Saturday can’t come fast enough

My son is still struggling with being pretty sick. His genetic disorder causes him to be extremely weak, so he isn’t able to cough effectively enough to clear his own airway, which puts him at a huge risk for aspiration pneumonia. My days have been filled with smacking him on the back and helping him cough, doing any and everything to prevent stuff from building up in his lungs.

He’s emotionally unaffected, and despite the obvious lack of breathing, you’d never even know he was struggling. He really is a special kid, he just wants to be happy and full of life no matter what is going on.

Exhaustion is….it doesn’t even begin to cover how I’m feeling. Parenting doesn’t usually require a medical degree, but I’m glad I happened to have a small one anyway.

My husband should be coming home early today since it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow. He definitely won’t be taking them anywhere, but he can at least put them in the stroller and go for a walk.

I can’t scream it from the rooftops loud enough, but I need a BREAK.

Therapy was good last night. I honestly don’t remember a lot of it, for some reason it feels like a blur. I’m sure if I actually thought about it, I’d remember it perfectly. But I’m not sure that I want to right now. I know it was intense and we talked about all of the hard things. And even though I didn’t actually get deep into the emotion of any of it, the topics alone were enough to be exhausting and upsetting.

Assuming my son is okay and significantly better by Saturday, I’m going to try to take some time for myself. I need it….desperately.

My therapist is requiring me to spend actual time reading…and not doing anything else. Not writing, not listening to music, not thinking, not doing any work…

I never actually give myself permission to do that. Or if I do, I’ll feel too guilty to actually sit there are read for too long, to be still for more than a minute. I always feel like I have to be productive, or doing something to benefit someone else. I feel so guilty if I’m just doing nothing, or something for just me.

But I am so depleted. This season is an exhausting one, and I don’t see an end in sight. Everything feels harder than it should, and all I want to do right now is break down and cry. But I can’t.

I’m honestly starting to question how I can possibly keep going at this rate. I don’t know how to be strong when all I feel is weak.