Some of you might, but if the statistics are accurate, more than 70% of you didn’t. And, I didn’t either. So let’s take a closer look again:

And here’s what I found out after watching sweet, innocent Bandit rub his nose into the stamens of the lilies in the bouquet Andy brought me and deciding it might be a good idea to ask Google if they’re safe for kitties: they’re not. In fact, they can be very, very bad. This is the first time Andy’s ever brought me home anything with lilies in it, and all I had were the vaguest of memories about something Gena said once a long time ago that I couldn’t fully recall about lilies and pets running through my head to prompt me about checking.

Each of you has to understand that my silence on most things related to Hannah for the past while is at her request. Privacy is what she craves right now, and there remains no accurate way to shrink the love I feel for her into such tiny words as this blog can offer. She gets what she needs if I can in any way give it, and helping Bandit recover is super high on that list, and therefore has been the quest for me of a few days now. I can’t even begin to express how horrible I feel that I didn’t check before that sweet kitty got a chance to press is nose into the flowers and take a few sniffs, but I am thankful immediate treatment and hospitalization protected him from kidney failure.

And the very day after Bandit was admitted to an emergency animal hospital, I found a piece of one of Tony’s back teeth was missing. I know this is a recent development, because two weeks ago I got a good visualization of that area while we were doing habilitation work with dental tools. Needless to say, we obviously had to head into the dentist as quickly as we could. The verdict was that this was caused by a cavity, I personally think he probably bit down on something hard like an unpopped popcorn kernel and broke the weakened area out, because I do know it was visually there a couple of weeks ago, as mentioned.

And now, we have an upcoming anesthesia-based procedure to prepare for because this is a tooth that is scheduled to fall out within the next year anyways, so they’re planning an extraction.

So much has been whirling around my mind for so long, and it’s hard to even know what to say about everything that is going on. To know how to write content that is relevant for other parents who may need it when so many people are dying, loosing their livelihoods, and really, really hurting right now. I like to keep it real, but as you know here at the quiet crisis next door, we’re kind of in Taylor’s boat that we “don’t love the drama,” but it sure as heck seems to love us. And real descriptions of what that looks like is not always easy reading for other people in crisis. And as a country, we might like to pretend otherwise because that feels easiest sometimes, but many of us have certainly been in crisis here for months.

My problems seem so small compared to what some are experiencing right now, and yet sometimes my heart still hurts because it thankfully has continued to beat on through it all. I wonder some how to bring meaningful therapy updates on services only getting telehealth right now when Tony refuses to wear anything but underwear in our home at this time because of how stressful the pandemic changes have been for him? I wonder how to speak to some of the deepest emotional wounds I have had to try and heal in way that won’t leave others feeling mauled in return?

Perhaps maybe soon I will be able to answer those questions. But for now, I’m not really even celebrating the holiday today. Bandit’s home from the hospital, but he and Hannah need as much support as I can give right now. Tony is dealing with tooth pain and will be for nearly a month until his scheduled procedure, and needing support with procedure preparation. For anyone able to tolerate typical dental procedures, this would have been fixed the same day, but that’s not how it works if your loved one needs sedation or anesthesia.

I do, however, celebrate each of the ones I love in my heart. I celebrate that you are, with me, able to read the words on this page…and my hope is for each of you to be able to find some moments of rest or joy in your days ahead in the midst of what could be a month of deepening darkness for our nation.