i didn't read a newspaper or eat chinese take out 

i wish i had never read her post.  but i did. 

someone here talked about how upsetting it is that her ex takes the kids even when they are very ill.  i relate.  and reading her post, and commenting back to her, brought up all those memories again and honestly, i felt like i might throw up thinking about it all again.  

so, naturally i had to write my own post about it.  i've realized that writing this stuff really does help me. and this is one area of my divorce that i haven't talked about but is still haunting me.  maybe this will help....writing it here.  

when he divorced me, my daughter was only two and my son had just turned one.  naturally, i was still new at the kid thing and now i was plunged into doing the kid thing alone, while dealing with divorce, unemployment, no money and total fear.  

and then my son got sick.  

he was sick for two solid years.  and by solid, i mean every single day.  yes. daily.  he had 105 fevers, which i know sounds pretty scary, because it is. the doctors told me that some kids just run that high. apparently both of mine do.  

he had these fevers at least 20 days out of every month.  i ran thru thermometers like a pharmacy.  i had dozens of them in all shapes and sizes.  they would just stop working quickly.  i would test myself, and it would say 92 and i would test him and it would say 74 and meanwhile he was too hot to touch.    

every single night for two years solid i was on high alert. i didn't sleep.  i was at the hospital or doctors office, sometimes daily.  my son had breathing issues as well.  lips turning blue, the whole nine yards. scary stuff.  he would not be able to breathe and i would give him a nebulizer with steroids three times a day, every day.  it was loud and bulky and took a full twenty minutes. and that's no easy task for a sickly one year old to handle.  

so my life was like this:  

with one hand over my sons chest, to confirm he was breathing, i would sit next to him, all night long, every night and watch him sleep or cough or cry or wake up and cry some more.  i would give him sponge baths to try to bring down the fever. i kept a detailed log of his medications and gave him something new almost hourly. i would take my hand off his chest to run to the kitchen in a panic when i could feel his body getting warmer, not cooler, as the medications were supposed to control. 

i had endless wet face clothes all around us, on the floor, the bed, the sheets.  i would use an eye dropper to give him water to drink, because many times he was too weak to drink even with a straw.  i would run him to the bathtub and while he would scream, without tears, because of dehydration, would plunge both of us into the tub to try to reduce the fever again, and again, and again and again. 

i would clean up the non stop vomit that happened spontaneously at times, even while he was asleep. he would just suddenly vomit and not even have the energy to wake up or cry about it.  i was always on choking alert because of this.  

i'm not kidding when i say i did not really sleep for two years.  sometimes i would catch myself waking up! oh my god i would think.  how could i! how could i have possibly fallen asleep when he needs me to watch him?  and then i would almost pounce on him to make sure he was still breathing.  

the next day would not bring relief or rest.  this same scene played out almost every single day and every single night for two years.  i was a walking zombie.  i rarely ate or showered even.  i wore the same clothes over and over, usually clothes covered in vomit or medication.  i didn't go to movies or read books or have cocktails with friends.  i didn't read a newspaper or eat chinese take out. i didn't do anything but worry about my son, take care of my son and beg every god i  could think of to please make this stop.  

it was a terrible, terrible, terrible time in our lives.   this all started a few months after my husband walked out.  i told him all about it, constantly.  he didn't seem to care. he never showed to dr visits or er runs. he never offered to help.  but he managed to keep the pressure on with the divorce lawyers...fighting me about everything and eventually, getting one half of everything i had..even though he had only worked one of the four years we were married and all of it was morally not his to take.   

he fought me daily and fought hard.  he told me he was going to eviscerate me.  i would cry to him on the phone and beg him to please just stop. eviscerate me later i would say.  let me deal with our son first. he is so sick.  please just put the whole evisceration thing on hold for a bit.   and he would say something like 'on no, i'm divorcing you and doing it now and i'm taking everything i can get.'  

still to this day i have no idea at all why he was so full of hatred and determination to ruin me.  i would ask. he wouldn't answer.  i would remind him that ruining me, would ruin his kids. he would shrug his shoulders or hang up the phone.  

and i didn't fight. i couldn't. i didn't have even a tiny bit of energy to give to him. all of it was going to my son.  and whatever was left was going to full fledged panic over how i had no money and whatever i had in savings/401/the house, my ex was about to take.  how was i going to feed my kids? how could i get a job when my son needed me 24/7?  

but the courts feel differently.  they feel that since i had just left a job a mere three weeks before my husband announced divorce, that i should and would get a job of equal salary. even though i worked in a niche industry and finding a comparable job/salary would be impossible...the courts don't care...and neither did my ex.  

so, during all of this, he would show up and take the kids for his weekend..even though my son would be screaming and crying and vomiting and burning up, he would take him. stick him in a car seat, wearing only a diaper and drive off to his girlfriends home two hours away. 

i would be in the driveway in tears. i begged him not to take him like that. but he didn't care, and neither do the courts.  all parents have a right to care for their kids my lawyer would say.    i guess they feel this is caring.

then my ex would refuse to answer the phone.  so there i was still nursing my son, who was ill and needed special medications and all sorts of care, and my loser ex would not answer the phone so i could even find out how he was, how his fever was, if he was ok.  

naturally, these nights were torture.    my parents or friends would say to me sometimes 'you have a night off, he's not going to harm him, get some needed sleep.'  

they didn't understand. it was worse when he had my kids.  a million times worse. i didn't sleep. i paced. i cried.  i panicked.  i don't want to sound selfish. but a child needs their mother when they are ill.  they just do.  not to mention that i knew how to care for him, my ex did not. 

so many times he would drop them back off at home and tell me that he 'oops, forgot to give him his meds at midnight or 3 am because he slept thru it'.   

what?  what?  what?  

you slept?  

thankfully, my son is better now.  but i still sneak into his room every night, sometimes multiple times a night and put my hand on his chest and check his breathing. i can't help it.  i am so relieved he is better but i don't think i'll ever be able to recover from those two years of hell.  divorce, unemployment, fear of poverty, two little babies, an evil ex and a very sick son. it was all too much.   

how many times have we all said that? 'it's all too much' or i can't handle anymore?  i've said it millions of times.  

but you know what?  it was all too much.  yet, here i am. 

apparently, without realizing it, i survived.