Special Forces

I was sitting there moping tonight, pondering the steps I'll need to take to get Evangeline a referral to see an opthamologist over at Nemours. Her right eye wants to turn in toward her nose. It seems to me like a mild case of strabismus, commonly known as "lazy eye".  I looked it up and according to the hydrocephalus association, it can occur when pressure is/was placed on the optic nerve, specifically "the sixth nerve" which pulls the eye away from the nose. The problem can usually be corrected by an eye patch, but in some instances surgery is required.  You may be asking yourself why I am diagnosing my child.  The answer is simple. Because I can. I only need a licenced physician to assist me with determining severity and treatment options. You see, something else has occurred to me as I was sitting there, dipping my toes in the waters of depression, deciding if I wanted to jump in and swim around for a while. It occurred to me that like a lot of you out there... I am one crazy, butt-kicking momma.

A few years ago, I felt like I entered basic life/combat training. I broke my ankle, shattered it really, and had 9 pins, a plate and some cadaver bone installed to patch it back together again. I was four months non-weight bearing and got a pretty solid taste of how freaking annoying it can be to go somewhere that doesn't have wheelchair access at the curb. Because lets face it, hopping around on one leg is for kids and teenagers. When you haven't got much skill with them, crutches freaking hurt your arms! Then just a little bit after that my husband hurt his back; a piece of disk at his L4-L5 broke off and pressed against his spine. He lost feeling in part of his left leg and foot and was in a great deal of pain till a good surgeon went in and removed the floating piece. His recovery was long and grueling. During that time, we lost a lot of "stuff", our faith was stretched, our marriage was tested. Somehow, we made it through that boot camp. I thought the worst of it was over. I thought there was time to breathe, but nope. Turns out that somebody thought I had what it takes to go further...and that somebody signed me (and him) up for special forces training.

You know the kind of training I mean. The break-a-chopstick-in-half-and-immediately-recognize-three-different-ways-to-kill-somebody-with-each-of-the-pieces kind of training. If life had a special forces team...a team whose purpose was to survive any obstacle...then special needs parents would be just such a team. We have to learn to recognize and quickly respond to symptoms that could potentially be life-threatening. We have to attend to minute details like how many times our child poops in a day- because those details matter- and there is nobody else who can attend to them. We go through decisions, trials and stress that a lot of people don't even want to talk about. We cry tears, feel fear, press through.  Nobody else can understand why we spend sleepless nights, why we eneter their bedrooms just to see them breathing, why our hearts shudder or break or soar depending on how the appointment went... except for our fellow brothers and sisters in arms. Most parents prefer to believe that we don't even exist. They don't want to ever imagine that they could BE us. We do what we do for future generations with no fanfare. If we had a motto it would just like the marine corps.... Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!

Yes, it can get wild and woolly out in the field, it can get dirty in the trenches, it can get scary when the diagnoses start flying over our heads. But our pay is in smiles. The medals pinned on our uniforms are pictures of our children doing those things we were told they would never do. The reward for our vigilance is a healthy child, because we caught things early. Everything we do is worth it. Every time we pull ourselves back up out of the dirt and into the fight, we score a victory over the condition that tries to keep us and our children down. Every time we walk away from the waters of depression- that river of tears imbued wth a siren's song- we win. Every time we find the simple joy in just being called "Mommy"or "Daddy" our enemy cringes in terror.

So, yes, life can seem disheartening on nights like tonight when one more thing tries to throw itself on my over-flowing plate. But then I have to remember who I am. I am MOM. Nay, I am special forces, special-needs MOM! I can handle this and so much more. I have passed that special training. I am care-taker to the most marvelous little creature I could ever dream up! So..... I Improvise (Lazy eye? No problem, we put the patch on her eye and tell people she's the mascot of a local pirate crew and teach her to yell YAR!). I adapt (problem? What problem?) I overcome (I give my baby snuggles and kisses).  I live and I laugh and I win! That's who I am. Do not make me get the chopsticks. Hoo-Rah!