What We Need

     I’ve heard people talk about the five stages of grief in terms of dealing with a serious diagnosis for a child. You grieve for what they might have been, the loss of normalcy, the things you thought you could take for granted. I, for one, feel like I have gone through the stages of grief in varying degrees multiple times with each new issue that arises. I change from stage to stage in any given year, month, day, and even minute. From day C was born (and subsequently nearly died), we’ve been dealing with one thing after another. That’s not to say there haven’t been good days; happily, there have been many, many of those. But as each new issue started, I kept thinking “This will be it. This will be the last thing to happen.” I no longer say that to myself.

     Here’s the list: respiratory distress syndrome, pneumothorax, pulmonary interstitial emphysema, pulmonary hypertension, hypotension, sepsis, apnea, bradycardia, oligihydramnios, prematurity, tracheomylacia, global developmental delays, oral motor dysfunction, failure to thrive, hypotonia, sensory integration dysfunction, reflux, reactive airway disease, asthma, left-side weakness, ankle pronation, atypical tongue grooving, toxic synovitis, ataxia, verbal apraxia, oral apraxia, plagiocephaly, food allergies, unspecified autoimmune disease, impaired methylation abilities, yeast problems, absent glutathione production, high functioning autism, developmental coordination disorder, hyperlexia.

      WHEW!