Happy Easter! .......and Update

Happy Easter everyone!

It has been a good weekend. Good Friday was nice. While we were unable to go to the Good Friday Service at church due to me still recovering from infusion and Isaac recovering from gastro, we had a nice, intimate time at home together. We read about Jesus' death and resurrection on the cross and had communion together. It is the first time Isaac has had communion. Isaac asked Jesus into his life about this time last year. He understood what communion was and was so serious while taking it. When he took the bread (biscuit) and the wine (red cordial), he had his eyes closed and he said, "thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus". It was so sweet to see him really involved. It is so sweet to see a child so young with such a true relationship with Jesus. The Bible clearly explains that one must understand what you are doing when taking communion and Isaac really did understand. After doing this and discussing what we were doing....and reading the Bible, we watched the "Jesus" movie for children. Isaac watches the whole thing. We sit and watch to make sure he understands and doesn't see anything that would be too "old" for him. I always cry through any Jesus movies.

Then Friday night I went to the women's Easter rally at our church. We had a woman by the name of Aliki ministering. I was also singing an item and God had given me something to share. It was a really good night and the Spirit of God was most certainly there moving and ministering. Praise the Lord, God helped me through the song and I spoke about the things He had laid on my heart. Aliki's ministry was awesome. I recieved some prayer and then went off home. Saturday we spent at home and Sunday we went to church in the morning to celebrate the ressurection of Jesus. Isaac woke to find Easter eggs in his basket by his bed and he also had a small egg hunt in the lounge room. It was a good day. Nanna came over in the afternoon to give Isaac some more chocolate....hehe....and then we went to mum and dads in the evening for dinner and some fellowship :-) It was good. I was so tired from all the activities......and the fact that I still feel sleepy from infusion, that I slept til 11am this morning.

I am on call at work now for Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I only work once in a week so I hope I get one shift on either of those days.

Back to the issues that I wrote about last entry with Isaac and school. We had a huge chat to Isaac about the hitting and cuddling issues. The next day which was Tuesday, he went back to school and had to apologise to the 2 kids he had hit, the teacher for not listening and to the child he likes to cuddle but the child doesn't like it. He apologised and Alan asked the teacher why we hadn't heard about all this at the parent/teacher interview the week before. The teacher then told him that Isaac had only hit the last couple of days. That he had been not listening for those two days! She didn't say anything else about the "may have to repeat year 1" issue. She then said that she thinks his issues are directly to do with tiredness. Otherwise, he behaves fine. I don't know if she generally thinks he acts more younger than the others. The cuddling issue is an ongoing one I knew about so we are just reminding Isaac that if someone says, "no" then you stop no matter how much you want to cuddle. So......boundaries. The thing is that we are a very affectionate family and what we do at home, he was doing to this child who is complete opposite. We joke about kissing Isaac and I call him my "beauty" and cuddle heaps and so on. He has to realise that not everyone is like that but I still love being affectionate with my child. I am very concerned about how this child reacts and I am very worried Isaac is being labelled as a bad boy even though hugging is not really bad. I admit, Isaac needs to learn those boundaries and we have been talking about self control....but I am still concerned and I can't express it all here.

I have felt SO anxious about how things have been portrayed to me by the teacher . I honestly don't think Isaac is really bad at all. I feel like I deal with so much in regards with FA that I am worried Isaac will do something "wrong" at school while I am in treatment or something and I cannot help him or explain to the teacher. I kind of feel like school is not safe. I know it is safe. When I say safe, it makes ME and my feelings feel unsafe! Now I am convinced that it has to do with my anxiety and feelings that Isaac is being "attacked". I am aware that I need to deal with this. It is a blessing that the school holidays have now started and that I have 2 weeks of no school. When school starts back I am going to have a meeting with the teacher about my concerns in regards to what happened that last week. I am going to tell her how I feel about things and how I am struggling to cope with these emotions and that I don't feel safe. Weird hey. It seems that when I get really overwhelmed I don't know how to cope with emotions. I want this issue that came up in the last week dealt with and I don't want to be scared to send my son to school because of me being emotionally overloaded. I have no idea if what I have written makes sense. I know this issue is not as big as it was talked about. However, I feel scared. That might be because I have had a lot to deal with the last week and had infusion which can change how I feel.

Today I was thinking about Isaac's tiredness. He has 11 to 12 hours sleep a night and he shouldn't be as exhausted as he is! Today he has been grumpy and upset this afternoon and he still had 11 hours last night. He has had about 11 to 12 hours for 5 or 6 nights in a row now! There has been no school today so he shouldn't be as exhausted. Then I wondered whether he is not having a good, quality sleep in those 11 to 12 hours. I thought about how I had taken Isaac to the doctor on Thursday last week. The school called me to pick him up because he had been throwing up so I took him to the doctor who exclaimed how big his tonsils are and I told him that it is normal.....which it is. It is something we have been watching with the paediatrician. Isaac literally has the space of the tip of your little finger to breathe through when sleeping and doing anything else. They are huge! They have always been huge. We think it is hereditary because Alan was the same. Alan had sleep apnoea - they thought.....so they took them out but only after we were married. The paed had asked me to watch for signs of sleep apnoea with Isaac. I watch him while he sleeps and he snores. Ocassionally I think he misses a breath but then sometimes it seems like he breathes fine. I wonder if he is having trouble and he does have sleep apnoea because of the size and people who have sleep apnoea, often are tired during the day because they don't get the oxygen and have to work harder in their sleep getting less quality sleep. Now I am starting to wonder if his incredible tiredness and silliness and grumpiness is actually phyiscally related to his tonsils, working hard to breathe during his sleep, sleep apnoea and then less quality sleep and he gets tired as if he has had no sleep at all! This could be affecting his performance at school and making him not cope and act weird!!! So....this could be happening. It is a real possibility! I am going to ring Dr Smiley and chat to him. This may be the first time I am seeing his tonsils really affect his quality of life! We might have to wip them out! In fact, I think we will! This is a revelation! This may fix the problems he has been having! I need to get in to see the paed and talk to the teacher about this too......


Now for me. I went and saw my haem/oncol on Wednesday and managed to chat to him about going through the transplant unit to help me deal with those last moments of my brother's death. To help me cope being in a transplant unit again since it has been 15 years. To break the fear that it holds over me. I stuttered and cried and couldn't breathe right but I MANAGED to get it out and talk to him about it. So a pyschologist who deals with haem/ocol/transplant patients is going to call me in the next 2 weeks and make an appointment with me to talk about those last moments with Shannon and for me to take the step and work through all this. I am scared but amazed that I am doing this. This is HUGE for me. Please pray for me as I do this.

Alan is good. Work is a bit slow for him right now in certain areas.

Anyway, so that is what has been going on. I will update you more a little later!
Love Charisse