And now it’s just a bad-news story
4.30.09
I’ve been keeping in touch with Sean each day to see how he’s doing with the pneumonia. Yesterday — not better, not worse. This morning, he called to say that he’s still not better and might actually be worse.
He missed his classes on Monday when he was starting to feel really crummy; he made it Tuesday and Wednesday (and even gave a 45-minute presentation on Algeria in his French class on Wednesday!); but today he thinks he needs to miss his classes again and would like another opinion about what’s going on from his regular doctor.
He’s also very disappointed that he’ll be missing his final choir concert of the year on Friday night — he reasoned that he wouldn’t be able to sing anyway, so why stand up there to just mouth the words and be the annoying person who coughs through the whole thing? He thought it would be kinder to be the person coughing in the audience rather than the person coughing on stage. Besides, the face mask that he’s been wearing for several days for the protection of those around him just wouldn’t look right with a tuxedo.
So, off we’ll go this afternoon to his doctor to see if anything else can or should be done.
This strikes me as one more balancing act that a parent performs: I want to be a good mother who looks out for her son’s health and supports him emotionally, but I also want to be a good mother who gives her son the room to make his own decisions about his health and to take care of himself in an independent fashion. If there was a section on this in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting book that we all read, I don’t recall what it said.
p.s. Claire got her learner’s permit on Tuesday, so we’ve been out practicing driving. If you see a minivan careening around the Madison streets, that’s us.
He missed his classes on Monday when he was starting to feel really crummy; he made it Tuesday and Wednesday (and even gave a 45-minute presentation on Algeria in his French class on Wednesday!); but today he thinks he needs to miss his classes again and would like another opinion about what’s going on from his regular doctor.
He’s also very disappointed that he’ll be missing his final choir concert of the year on Friday night — he reasoned that he wouldn’t be able to sing anyway, so why stand up there to just mouth the words and be the annoying person who coughs through the whole thing? He thought it would be kinder to be the person coughing in the audience rather than the person coughing on stage. Besides, the face mask that he’s been wearing for several days for the protection of those around him just wouldn’t look right with a tuxedo.
So, off we’ll go this afternoon to his doctor to see if anything else can or should be done.
This strikes me as one more balancing act that a parent performs: I want to be a good mother who looks out for her son’s health and supports him emotionally, but I also want to be a good mother who gives her son the room to make his own decisions about his health and to take care of himself in an independent fashion. If there was a section on this in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting book that we all read, I don’t recall what it said.
p.s. Claire got her learner’s permit on Tuesday, so we’ve been out practicing driving. If you see a minivan careening around the Madison streets, that’s us.
