As I’ve stated, I’m not quite an X-man, but last night I would like to see Wolverine handle what was thrown at me. As it says in my blog profile, I am a parent of a special needs child. She is both mentally and physically challenged and the two conditions compound the complexity of her care.
At 1 AM I awoke to my wife getting out of bed and heading towards our daughter’s room. That means she heard something so I immediately followed, what we found was that Amanda had thrown up her spaghetti dinner from six hours before. Dawning latex gloves, which we keep in the room, we proceeded to attack the situation. Tina went and turned on the bath; I undressed and wiped down Amanda with a shirt that was all ready totaled. We have a house rule that we don’t salvage vomit clothing or linens. I then got Amanda to the shower and washed one very nasty smelling child. Afterwards Tina dressed her in new pajamas and I bagged the pillows and sheets from the bed. A good rule to follow is never go through my garbage, it just wouldn’t be worth it.
I brushed Amanda’s teeth and we moved her into the guest room which is always set up as a spare for just such an emergency. Old towels were placed over the pillows and a large bowl was brought in case this was more than just a onetime evacuation. Now came gut check time for myself. I had to lay down with Amanda and get her back to sleep. At first she was on her right side facing away from me, which is just the way you want it in these situations. Although she fell asleep quickly while telling her our version of Little Red Riding Hood, it was restless and full over kicking and rolling. Soon she was face to face with me. Now here I am, staring straight out 10 year old who had just vomited her marinara soaked dinner only an hour ago. Would she project again? Her history told me I had a 50/50 chance, but the way my luck had been lately I figured I was about to be ruined. But then fate intervened and she took a southerly route and had a BM in her pull up followed by a huge sigh of relief. So, it is now almost 3 AM and I am dawning latex gloves for the second time last night. I have her cleaned and back in a new pull up in under two minutes. Her breathing goes to a normal rate and she is quickly asleep.
I’m a veteran of such nights and I know how the rest of this will go down. She will sleep until the morning and I need to take advantage of that as best I can. So I retire back to my bed and bring Tina up to speed. We fall asleep for what feels like hours but is really only twenty minutes and I get up and check on Amanda again, she is fine. Back to bed for the rest of night but again it is really only twenty minutes and I check on Amanda and once again she is fine.
It is now 4 AM and I need to sleep, so it is back to bed. At 4:30 Tina tells me there is a spider in the bathroom. Finally, something easy. Armed with a slipper I smack the invader, put him in tissue and flush him because you can’t be too careful with spiders.
At 6:30 Amanda is awake for the day. A second full pull up and I dawn latex gloves for the third time in less than six hours, but she is feeling fine now and we can get on with our day.
It goes well for three hours until she does something with a full coffee cup, but that is a totally different subject.
The reason Wolverine can’t handle this like I can is twofold. First of all, rage is counterproductive to the mission at hand, and secondly his claws would not allow the latex gloves to perform up to maximum effectiveness.
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