Author: Sam McManus

Posted on

Still

358966The old farmhouse shudders against the oncoming wind, frightened of even more damage that would settle a score it hadn’t known it owed. A whistling sound screams against its sides and squeezes through the cracks under the doors, more eerie than a little bit, precursor to the squall that will come after midnight, when the house is all tucked in and snoring comfortably. An old cocker spaniel lies on the mat by the kitchen door, ears cocked, ready to defend his family against whatever is making the horrible keening noise. Of course that noise is him, but he listens nonetheless, oblivious.

A fire crackles in the stone fireplace, warming the thick rug in the den as the sparks get perilously close. The young man of the house stoked it quite full before he turned in for the night, as is his nightly habit, meant to ward off the need to get up in the middle of the night to re-fill the behemoth. A patter on the roof would remind him of little feet running pell mell across its surface if he were awake to hear its drumming. It is night rain coming down slowly but surely, and it will soon multiply in frequency and in pressure, but for now it runs across like the lost child they have tried so hard to forget.

A solitary human soul is tortured in the face of the nearby onslaught. The years have not been kind to her. Her lined face and the deep creases around her eyes are testament to that, that and long nights without sleep. She fights against herself harder than the elements pound on the house she has called home for longer than she would care to admit. Her back is ramrod straight against the wall as she sits up in the bed she shares with a corpse. Continue reading “Still”

Posted on

Checked Out: Week 4

Well, what a difference a week makes! Remember when I said I was deep into The Tyrant’s Law. As it turns out, the most recent time I read that book, or any other for that matter, was last Tuesday right after I wrote the latest entry of Checked Out. That’s for two major reasons. I … Continue reading Checked Out: Week 4

Posted on

Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 3

tumblr_lbajisxTfT1qc4y1yo1_500_large…and we were still waiting.

My wife heard back from the doctor a week after the testing was done to see whether or not Alexa had Cystic Fibrosis, and the word back was that the test was inconclusive. They would have to do genetic testing to see whether or not she tested positive, and in the meantime we would have to keep waiting. Over a month later and we were still in that holding pattern, completing the treatments twice a day, and dealing with the weight of knowing we were one step closer to our child possibly having CF, something we were supposed to be “simply ruling out” with the initial test.

And during that time period we worried. What you need to know about my wife is that in our relationship she’s the worrier on the outside, and me, I’m the worrier on the inside. I might look like I’m doing just fine, but underneath the facade I’m freaking out. In fact, sometimes I just sit still and shake because I’m so worried. It happened when I was so worried that Madeline might have DS, but then when she tested positive for it it was okay. I was able to deal with it, and I figured that would be the same way with Alexa and the possibility of CF. The possibility worried me a lot more than the actual diagnosis, because if the diagnosis came back that she had it then I could make a plan, then I could deal with it.

But Heidi, she worries from the start, and it shows on her face and in her demeanor. Reading about all the issues that children with CF have, she had driven herself into the cycle of “what if.” And don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying her way of dealing with it is wrong. It’s just different how we approach things, but we eventually get to the same place. If that place is acceptance, then we work on it, and if it’s a sigh of relief then we sigh at the same time. We were both preparing ourselves for the possibilities during that month, just in our different ways. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 3”

Posted on

Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 2

Quotation-Napoleon-Hill-failure-adversity-Meetville-Quotes-12088…and then the treatments began.

The night I brought my wife and daughter home from the hospital we were still in flux. Yes, the surgery was done, but in order to let them go home the treatments had to already be set up, the equipment had to be scheduled to arrive at our home, and both my wife and I would have to be trained on it. It was such a small window, but we dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s and were able to go home.

Alexa couldn’t go back to school for an entire week, though, so there was also a reshuffling of schedules to accomplish that. During this whole time, too, Madeline knew things were different, and she was incredibly needy. It was very tough for us dealing with Alexa and the new therapies, dealing with Madeline and her new clingy-ness, and trying to wrap our brains around what the future might hold for us as a family.

When the therapist showed up with the “vest,” there was a lot to learn: from plugging it in correctly, to connecting the tubes properly, to running the machine through its programs, to even breaking it down in order to put it back in the case. The program took 22 minutes to cycle through with each treatment, and Alexa kept saying that it bothered her by making her itch with its vibrations. But we knew it was necessary to try and get her lung healthy again. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 2”

Posted on

Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1

Look at those smiles.

I am constantly astounded by the resiliency of children, the way they can adjust to just about anything, no matter how odd it is or how much it differs from their previous pattern, even my children. Now, if you know my children at all you’ll realize that they are pretty rigid in the things they do and like. For example, my 5-year old, Madeline, likes to play CandyLand, followed by Chutes & Ladders, and it has to be in that order. She also likes to try and cheat at both, but we’re working on keeping her honest. My 7-year old, Alexa, refuses to eat homemade macaroni & cheese (unless bribed with the promise of some sort of desert at the end of the mac and cheese rainbow), but she absolutely adores boxed mac & cheese with the fake orange “cheese.”

They are both also relatively stubborn when it comes to activities to do. Alexa likes to be in charge, but Madeline is not your classic follower. If there’s something she doesn’t want to do, she just won’t do it, even if they’re in the middle of it already. So, when Alexa came home from the hospital after her bronchoscopy in November, it was interesting to note how quickly both of them adjusted to the new way of life around here. I’ll explain…

  • Alexa had to have two “vest” administrations per day, one in the morning and one at night. The “vest” is an actual vest that inflates using two tubes attached to a powerful little machine that pushes air into the vest. It operates on escalating levels of what equates to vigorous shaking of her body in order to break up whatever mucous remained in her left lung.
  • Alexa also needed to have various inhalants as treatments, all of which were designed to open up her airways so that when the mucous was broken up by the vigorous shaking it would come out of the lung altogether and she would aspirate it. These treatments were also twice a day, and generally took place at the same time as the vest treatments.
  • During all of these treatments Alexa was far and away our focal point, which was a massive change from how things had been to that point. Because Madeline has Down syndrome it had become routine to focus on her health more so than the health of Alexa, and the issues that sent Alexa to the emergency room and then to surgery woke us up to that.

While Alexa was in the hospital, my wife Heidi stayed with her for the entire five tumultuous days, and I was back and forth from the hospital, to home, to work, and back to the hospital. It was ironically reminiscent of when Alexa was born. We weren’t sure of the time of her operation, or even what we were really dealing with for a while, and during the whole back and forth Madeline was with me, and then with her grandmother, and then back with me. Continue reading “Disturbance at the Heron House: Volume 1”