Of kids and kidney function (and zoos)

Thank heavens for the kids. Their good humor and general wackiness is such a welcome distraction. It is nearly impossible to be so focused on my dad and The Great Wait when we are running amock.
My Tuesday boys were lovely this week, funny and cheery. NJ has soccer on Tuesday afternoons and the rest of us sit and snack and watch and wait. Lately I’ve been bringing a ball so the others can play kickball. This time, I sent AG over to play kickball with SB and he came back and sat down looking devastated. I started to ask him what was wrong and pester him and etc, then I remembered a bit in How To Talk, so I just rubbed his back and said it looked like he was upset and I’d be glad to listen sometime. He sat hiding his face for the longest time, and then finally we ended up kicking a ball back and forth and he explained that SB had said he was out and he didn’t want to be out. Or something. Poor boy.
Then we all went to the market so they could sit in a row and eat Spiderman popsicles.
On Thursday I took AG, SB and CE to the zoo, and it was terrific. The great thing about the zoo is that its totally free-and I’m a member so that includes parking–so we can just go and see a few things. This time we saw the cheetahs and pretended to be cheetahs, and we stalked some prey and then I was the prey and got totally covered in children. We said hey to the elephants, zebras, and some deer that I think sneaked in from Rock Creek Park, and then we went to see the birds. We looked at all kinds of crazy birds, and they were so terrific. When we were outside they ran like crazy. They love, all of them, to race around saying “look at this! look at this! GUYS! come look!” When we went into the area where the birds fly free, they were very quiet, listening and watching.
So thank heavens for the kids. They are a great distraction.
My dad is getting better, but his kidney function is not up there yet. Apparently, normal kidney function is about 1.2 and his is 1.3-1.4, which is close by not enough to process the iodine needed for a contrast MRI to check for pancreatic cancer. Rather horrifyingly, last Friday (2 days post op) his kidney function was at something like 2.3, which is total renal failure. That is fucking scary. And they still don’t know why that happened–it is definitely NOT a normal reaction to this surgery.
So to summarize: kids good. Still scared. It will be at least a week before we know anything–next blood test to check kidney function is next Thursday–and the wait is pretty horrible. I am working really hard to concentrate on school, which suddenly seems very unimportant, but I have explained the situation to the relevant professors and I think it will be OK.
Sigh.