Heave-ho!

Awhile back a friend of mine told the story of how she cared for her sick and dying dog, Boo. Boo was on his last legs, literally, and couldn't really do the long stairs to my friend's upstairs bedroom. But Boo really wanted to sleep near his owner and she really wanted to sleep near him. Every night she would hoist Boo, a big blonde labrador, up the twenty steep stairs. Every morning, she would carry Boo down, carrying him like he was in one of those Coast Guard rescue carryalls, his front and back paws gathered together under him. He'd sometimes turn his long nose towards her during his carry and lick her neck or her cheek.

One night my friend was very weary and just flopped into bed after changing out of her work clothes. In the middle of the night she woke up to the panicky sound of her dog crooning and crying. Boo had been left downstairs and he was frightened. Out of a dead sleep my friend jumped up from bed, bolted down the long stairwell, picked up her heavy old dog, trudged back upstairs, and laid him down on the rug by the bedside. And then she sat at the foot of her bed, breathing so heavily she thought she was going to have a heart attack.

I thought of this scene yesterday, our first full day home from the hospital. I had work e-mails to check on and respond to, my husband's three meals and snacks, my son's History Day project resources to pick up at two different St. Paul libraries, a home health care assessment, three of my husband's knee workouts on the perpetual motion machine, one set of assisted exercises, two stints on the Game Ready ice machine, an orthodontist appointment for the kid, and his sports practice. At about five p.m. I said I just had to lie down awhile. Wow, I fell fast and hard asleep and didn't wake up until I heard my husband outside the little bedroom, shouting that Tim was downstairs and couldn't get in. Last I had left my husband he was strapped into the motion machine. He must have unstrapped himself, heaved over his legs, got up on his crutches fast, and come to get me. Meanwhile, my son is pounding on the door like there's no tomorrow. I jumped up so fast my head got dizzy and then I ran down those stairs to open the door. The kid just walked past me mad; he had been standing on the porch for ten minutes, wearing his practice shorts under his coat.

I just sat on the last step of the hallway, heaving and hoeing, trying to catch my breath like those firefighters who first come out of a smokey building.

I know some of you out there reading this are home with newborns and are probably thinking, that's nothing. Let me tell you about MY day. . . . But really, I thought I was going to fall apart for just a little minute there.