Bob's Your Uncle

In my brief time living in England in my early twenties I learned an expression that I love: "Bob's your uncle." For those that may not know, it basically means the same thing as, "you're good to go." Because life in a hospital can get very dull, and because humor is the only way to get by in a situation like this, Jason and I have developed many inside jokes that help us keep things light. Most recently I have been turning to this old favorite of an expression to help explain how less than two weeks ago Cora was listed 1A for transplant, and somehow today she was transferred out of the ICU. What can I say? You show some good progress on an echo, and Bob's your uncle.

As of today Cora is living in what's called the Intermediary ICU (or IICU) here at Packard. It's somewhere in between an ICU and the cardiac step-down unit. It does come with a rather large private room complete with its own bathroom, which is by far the best perk of the transition.

As much as you would assume my overwhelming emotion about the change would be happiness, it feels more complicated than that. Yes, I am happy that Cora seems to be doing better by many measures. But at the same time, some measures are really not better, and I worry they will worsen with fewer eyes on her. Naturally I look at and analyze everything she does, and I still see so many concerning things. There are a lot of legitimately concerning things, things that everyone agrees are concerning. But I'm sure a lot of it is just fear.

As usual, even though my instinct is to protect Cora, to take care of her in every way I humanly can, and to own all the responsibility of keeping her safe, I just don't have that choice. I instead have to show this titanic faith that she is being taken care of by an army of people I barely know, and that everything that needs to unfold will unfold in its due time. It's my job to keep my daughter safe, but I can't do my job myself and I need all these other people to help me. It irks me. Just trust that it will all work out, and Bob's your uncle! Much easier to write than to do, I'm afraid.

But I am trying.

Experience tells me that Cora will present what she needs. She always has. It also tells me that I will intuitively know how best to care and advocate for Cora, regardless. My gut right now tells me that our show will still have a few more dramatic acts, but maybe it won't. Maybe it will be all up from here. Or maybe it won't.

What I really want is to know for sure how it will go. Will we be here another ten days or another ten months? I always want to know, but I never can. As my very wise friend says, there are certain things we can never know, because they are unknowable. I believe this qualifies.