Tag Archives: advocate

cancer, Family, Uncategorized

Be Asking Questions.

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I am positive you have heard it before, but when you have a loved one in the hospital you need to advocate for them and ask questions.

I have always believed that kindness kicks butt, but it doesn’t always work in the hospital setting.

I am grateful for all the nurses we have had. But no matter how nice you or the nurses are, you still want to be asking questions. Tons and tons of questions.

I am not going to scare you with any of our near death experiences in the last two weeks nor the exact reason why my hubby Sexy Neck spent a night sleeping in Mom’s room, but I will share this simple example:

On mom’s first day in the hospital, we met with a dietician to help us get mom eating and ready to tackle chemo. We got some information about cancer and diet then we were off or so we thought.

On day FIVE in the hospital, once we arrived on the new ward, one of the nurses picked up this packet that had been sitting on ALL of mom’s food trays for the last FIVE days.

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She asked us, “Are you using this?”
We answered, “No!”
The nurse then went on to tell us the amazing things about this protein powder that had been sitting on 35 different food trays over the last five days. She talked about how important the protein was for preparing mom for chemo. What a missed opportunity!

Be noticing.
Be asking.
Be an advocate.
Be taking your protein powder.
Be mixing it in juice not tea.
Chemo ain’t for wimps.

Parenting

Be an advocate

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Parenting is often very uncomfortable. You need to do things you never thought you would do, like wiping a snotty nose on the sleeve of your best shirt or wiping bums or my personal favourite cleaning up vomit!

Parenting has become very uncomfortable for me personally as my eldest son, JC, has started kindergarten. In the time I am living in right now, full day every day kindergarten is the norm. My child has never been in daycare, but he did do preschool 3 days per week. (Everyone asks me that so I had to throw that in there for some sort of validation!)

With support from a letter from his preschool teachers, we are “that family” (words directly from our principal), that is having our son go to kindergarten only until lunch time. I know that we are the only family doing that in the school, and probably the whole town.

So here is my rationale:

1. Full day (8:45 – 2:45) is too long for 5 year olds in one room with 21 other 5 year olds and one teacher. They need to be with different ages with different adults.

2. My son naps in the afternoon.

3. School isn’t everything (quote me on that!) and I think he needs to be doing other things in the community.

4. School is not daycare (don’t get me going on that!)

5. When the school day for kindergarteners went from half day to full day a few years ago, the curriculum didn’t change, so why does he need to go?

6. I don’t want to deal with the screaming and crying and behavior issues that other kindergarten parents are dealing with in the evenings! I want to enjoy family time.

Enough said!