Hello, My Name Is Sleepy Jon Jones and I Am A Mom With Cancer

Fun fact: Life does not stop when you are given a cancer diagnosis. 

This was my day yesterday:

5AM: my alarm goes off, I give it the finger and hit snooze.  9 minutes later, I roll out of bed muttering incoherent curses.

5:45AM: I wake my poor hubby from his dreams, so he can give me my morning stomach shot.  (Nothing says I love you like being woken up by someone waving a preloaded syringe in your face, sleepily mumbling “It’s time”. 

6AM: I pull into work, a coffee cup in both hands.

10:15AM, Bean’s school calls as I am pounding out an email (and not checking my Instagram feed) to say she has projectile vomited and needs to be picked up Pronto.  The rule is that you puke 3 times and you have to go home, apparently my kid set a record with that first one.

10:30AM: I steal paper towels from work & pick up Bean (it has been less than a month since she projectile vomited into my open hand while driving and I want to be prepared).  I head home hoping she is going to be the sick kid that snuggles into bed and takes a long nap so I can remote into work. This is a non-chemo week and I am trying to bill 50+ hours since I will feel like poop come Monday.

11:15AM: I explain to Bean for the hundredth time in a tone that is not winning me Mother of the Year that she cannot have a smoothie because her belly is upset, she howls as if I have just given away the dog (which I am preparing to do if she jumps up on the couch where I am trying to work, even one more time)

11:3AM: My Hubby says he can leave at 1 so I can get back to work for a few hours, 5 minutes later when Logan is crying for more food than the 3 saltines I gave her, I cave and give her a grilled cheese sandwich and a banana and hope that if she pukes it back up that it is after 1:30.

11:50AM: Bean finishes her sandwich, crawls onto my lap and snuggles in as she watches Mary Poppins, 5 minutes later she is sleeping, my computer is sitting 3 inches beyond my outstretched fingers. I curse out loud, look down at Bean to see if she heard and then take a breath, realize work will be there later and turn to Mahjong on my phone.  I realize that Bean has advanced me about 20 levels…seriously…this kid REALLY likes Mahjong.

1:30PM: Ian pulls in and I bolt out the door with a quick kiss and a “good luck”, Bean has just woken up and wants to practice gymnastics.

1:45PM:  I pull into the mall,  I have $75 in store bucks that expire today and it would take an act of GOD to keep me from giving up $75 in free stuff,  I “pay” full price (which I NEVA,  EVA,  EVA do) for a pair of Jeans that make my butt look GOOOODDD!  I swagger back to my car and head to the office.

5:00PM: I bolt out of work and drive to Bean’s dance studio for her first ballet class.  Hubby has deemed her fully recovered.  There may have been a mention of hogtieing her to keep her still.

6:30PM: After feeling my heart shred with cuteness overload as I watch her spin and dance to Frozens’ Let It Go, we head to the pizza shop next door.  I do not have it in me to cook tonight and even if I did it would way past bedtime before I got anything made.  Bean eats 3 pieces of pizza, looks like the puking was a fluke.

7:30PM: We pull in and as Bean changes for bed, Ian gives me a shot in my stomach, it is an hour late and I make a mental note to keep a syringe in my purse, wondering only for a second if that is allowed.

7:45PM: Bean crawls into my lap and we begin reading Skippy Jon Jones as she snuggles in.  I feel my body beginning to unwind as she breathes against me.

8:15PM: I hop in the shower so I don’t have to wash my hair in the morning, and by wash, I mean blow dry.  It is long and thick and as I pull it into a wet braid, I curse a tear that balances precociously on my eyeball before it is sucked back in with a snort, as I let myself think about losing my hair. If my hair goes, I will deal, but I am a woman and I am a bit vain and I won’t deny that it scares me. 

8:45PM: I am dying to go to bed but I feel like I have barely seen my hubby and we do have the Sons of Anarchy Premier taped. I go downstairs and snuggle in and pray I can make it to the end.

10:30PM: We both stumble to bed, I look at my sleeping pills (which help me not lay awake thinking about cancer when I am exhausted) and I decide that I tonight I am too tired to think.

My day is boring and exciting and really no different from any of the other moms that I know.  It is just another day in the life of a mom, of any mom.  I am just another mom living her life and that doesn’t change with a cancer diagnosis.