Yes, it's done. Yes, it hurt, especially the stuff up by my neck and collarbone. Yes, it was totally worth it. See the smile on my face? I could wipe that damn thing off all night.

It's been a while since a real  update. The reason for this isn't just pure laziness, although that does factor into it. The biggest reason is that the last few weeks have been extremely busy, and particularly sucky. I'll elaborate.

June 12th, Wes and I had made an appointment to have breakfast and file the divorce papers. About five minutes before I was going to run out the door for that, I got a call from my father. My (step)brother, Jeff, was dying. I called Wes to cancel and rushed up to Veazie. Sure enough, he was. I walked in the door and down the hall. My dad was crying. He said, "He's gasping like Grampy did," which means, in medical terms, he was Cheyne-Stoking. It's kind of a gasping-then-not-breathing thing that dying people do. I tried to assure him that he wouldn't do it as long as Grampy did. Grampy held on like that for three days. Generally, extremely aggressive lung cancer with so many tumors in the brain that the doctors can't count them kills faster than sepsis from pneumonia.

As that day wore on into that evening, and the evening wore on into the night, and we were giving him more and more morphine (20mg every 30 minutes at least), I started to wonder if I had lied to my daddy.

I took the lion's share of the night shift. I did get a couple hours of rest (I wouldn't even call it sleep, partially thanks to the kid who decided that 4 am was a great time to play solo basketball) while my stepmother stayed with him. Later that morning, I decided I needed a break from waiting for death. I left to go feed my kitties and get my hair highlighted like I was planning on. Just after the girl put the dye in my hair, I got the call that he had passed away. The rest of the afternoon was filled with calls to hospice, then getting him picked up by the funeral home, and making other arrangements.

After I left my dad's, I went to work because Tiffany said she wanted to see my hair. Without going into details, I walked into a bombshell of two labors, imminent delivery, complications, DHS and a dead baby. I got roped into feeding and holding a baby for 45 minutes, which was okay by me. After I left there, I went to Bucksport to get horse poop and to sing like a madwoman while driving. That's very therapeutic for me.

Sunday was much better. I got up early to drive to Boston. My friend Andy was having a barbeque and had invited me earlier in the week. I had originally said no, because I didn't want to be that far away in case something happened to Jeff. Very shortly after he died, I called Andy and asked if I could change my mind.

About an hour out of Boston, I started to get nervous. It occurred to me only then that I only knew one person who would be there, and it was Andy, and he was hosting, so it's not like I could monopolize his time. Luckily, I only had to cling to Andy for about the first 15 minutes. After that, this tall, skinny, shiney man with rainbow hair came over, gave me this HUGE hug and said, "Hi! I'm Ben!" It was at that point that I knew I'd made a new friend. Ben and I sat and talked for the rest of the afternoon, with lots of other shiney people occasionally joining our conversation. It was a great time among like-minded adults who weren't my family and didn't require anything serious of me. It was exactly what I needed.

Sunday night I spent with my friend Michelle in Boston (the one Pierre and I went to visit). We talked and ate and hung out and played with sparklers and stayed up way past our bedtimes. Early the next morning, it was time to get up and drive back to Maine.

Skip ahead to Wednesday. Gabe had a reevaluation with CDS, the people that do his speech and developmental therapies. Both were recommended to continue. It was also recommended that we do a whole-day testing thing to tailor a program to fit his needs, and possibly to find a reason for the developmental delay. Autism was mentioned as a possible reason. After the eval, I called Wes to discuss things. He informed me at that time that he has a strong family history of autism on both sides of his family. Thanks. That would have been nice to know three and a half years ago.

Thursday, I drop Gabe off with Wes. A couple hours later, I get a call from Wes asking why Gabe is throwing up. ::shrugs:: How should I know? He was fine when I dropped him off with you. He kept throwing up. And then he added diarrhea. And then he didn't pee for almost 24 hours. Friday earned him a trip to the ER for IV fluids and Zofran to stop the puking. It worked and he looked like a new boy.

Saturday came. The fluids and Zofran stopped working. He started throwing up again. More diarrhea. Lots of fun. So another trip to the ER for us. Another IV, a catheter to test his urine, more fluids, more drugs, and finally an admission to the hospital for dehydration and nausea control. There he stayed until Sunday evening, when he was not throwing up and didn't have anything left to poop and he was eating food and drinking fluids.

He's been better since then. Our last vomit was Monday, and we only had one. No diarrhea for 48 hours now. We went to see his regular doctor today, just to follow up. While I was there, I figured we could talk about the evaluation at CDS too. Dr. Anderson agreed with the day-long testing thing and said he'd set that up. He also confirmed what I've been thinking more and more often in the last few weeks, which is that Gabe does show signs of autism. He stressed that those could also be signs of something else, but it might be consistent with something on the autism spectrum.

So that's where we are right now. I'm getting less stressed, but the possibility of autism is really getting me down. It's been my biggest fear since conception, and now it might be a reality. I guess we'll have to wait and see what the testing shows.

But, on the upside, in 15 days I'm on a plane to Alabama for the weekend. That will be so great.

Wes and I met today. Much discussion occurred about the division of marital assets, which are blessedly few. Much discussion also occurred about Gabe, custody, residency, and all matters relating to that.

I was really hoping that we'd get the vast majority of everything nailed down today. That didn't happen. We are both considering things that were said, requests that were made, suggestions that were laid down. We'll talk again on Tuesday when Wes drops Gabe off with me.

Unfortunately, I think that's all there is to say, really. I'll know more on Tuesday. Sorry for two short posts in a row, but I'm feeling rather not myself lately.