Day +43: Too Much Time to Think

The waterworks were on and off all day long. And I was really not happy with myself.

I didn't feel like doing anything today. I couldn't be bothered trying to get anything achieved. I spent the entire day in my pyjamas. No, seriously, I spent the whole day wearing the clothes I wore to bed last night. I couldn't be bothered changing, so I stewed in my pyjamas all day long.

I was so indifferent towards everything that I didn't even have a shower today.

The highlight of the day was making corned beef in the slow cooker. Having gone out yesterday, I didn't really want to drag my sick kid out again today, considering he was supposed to be in isolation. I could have gone to the shops, if I really wanted to, as Sean was more than happy to stay in the pram and wear his mask, but there wasn't a lot I actually wanted to do today.

Nothing happened today. Nothing. My life now consisted of me trying to feed a reluctant eater 3 times a day, often taking up to 40 minutes to jam a small bowl of food into the reluctant eater, and often finding myself cleaning up food that was deliberately spat out or (worse) thrown up by the reluctant eater. Following every meal, I would wait a short period of time before feeding the reluctant eater 120mL of formula along with 100mL of water down his NG tube. In between, I would change the reluctant eater's nappies, I would wipe his constantly runny nose, and I would pick up the mess he would inevitably create along his path of destruction. At around 11am, I would put the reluctant eater to sleep, and hope that he would stay asleep for at least 90 minutes to give me time to put the laundry on, doing the mountain of washing up in the kitchen sink, make our bed, take the garbage out to the bins, have my morning coffee, have a shower, and put the laundry on the line.

Today, I did all that (except for the shower), as well as put the slow cooker on to cook our dinner. Yay. What an achievement.

I fumed as I was doing the washing up. For some reason, Jonathan believed that the dirty plates would somehow get into the dishwasher if he put them on the kitchen bench directly above the dishwasher. It was as if he thought the plates and bowls and cutlery would dissolve through the Caesarstone benchtop and reform back to its original shape before stacking itself into the racks. It would have taken an extra 5 seconds to open the dishwasher by pulling out the top drawer (we have a set of double dish drawers), stacking the now empty bowl on to the rack, popping the spoon he used to eat his cereal into the cutlery caddy, and closing the drawer. Instead, he put the bowl and the spoon on top of the dishwasher, and his rinsed empty coffee cup in the sink, just so I had the privilege of cleaning up after him.

We were using a lot of syringes for Sean's medications, and those were sitting uncleaned in the sink. If it was in the sink, Jonathan would forget about it. There were days when the sink would be full, and he'd leave more stuff on the bench instead of stacking the dishwasher.

I looked around the house, and there were little things here and there that I wished Jonathan would help with, like tidying Sean's toys, and sweeping the growing dust bunnies out of the corners of the house. But I don't know if Jonathan can actually see any of the same things I see, and think of them as "a mess".

I fumed some more when I was making our bed. Jonathan often said that I was the only person who cared about the bed being made, and that if he had his way, it would stay unmade because you'd just mess it up again when you went to sleep. Well, was it not enough for him to care just a little bit if it mattered to me so much??? You'd think he would jump at the chance to help me make the bed if it meant I would stop harping on about it to him.

When I walked around to his side of the bed, I saw something that made me snap - Jonathan had left a small pile of clothes on the floor. ARGH!!! My pet hate!!! For crying out loud, there was a laundry basket in the bathroom. Was it too much to ask you to pick up the clothes from the floor and take them into the bathroom, especially when you took them off before you headed into the bathroom for your shower??? Jeepers!!! Why was he punishing me like this? I had asked over and over again, nicely and sternly, for him to put his dirty laundry in the laundry basket. I didn't even make him do the laundry any more, but it appeared putting his clothes in the laundry basket was way too hard. ARGH!!!!!!!

It was like no one but me gave a crap about our home. Why was I the only one making any effort to keep the place clean and tidy? Why was I the only one doing any work? I was so fed up with everything.

With me in tears on and off all day long, Sean took it upon himself to comfort me whenever I was engulfed by another wave of tears. Yes, my 16-month-old toddler was comforting me, when I should have been looking after him. Sean sensed my sadness, and in between playing with his toys, he came over and insisted on giving me cuddles, all day long. How bad a parent am I???

After yesterday's outburst, Dr Barbaric and Laura both felt it was time I talked to someone and sought some counselling. When would I have time to go to counselling sessions? Unless these people worked on a weekend, there was no way I could go out to a counselling session. And after our last effort to see someone, a few days before Sean went into hospital to start chemo, when we were kept waiting for over 30 minutes with no explanation nor sign that anyone knew we were sitting in the waiting room, the thought of going to another counsellor to be mistreated again was quite upsetting.

I really wanted to let Jonathan know how I was feeling, and how fed up I was with him doing nothing around the house to keep things tidy, but I didn't have the patience nor the tact to tell him without me turning accusatory. I wanted him to know that I needed a bit more help around the house, but at the same time, I felt guilty that I wanted him to do things when I was the one who was at home all day while he was at work earning a salary. And Jonathan was the one who got up in the middle of the night to look after Sean if Sean woke and needed comforting or resettling. Still, I wanted Jonathan to be a bit more house proud and acted a little bit less like a teenager when it came to doing chores around the house.

I've had too much time to think today. We have Clinic again tomorrow, and I hope to be in a better state of mind by then. With any luck, if Sean's blood results show he was doing well, we may only have to go to Clinic once a week. It would be nice to not have to sit in traffic for 2 hours going back and forth to the hospital twice a week.