Being apart from Kadin and Tonia is incredibly difficult. There really is no other way of saying that, really.
The last 9 days have been smudged together, since outside of work I really haven't done anything to separate the days. The only memorable thing is the family tree that I have been obsessively working on.
I haven't even had the heart to sleep in our bed, so the couch it is!
In talking to Tonia & Kadin at least twice every day I know that he's been having a great time being spoiled by his nanny and poppy, which even through my missing him makes me happy that he's having a good time.
Today however almost killed me.
Tonia called me at work to let me know he had woken up with a mild fever, but after taking some tylenol and a cool bath, he was doing A-OK. A few hours later the fever crept up again, but tylenol did the trick to bring it down.
Just as I got home I got a call that he had a 104 degree fever (he just woke up from a nap and was very, very warm), so Tonia was taking him to the local hospital which was a short drive away.
Tonia had her friend Heather's cell phone on her, but wouldn't be able to call me until after he had been seen in the hospital. What followed was the longest 45 minutes EVER.
Anyone who has had a sick child knows what I was going through, however that pain and fear was made a thousand times worse by the fact that my baby was clear across the country and there was NOTHING I could do for him.
In those 45 minutes I sat in silence waiting for the phone to ring, my mind racing through all possible things that might be going on at that moment. To keep myself occupied, I did a 30 minute online survey regarding the use of household detergents and fabric softeners.
I nearly sobbed when Tonia called and explained that he had been seen by the doctor who prescribed pennicilin for essentially the flu (or cold, the only part of that conversation that I'm clear on was that he was ok). His fever was down to a much safer 101 when checked in the hospital. Both of them are at her mothers house now and at the time of this writing, fast asleep.
Being a father has done some odd things to me, I've realized. It's quite odd actually writing this, however it seems some genetic protection mechanisms became active the moment Kadin was born. Whenever there is even the slightest glimmer that his health or safety are in jeopardy, about 99% of my brain shuts down. Whatever is left working combines with some non-thinking parts to protect him.
This mechanism has sometimes kicked in at odd times, like when he's been up at 3 AM with gas so bad he's literally shrieking; I'm running through the apartment with a little dropper full of Gripe water, RACING towards him to make the pain stop.
So going back to the interminable wait for Tonia to call me, I was going through plans of taking a midnight flight to Newfoundland to possibly get there for Saturday morning.
I know my writing is rather disjointed, but my mind is still racing and the flow of writing does somewhat mirror that.
When I was 6 years old I went to Pakistan with my mother, but my father had to stay in Ottawa for work. We were gone a total of 6 months (or a little more), but I was separated from my father for at least a few months before he was able to join us for a brief time.
In talking to him the other day, I asked him how he could have possibly lived with being separated from us for months; I was a broken man after only a week. He at least had his sister and her family in Ottawa, so he spent a significant amount of time with them. I look forward to going to work, and standing in the rain at 11 PM waiting for 2 dogs to poo. Heh.
I think that's entirely too much broken writing for one evening. Kadin has his birthday party planned for tomorrow, which at this point depends entirely on how he's feeling in the morning. I hope my bobaloo feels better in the morning.
Posted by Hasan at September 17, 2004 11:31 PM