Where has it gone?

Where has it gone?  Time, that is.  it's been almost two months since I've been able to take the time to write.  I would like to write a little, even a few sentences each and every day.  I've got books that I would like to start writing and of course there is this blog.  However, with both reading and writing I find myself easily caught up in it to the point where nothing else gets done, so unfortunately I put it off until I think everything else is "done", which of course it never is so ergo, the long pause between posts.  Another good resolution to add to the list!

The view from inside the sandwich has been an interesting one the past 8 or so weeks. I've enjoyed eight beautiful days in Hawaii with my husband celebrating our 20th anniversary, I've decorated, shopped, baked, wrapped and cooked for the holidays and I've spent way too many weeks with my beautiful 14 year old daughter on the couch with illness.  She first spent 2 1/2 weeks with a very odd virus and then since December 2 has been suffering from vertigo. It's been challenging for both of us and she has handled it much better than I would have. 

We finally ended up at Children's Hospital yesterday and today where they confirmed this mother's suspicion that there was an inflammatory process going on deep inside her ear and prescribed oral steroids to bring down the inflammation.  I would have traveled to the ends of the earth and would have even hung her upside down from atop the Empire State Building if I would have thought it would "fix" her.  Repeatedly I asked the physicians treating her here in Lincoln to prescribe steroids and each time they told me "no".  So we use how many healthcare resources to learn that a $4.13 prescription should take care of it??? My dear, precious (and very intelligent) friend and Nurse Practitioner, Amy, is the one who first asked me about steroids only days after she first became ill with vertigo- gosh what would I ever do without her! And researching it only confirmed what she thought.  After all, if it is protocol for Mayo Clinic to use with their patients suffering from Labrynthitis I thought it should be good enough for my daughter!

Yes I enjoy, no I LOVE, being right.  It's probably one of the more satisfying emotions for me. But that's not why I am upset, angry and just plain ticked off that no one listened to me. My daughter has lost 7 weeks of 2010; about 15% of her year!  She missed 1/2 a quarter of school!  She is weak and severely deconditioned.  She has missed making memories with her precious friends and basketball team. The risk/benefit ratio was certainly in our favor with this medication, but instead my mind was fed a steady diet of such dreaded diagnoses as MS, cancer, vascularitis and others. Ahhh...who am I kidding?  I certainly would not want the responsibility, risk or exposure that physicians have. I know they have to be so very careful in this litigious society in which we live...but that doesn't allow my daughter to go back and sing in the concert for my mom, or participate in the dynamic fellowship of a Christian basketball team, enjoy Christmas shopping or time with her friends.

Time can never be replaced and once its gone...well you know how that sentence ends. What if it had been cancer? What if tomorrow the phone rings and a life is suddenly over? What if tomorrow is the day you find out that your life will be changed and different forever? Will you, will I, regret how we have spent our time? With tomorrow bringing the close to 2010, what will I vow to do differently in 2011? Will I steward my time more effectively?  I sure hope so. Tonight I sat on the couch and held that 14 year old girl. With only 3 1/2 years until she goes away to college how many more times will I have the opportunity to just hold her? Treasure your times before they're gone...