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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

I never have a single thought at one time...

I'm not "single-minded." My thoughts are just always whirling around and I kind of just spit them out on this blog. But that's obvious, isn't it?

Today is Avery's Angel day. One year ago, her mommy Lauren had to make the decision to discontinue support. Avery's story was the first one that ever truly HIT me because we were going through everything with Drew at the time and I felt such guilt because he was doing so well while Avery died. Lauren is an amazing woman who has done so much in the year since Avery's passing. Her strength truly inspires me and I'm convinced that Avery and Drew are the best of friends, wherever they may be. Please keep Lauren in your thoughts all the time but especially today, on the one-year anniversary of Avery's death. We miss you beautiful Avery Mae!

Last night's blog was kind of whiny, wasn't it?! All true but since I really try not to whine a lot in my "real" life, it all came out here. No changes since yesterday, still miserable. :)

I went by the cemetery today. Last week, we got about 5.5 inches of rain in one day so I wanted to make sure that Drew's stuff was ok. His was fine; all of the babies graves looked ok, maybe because there are a lot of larger trees in that area. The adult graves though were another story. At least anyone buried within the last year. They were SUNKEN. I mean 6-10 inches with no grass at all on them. It looked so bad and just made me sad. I saw the cemetery staff working to repair these graves but it's a fairly large cemetery and will take a while. The only thing that I don't like about the baby area of the cemetery is that grass really doesn't grow on the graves because of all of the trees. I guess it's a trade-off. Those sunken graves really creeped me out though--one is right across the road from Drew.

I've been thinking a lot about what one of Drew's nurses told me when he was in the NICU. I've been researching also, of course. Drew's chances of survival, unfortunately, were not that great compared to other kids due to circumstances out of his control. (I know that this is fairly widespread knowledge but bear with me because it's just recently that I've actually started thinking about it.) These were his problems aside from CDH, none are by any means definitive but do occur frequently, statistically speaking:

1. He was a boy. Girl infants just tend to be "stronger" than boys. It's borne out time and time again in NICU's all over the world.

2. He was white. I cannot remember the order of the races but I do remember that white males were at the bottom of the survival list and African-American girls are at the top.

So he had what was called (to me) "white boy syndrome," aka "wimpy white boy syndrome." Combine that with the severity of his hernia and it's understandable why he did not survive. I'm looking for reasons and I know that. As we approach the anniversary of his death, I find myself doing that more and more often. And I guess "understandable" is the wrong word because I will NEVER understand why Drew had to die. NEVER. So because of his gender and his race, he was at an additional disadvantage and it pisses me off to no end.

3 comments:

The Goddess G said...

Jana,
We had the same thing at our cemetery. Josephs had sunk in a little bit...and they refilled...still waiting for the grass to grow. There was one adult one though that sank in alot. It was disturbing.

I think the same things sometimes with Joseph...when I hear of these babies that defy incredible odds. Why not us?
~Carole

Anonymous said...

The grass doesn't grow well at our local cemetery either, just whatever wild grass is able to cover. Last summer we bought a roll of sod and put it down on Abby's grave and it looks so much nicer. We watered it a lot - took a big empty water jug and filled it from a hose at the cemetery - since our summers are very dry and hot.

You can see a picture here if you wish:

http://babycatcher33.livejournal.com/143407.html

Janice
(mom to angel Abby 6/9/2006)

Anonymous said...

Jana,
Just thinking of you today as Easter approaches. Even though the date is different you still have the holiday thing.
I do remember the sunken grave at the cemetary. I remember making Danny go get dirt b/c I was very angry and upset. We planted sod on Brandon's and later is sunk again and had to haul more dirt. It is a very unsettling feeling. I guess all people wouldn't understand how I feel that is still taking care of my son in a small way. CRAZY, I guess.
Just know you will be in my prayers and Carson will be here soon enough.
Love ya,
Aunt Donna