Always leave 'em laughing....

I've written about my eldest daughter, Blake in previous posts. Smart, funny, gorgeous, athletic, happy, kind, well, you get the picture. But Blake does have a secret. An achilles heel if you will. One could even go so far as to call it a...flaw? perhaps.

Blake absolutely, positively cannot stand to be in a hospital.

When people hear that they are always surprised. I guess because they assume that since Tess has spent so much time in hospitals, that Blake would have put in her fair share of visiting hours. But in reality, Blake has only been one time to the hospital to visit Tessie. And no, not because she doesn't care. Of course she cares. She loves The Toots with all her heart but she has always been really busy with sports, drama and school and it isn't as though the hospital is ten minutes away. It is an ocean away. Literally. And often times, a couple of States away. So it just didn't happen.

Except for last winter. You may remember me writing about The Toots being hospitalized with Influenza B and pneumonia. She spent 6 days in Special Care, hooked up to oxygen nearly the whole time, seizing, and just generally scaring the ever loving crap out of me. I am not exaggerating when I say that was one of the first times I honestly thought we might lose her. It was that bad.

But The Toots is made of sterner stuff (thank God) and rallied. After a few days I thought she looked well enough to see her sisters and they really wanted to come see her. I figured a visit from them would cheer her up immeasurably and do her as much good as the meds being fed into her little body from the IV. And bonus, The Bean and Bob-bay were also coming to visit.

When the kids got there they had to put on masks and wash and Purell their hands before getting near The Toots. Then they filed in on either side of her bed. She was happy to see them but too sick to really show it. Ellie and Bean were laughing and giggling as only those two birds can when they're together while I noticed Blake sort of backing off just a bit. Hmmmm....

And then she started a small freak out. "Mama, Tess looks really bad! Is she going to be okay? She really doesn't look good!"

And there was really no time to answer her because Blake was rambling on and on chirping like a maniacal bird in a tree. "How can you stand it here?! How can you stand being trapped in here day after day?! I feel like I'm going to puke or something! I really don't like being in here!"

I sort of looked at her like she had suddenly sprouted three heads (partially because in her hysteria a bobby pin had come loose and was swinging crazily in front of her face and she didn't even notice) and calmly said, "What is the matter with you? Go sit and calm yourself." Poor Bobby didn't know what the hell ailed her and Ellie and Bean were cracking up at their sister's distress.

All in all the kids stayed maybe an hour before leaving. Blake nearly trampled them getting out of there. And I didn't think too much more of it other than to laugh about that bobby pin dangling.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. We went to go visit my nephew who is recovering from a serious accident. We took the kids to Boston to see him and decided to leave The Toots with nurse Sheila so there would be no medical drama while we were there. You will get the irony of this last sentence in a moment.

I knew Blake was nervous. And as the visit progressed at one point I noticed her hands shaking like a parkinsons patient. I took her aside and whispered, "Are you okay?". She assured me she was fine and so we continued to chat with Heather and Joe.

The next thing I heard was Blake saying, "Mom, I can't see."

I thought to myself, "For God's sake, what is she trying to look at that I could possibly be blocking?" I mean, I know I'm not small by any stretch of the imagination but to be blocking her whole field of vision? Come on!

Then she keeled over. Head first into a chair and then the floor.

Yep, out cold. I was so shocked I couldn't move. Ellie said something along the lines of, "Wellsa!" while the hubby sprang into action and gathered poor Blake up into his arms. The look on Heather's face was priceless.

We got Blake sort of situated. Head down, feet up, laying on the hospital floor right beside Joe's bed. It was about the time she started coming around that I began to snicker. Heather, who had been right next to me started to snicker as well. Then I was full blown, hysterically laughing, to the point of snorting, and so was Heather. The hubby did not seem to share our humor which only made us laugh harder.

Yeah, we're all heart. In fact, poor Blake had to actually ask me to "make myself useful" and get her some water. So I laughed even harder.

After about twenty minutes of laying down, then moving to a sitting position all the while apologizing to Joe saying things like, "I'm sorry Joe, it's not you. You look good. It's me. I hate hospitals" and at one point apologizing to him for "stealing his thunder", Blake managed to pull herself together enough to leave under her own steam (which was questionable at one point. She even asked if I was 100% opposed to her being wheeled out in a wheelchair) and I shoo'd them out ahead of me as Heather thanked Blake for the much needed laugh.

Then I turned to Heather and, you got it, we lost it some more. With a hug goodbye, I left. Both of us still in gales of completely inappropriate laughter.

When we got to the van Blake described the experience for us.

"I dreamt I was on a roller coaster because Joey's face kept whipping by and I had an up and down sensation. But now what I think happened is that the room was spinning and the up and down part was me falling over."

Well, yeah, that would make sense.

I laughingly agreed that that was probably what happened and luckily, Blake has an awesome sense of humor, even at her own expense and laughed right along with me and agreed I could blog about her little episode when I asked.

Then we got a text from Heather, "Is Blake feeling better?"

Me: "Yes. And She is happy to have made your day. Always leave 'em laughing she said."

Heather: "Well, I'm still laughing"


Mission Accomplished. Thanks Blake.