I know July 4 was over a week ago, but for me today is Independence Day. Charley has spent the past three days down in New Jersey on his own, without a parent. Don’t worry — he’s not partying in a share house or roaming the casinos in Atlantic City, which is probably what you’re imagining if you know Charley at all. He’s actually having a pretty tame week with four of his older cousins, who are doting on him hand and foot. He’s learned how to steer a motor boat, seen the movie Ted, eaten sushi, and sat around the kitchen table gabbing all night with cousins. It wasn’t easy to let him go. We’re in a routine here, and interrupting it can be pretty stressful. The night before he left, I had to pack up a lunchbox full of little pill pouches, filling them with AM and PM pills and carefully labelling them to make sure he gets the right pills at the right time. I had to write out instructions for administering the “yucky drink” (which I hear the cousins have renamed the “Shit Shake”) and for the evening stretches. Luckily the descriptions didn’t have to be too detailed because Charley’s uncle is an orthopedic surgeon and he doesn’t really need an anatomy lesson! More worrisome than the extensive preparations is the nagging feeling of fear that maybe Charley isn’t taking it easy enough, maybe he is pushing himself too hard to try to keep up, maybe they are going somwhere that able bodied people don’t even think twice about but would be difficult for Charley.
Now that his trip is winding down, I feel a huge sense of relief. Relief that we have family who are so attentive and take such good care of him. Relief that he can experience his own special trips, Relief that I can have three days of quiet and vacation from the intense daily regimen that begins and ends every single day with pills, yucky drink, Vecctor machine and stretching.
So happy Independence Day to Charley AND to me!