The Bag.....

Babygirl and I are leaving for Philly tomorrow.  We'll see the transplant team, and neurology.  Despite her promising start to the new year, she hasn't had a headache-free day since right after Christmas.  She made it to school two days the week before last, and not at all this past week. I tried to talk her into going shopping this morning and she just couldn't do it.

The game of the week is Yahtzee.  For the headache-prone among us, we have lined the bottom of the cup with a tissue to decrease the noise.  While Babygirl's tutor is convinced that she's 'caught up' on math, I'm watching her count totals on her fingers.  But that's another story altogether.

Traveling means that I have one less day off.  I spend much of Saturday cleaning, grocery shopping, paying bills and so on, so Sunday is usually a down time day.  Today was also loaded up with helping Curlygirl care for Squeaker.  He has a nasty stomach bug, and it's his first illness, so she needed a bit of extra support (and a Grandma to run for Tylenol and Pedialyte!). 

But at least I don't have to think about packing.  My red overnight bag seems to take care of itself, somehow.  Right now, unpacked, it has deodorant, hair conditioner, a tube of my favorite hand cream and an unused toothbrush.  There are spare iPod and phone chargers.  Who says I can't learn from experience? 

My comfy jeans are clean.  Jammie pants just seem to show up in there along with spare socks and undies.  My frequent-buyer coffee card never leaves my wallet.  Babygirl's med list, and mine, live in the back pocket of my purse.  There's a deck of cards with the med lists, and somehow a spare game of Phase 10 appears when needed.

I remember panic-packing on more than a few occasions.  I've certainly survived a couple of admissions without much extra.  But I've pared it all down to The Bag.  We manage.  We stretch our imaginations and our patience and our resources and our energy, and it all fits in one small bag.

DeeDee