ChezPerky

CHOP KETO ADMISSION: DAY ONE

Today was admission day for Abby to start the Ketogenic diet.  The best I can say about today is…. at least we have set the bar low for tomorrow… after today, even the tiniest success will mean that it was more successful than today.  We haven’t exactly gotten off to the *best* start.  For one thing, we arrived late.  It was mostly my own fault.  I had too much to do and I messed up.  My husband had a mid-day appointment and I should have told him to take the car, not the van, so that I would have had more freedom of movement, rather than feeling like I was stuck at home while he was away, but I figured I had plenty of time.  Except we didn’t.  Abby’s admission time was 3pm, which meant we needed to leave the house at 2:30 at the latest and… well, we didn’t leave on time.  And I forgot a few things, and packed way too much of a couple of other things.  But don’t sweat the small stuff, right?

I called CHOP on the way and told them we’d be here before 3:30 and they said, “No worries – we aren’t closing or anything.  Thanks for calling!”  We were, indeed, here before 3:30, so we weren’t *that* late.  Nothing much happens on Day One anyway – the restrictions of the diet don’t begin until breakfast tomorrow, so that’s good.  Abby was still able to eat normal food right up through dinner.  But no pre-bedtime snack, other than water.  Fair enough.

We arrived on the floor – Abby, me and our entourage, since Seth and the other kids came with us to help Abby get settled – and found out that the kosher keto family (I’ll call them our “keto-coach” from this point forward) that’s been helping us get acquainted with the ins and outs of the diet and who have been true cheerleaders and absolutely indispensable to me throughout all of this had left a package for Abby with some presents fro- sugar free snack-pack gelatin (like jello cups), a bracelet/charm making craft project and a quilt-tying craft project.  What a relief.  She was delighted, I had another keto-friendly (and kosher) food I could give her, and now I had two other new activities for her to do while here!

Shortly after we got to Abby’s room, one of the kids asked for gingerale, and I went to the nutrition room to get some and next thing I knew, I slipped on a patch of water that was on the floor and … well, I was on the floor, too.  I banged my knee and elbow pretty badly and my hip (the arthritic, sciatic one) had shooting pain going through it.  Seth came running when he heard me cry out and he got a nurse.  I got band-aids  (I was bleeding!) and ice packs and then things just kept seeming to feel very busy, so I sort of forgot about it…. until later when things were quiet and I realized how much everything hurt.  UGH.  This is going to hurt for a while.  Ugh.

Of course I realized a few things I’d forgotten which was bound to happen.  Seth will bring them tomorrow.  Much, much later when I was unpacking everything, I was talking to a friend (R) and suddenly…. I realized I did not have our gram scale.  The gram scale is vital for the diet.  Without it, she can’t do the diet.  I MUST HAVE IT.  I called Seth in a panic.  Obviously I didn’t pack it.   Except I distinctly remembered packing it!  It was the first thing I packed so I wouldn’t forget it!  I must have taken it back out of the suitcase when I was rearranging things so I must have left it in my bedroom.  But Seth couldn’t find it anywhere.  He sent me photos of my entire bedroom (which made me realize how badly I need to clean and organize my bedroom!) to prove it.  It wasn’t in the kitchen, it wasn’t in the basement, the garage, dining room, no where.  It wasn’t in either suitcase, any of the drawers I’d put things in, not the cabinet, not on the desk, not the bathroom, not on top of the fridge.  How had a $200 scale disappeared.

I texted my keto-coach in a dead panic.  Not to worry, she said.  Take a deep breath.  They have extra scales on the unit.  She knows someone with an extra scale in Lakewood and Chai Lifeline comes down from Lakewood every single day with food, so they can bring the scale to me before the end of the week.  Take some deep breaths, stop worrying, get some rest or at least read a mindless book, she said.  I couldn’t help it.  I was panicking.   I felt so stupid.  How could I have forgotten this essential item?  How could I have *lost* this expensive tool?  How were we going to afford another?  Once the freakout program had been started, there was no going back.

Finally, I decided it was lost forever and I needed to sit down at the desk to work on something else.  I pulled the chair out and… there it was.  On the chair.  Because yes, I *had* packed it, and I’d already unpacked it and I’d put it on the chair so that I could get it set up on the desk.  But then I had shoved the chair under the desk and… didn’t see the box anymore.  Eek.  I called my friend R back, told her I found the scale and she said that’s great!  And I said, yeah… and then I burst into tears.  “I can’t do this.”  “Yes you can.  You can because you don’t have a choice.  If it were my kids, they’d be in trouble, because of all the math – math and I don’t mix.  But your kid is going to be fine. You’ve got this.”  Somehow, I made it through without going into a full on panic attack.  Which is ridiculous regardless, because there never was anything to panic about.  I am certain I wouldn’t have been the first person to not have a scale.  They’ve had patients who have been placed on the diet as the result of emergent circumstances rather than planned admissions – those families don’t come with all this equipment in hand.  Obviously they have ways of handling it.  But, like I said, once the freak-out program was engaged, it had to run its course.

And then, when I thought it was all going to be okay?  I lost a filling.  Because this is MY life and it wouldn’t be nearly complete if I didn’t have just one more thing happen to top it all off.

I quit.  I’m going to bed now.  Tomorrow had better be better.

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