questions she wants answered before she begins any treatment or has any procedures. At this point, she will be getting chemo via a port they will put in just above her breast. I encouraged her to take things one day at a time because she kept leaping ahead into the what-ifs and driving herself crazy about it all. She was so upset about not being able to garden, reiterating how spring is such a busy time outside. I will have to rearrange as much of my schedule as I can in order to help her care for her gardens so she can sit and enjoy them. I want to give her as little to worry about as possible so she can concentrate on getting healthy and kicking cancers ass. There isn’t really much else I can do, although I did offer to take her to her chemo appointments if need be (I can use my sick time for that because she is immediate family). I offered her my hair for a wig but she begged me not to cut it for her because it will only make her feel worse. We hope to find a nice wig for her and I vowed to learn how to tie head scarves. This is how we are gearing up for war.

 

Call me crazy, but I had no peace in my heart following the planning meeting last week. My heart was screaming at me to do something because it knows I couldn’t deal with throwing a kid out of my house just to have my way and get what I want. I could never feel right about that. So, I called and spoke to my new family worker, explaining to her how I felt about the whole situation with the kid living with me and getting kicked out if/when I get a placement. I explained how I felt it was unfair to do that to the kid, despite my hesitance in agreeing to take him in, he’s here now and he’s a human being with feelings, not a sack of clothes to get shoved around at our whims. I told her I wanted to find a win-win situation for him and for me. We talked about the basement bedroom idea and she warmed to this as a great possibility to put be back to where I was before – one bedroom available for same gender siblings. She assured me that no one at CHOR and certainly not the county, who is struggling to find the kid a place, would be upset if I changed my mind and decided to keep him. She too assured me the kid would be ok if I decided to stick to the original plan and have him move on and leave my home. So, I talked to the kid about the realities we are facing. I made no promises to him, but I asked him how he would feel about staying in my home knowing at any moment I could get another placement and that it would change the dynamic of the home. He said he would like to stay, if that were possible (we both understand that we don’t always get to make these decisions, that the county, the courts and CHOR have the final say in what happens), and he wouldn’t mind little ones in the house or that my attention would be divided. He said he really doesn’t want to keep bouncing around from foster home to foster home. I can understand that. So, we will talk to his case worker when she comes out and tell her the plan – as soon as I get my income tax return (I’ve been having some issues with that) we will begin working on the basement bedroom leaving a room open upstairs for a second placement. This way the kid can stay as long as need be. My family worker mentioned a few times about the kid staying on in a more permanent placement but that this would be a decision to make at a later date and time. The decision to make right now is if he can stay until the court decides he’s going home or not. I care for this kid and I don’t want to see him ending up in a shelter just so I can get what I want. So, the game plan is to open up some more space in my home, allowing him to stay and hoping things will still work out for me to get a placement for a baby I can adopt. The family worker questioned if I thought I could handle two or may be three kids, to which I explained I had three children under the age of 5 at one time and I was capable of “handling” them, so I feel confident in handling a teenager plus two small children. As a sign of my intentions, I began cleaning the basement on Saturday, so I could move all the things from the bedroom side (which is heated and cleaner) to the storage side preparing for the son of my friend to come and begin working. He thinks he can get the work done in a week’s time, so I think the longest part of the process will be waiting for the tax return. Maybe I’m crazy in considering this, but I feel so much more peaceful in making the decision than I was feeling after the planning meeting last Thursday. I never intended on taking in a teenager, let alone a boy (mostly because I worried about connecting with a teenage boy and finding things to do with a teenage boy), but this is where things are at right now. This kid has been the easiest foster care placement I have had in terms of behavioral issues and workload and since we get along and have no issues I have no problem extending his stay and putting forth an effort to make things a little easier for him. I guess I’m just a bleeding heart or maybe I have a hero complex or something. But, there are two things that break my heart – abused, mistreated, or unwanted children and animals. I think they all deserve a loving home and at least one person who gives a damn about them and I plan on being that person for as many as I can manage. I’m not fooling myself, I know this situation can add a whole new level of difficulty to my ability to get a placement. Call it a strike against me, but in the end we are talking about decisions that are life-altering and if I don’t have peace about something then there must be a reason for it. Whatever the outcome, I can lay my head down at night knowing I did what I could do to make a difference and I have peace with that.