A comment on crystal balls

"I gave up on crystal balls."  is what Evangeline's doctor told me today during our appointment. He said it with a southern accent and a smile.  I smiled back, genuinely, because I expected that answer. In fact, its the same answer I would have given myself if we were sitting in different chairs....and really.... I knew my question was stupid.  OK, so as an educator, I can never really call a question "stupid", lets just call mine "ill advised".

So, what could I have been asking about to prompt my physician to explain his philosophy of fortune telling? The future, of course!  I wanted to know what sorts of options we might be looking at in a year in regards to Evangeline's potty training.  I KNOW that nobody can predict that right now, but sometimes it is of little consequence what you know.  Sometimes you are just going to blurt things out anyway.

By the time I asked my question, we had been at the clinic for over four hours and without realizing it, all the muscles in my body seemed to tense up with the passing minutes, wound up (as my Nana would say) tighter than Dick's hat band.  I never knew who Dick was, or why he wore his hats too tight, but surely that expression fit my mood today.  Having missed all her recent appointments, I forgot how the tension can weigh on your very bones.  How, the longer you sit there, the more anxiety you feel...with images of your future doing stealth ninja attacks, intruding on your present until the three-month-stale waiting room magazine in your hand phases into a kind of kaleidoscope with images of other, future, waiting rooms all chopped up and pieced together in a random, unbroken string. 

No, I'm not on acid.  I'm just explaining how to those of us with "special needs" children doctor's offices seem like places where time...linear time...is pointless.  We have been there before, are there now, and will be there again.  Its no wonder that things get muddy in regards to asking about the future.  We go there for answers only to be reminded that we are indeed bound by time and doomed like the mere mortals we are to wait for the knowledge we seek.

All humans crave knowledge.  We mistakenly believe that "knowledge is power". Those three words are the single greatest lie to ever be perpetrated on humanity.  Knowledge of the future rarely empowers anybody to do anything....except dread or dream or hope or despair. Just ask ol' Oedipus Rex.  He'll tell you the dangers inherent in seeking out an oracle. The true magic of human existence always happens right where you are.  In the present.  So, I'll just appease myself with waiting, knowing that a magic moment for my daughter will show up exactly when it is needed the most.  We will know what to do only when the time is right. 

For now, we do not need to introduce any catheterizing into her daily routine.  There is no reflux into her kidneys and her filling pressure is normal. On the down side, she is not voiding even half the contents of her bladder basically making a recipe for a petri dish of bacteria, but she has had no serious infections so we are holding steady.  It looks as though her bladder sphincter isn't too strong but it does function to some degree. My concern was and is for the future.  If we will need to cath her to help her with social continence before she starts school at 3, then perhaps we should start now so she will be used to it.  But the doctor is not certain yet what she will or won't need and so he has counseled us to stay the course.  It ain't broke, so let it be.

I tell you, just as I embrace the hippie thought process of living in the moment and taking things as they come, I let a moment of uncertainty or of waiting wind me up and I have to remember the truth all over again.  Crystal Balls and life simply don't mix.  Happy people know that "knowledge" about the future is just a Jedi mind screw. A trick to tempt us into chasing our tails to make the outcome into what we desire. The best knowledge and only truely useful knowledge is the knowledge of the moment. And right now, we know Evangeline is doing just fine.  And that's what matters.