So today was a stay-in-the room day. Having given up on my dream of a decent cup of coffee in the morning (sniff…just a minute…I need to take a moment), I lowered myself to the shame of instant coffee. Anyways despite my somewhat dissatisfied start, I was willing to face a day of isolation, food delivery, and crappy internet (and no – Starbucks doesn’t deliver coffee here). I need caffeine!

Our tasks for today are pretty simple – we need to do some preparations for tomorrow (more about that in a minute), and be ready to pack up and get out of here by about 6:00 a.m.

Before I talk about that, I would like to take a moment to mention Ben’s bravery yesterday. Like so many kids, he hates needles. He takes it like a man though. I always make sure to have Maxilene cream with me – and he prefers it! It slightly numbs the pain (which he says is a .5 on 10 point pain scale), and helps with the worry (which he says is a 10/10). Anyways, there are two numbing type creams on the market that I know of (Emla and Maxilene). I suspect there are more. Maxilene definitely works better but will toughen the skin over time. I haven’t found that Emla works great. Anyways, we went for bloodwork yesterday, and he is pretty proud of his war wounds. Apparently he was a bit of a bleeder yesterday. I later texted pics to my friend whose husband is an RCMP officer. She quickly replied that her husband has seen bullet holes smaller than that – Ben is pretty proud right now, so I told him I would feature his wound on the blog. He’s glowing right now…but not for long.

When I am appointments, I’m constantly surprised at the tasks they assign to me rather casually. Our surgery prep involves fasting, washing his back and hair once with Chlorhexidine and another time – in the morning scrubbing his back once more and…..ummmmm…… other tasks that I have never done before and feel should require some sort of training. Ummmm…is there a manual for this? Apparently parents are having to take on greater responsibilities due to ….yeah…you guessed it ….COVID!

So, with that said, we have a full (or empty – depending how you look at things) night ahead of us. Something funny that I have noticed lately is that I think the hotel staff here thinks I have Covid – I didn’t realize this until I asked for more towels. (I don’t by the way). The man came to the door and literally stepped back when I answered and sort of threw them at me. This combined with the fact that I haven’t had any maid service here makes me think that they think I have Covid – or they are just way less friendly than last time. Self-isolation is so lonely and boring! Oh well…lots of crap to do here, so I had better get on it! Big day tomorrow!