LoveItScrapIt

FREE - MOC9 Day 11

FREE - MOC9 Day 11
LoveItScrapIt, Jan 12, 2021
Description:
Using:
Artsy Journal templates 11
by Scrapping with Liz
and Let it Go Bundle
by Rachel Jefferies

Story is 698 words:
Almost 11 years to the month I’m sitting in the corner of the waiting room and it’s still dark out. It’s early so there’s only 1 other parent in here. My mind is spent. I barely notice the lights of the workday traffic passing by the window. My emotions are on high alert but I’m pretending to be occupied so that I don’t cry. So that I don’t scream at God or the world or the other parent that is in this waiting room. I text your dad and your sister and your nana and my best friends. All to keep sanity present. All to keep the negative thoughts at bay. It’s hard. No, like it’s really hard not to allow my mind to go to the places where the “what ifs” live. The corners of my mind that would eat hope alive and enjoy it.

11 years ago no one could have prepared us for today. Truthfully, they never tell you the really hard parts of parenting. The dark parts. Like the part where your normal 4-year-old son starts pre-K and everything is going great until it isn’t. Until he starts having these weird “ticks” at home during bedtime. Until those progress into weird arm movements and he tells you that he feels like “he’s turning into a monster”. Nope, they don’t tell you about the monsters growing and coming so frequently one night that you & hubby grab him and his sister and head to the Children’s Hospital an hour away because the local doctors don’t know what’s going on with him.

We left the hospital after 5 days that time and there was no going back. We were on a new road. A road littered with seizures, studies, tests, MRIs, numerous medications, falls and overall feelings of helplessness. It’s been a long 11 years and you’ve been nothing but a trooper. Taking every needle, every scan, every EEG in stride. There’s been sleep studies that covered days where I’d try to get some semblance of sleep during the stay with you hooked up to machines and monitored and videotaped. All for the greater good they said. All for an end. An end to the firing neurotransmitters in your brain.

2020 brought with it a worldwide pandemic yes, but for us it brought us here. In July you endured a minor brain surgery, what even is a minor brain surgery anyway, to place EEG leads into the actual brain matter so they could get as close as possible to the area where your “monsters” live. They wanted to find out if they could do re-sectioning. They wanted to know if they could remove the “monsters”.

They concurred it is not possible. It’s too risky. You’d lose mobility. What’s next I’d ask? There is only one option left with the current technological advances they have. To do a surgery and implant a device into the brain that is supposed to stop the transmitters from firing. It’s not a complete “fix” they said. No you won’t be immediately cured, but we believe it will help more. Maybe?

What’s your decision? At 15-years-old I looked at you in the doctor’s office and asked you what you thought. You put on the bravest face and said you wanted to do it. Did you really even understand what this surgery would entail? I let myself cry that night. In the room with your dad. I cried and I asked why God, why didn’t anyone tell me the hard parts about parenting.

So here I am sitting in the corner of the waiting room. I’ve updated everyone important and the day is starting to break. I sit. I reflect. I look at the time again. How long has it been? I’ve got a long wait ahead and my mind is spent. My tears are bursting to break free. This is going to be the longest 6 hours of my life. This is a day, as a parent, I wish someone could have prepared me for. I just want to go home and take you with me. I just want you to be seizure free. God I hope this surgery is the key.
Claire Grantham and alinalove like this.
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  • Category:
    Month of Challenges 9
    Uploaded By:
    LoveItScrapIt
    Date:
    Jan 12, 2021
    View Count:
    423
    Comment Count:
    19

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