Tag Archives: life

Searching for the end of the rainbow

29 Jan

“Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer -except faith.” -Charles Sheffield, Brother to Dragons

We went to the opthamologist appointment 3 days after I took Oli home. This is the doctor that the hospital had recommended to us. Since this is the only suggestion we had received so far, we went.

Her name was Dr. Shin.

She was sweet and sympathetic, but she told us that she was not familiar treating microphthalmic children. She could only tell us what we already knew. Oli’s eyes were extremely small and she probably would be totally blind.

She did lead us a few more steps into the beginning of our journey by giving us two names.

One was the name of a family who also had a son with microphthalmia. This family had started a foundation called the Nevada Blind Children’s Foundation.
She told us that the foundation was having an open house in a couple of days and we should go and meet this family.

Finally! We were going to be able to talk with someone who knew what we were going through.

The other was the name of a colleague she went to school with. He was another opthamologist but, had treated kids with microphthalmia before. He was located in Los Angeles which was about 6 hours away.

I still did not know what all these people were going to do for my daughter and my head was swimming with too much information. I thought that the doctor in L.A. was going to fit my daughter with her first pair of conformers. I found out 2 months later, when we saw him, that he was just more of an expert on her eye condition. I’m still not completely sure why we needed to see him. He told us the same information that we had heard since she was born. That her eyes were extremely small. We did finally get the name of an ocularist though.

I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt. Each person we met would lead us to another person and they in turn would lead us to another. Each clue was supposed to be leading me closer to an answer.

But I never received the answer I was looking for.

A way to make her better.

I may as well have been searching for the end of the rainbow.

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Life…it’s not always easy

28 Jan

“Life is loving so hard you inspire and become inspired to be the next level of the person you never knew.” -Unknown

After Oli’s bath that night I gave Kekoa his bath. He was so happy that we were home and he was especially happy to have his baby home. I got the cutest pictures of him with Oli that night.

Babykoababyoli1

He was so amazed that this little doll was real. She wiggled and cried. She would grasp his chubby finger if he placed it in her hand. He just kept staring at her tiny hands and feet.

After I took some pictures we went into the bathroom and I started filling the tub with water. When it was ready Kekoa climbed in and began to play in the warm water. I was just staring at my perfect little boy.

My little boy.

I cried the day I took Kekoa home from the hospital. I had to go out to Target and I started sobbing in the passenger seat on the way there. Seth looked over at me like I was crazy.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know. I’m just so afraid for him. I’m afraid we’re going to get into a car accident and he’s going to get hurt. I’m afraid someone will want to look at him and accidentally sneeze on him and he will get sick.”

“I’m afraid someone will want to touch my new baby.”

“I just want to protect him from the world.” I sobbed.

I remember all those fears while I watch my son take his bath. I am overwhelmed again by my fierce instinct to protect him.

I want to protect him from this challenging and unfair life that now lays before him.

I want to protect him from the bullies at school that will tease him because his sister is different.

I don’t want him to ever see people staring at Oli. Watching his little face as he tries to comprehend why people are looking at his little baby and then turning away with pity on their faces.

Watching him try to understand the question that will inevitably come.

What is wrong with her?

I just love him so much and I want to give him everything.

I realize now, that I just wanted to give him everything that was easy.

Life is not always easy.

She gave me a new meaning to that phrase.

It no longer meant that life wasn’t easy because the money was a little tight that month. Or that it wasn’t easy because I might not be able to afford the new car I wanted or the bigger house with a bigger yard.

It used to mean that life was hard because I might not get what I want.

Now it was hard because I began to see how small and insignificant this all was.

It was hard because I now realized all that I had taken for granted and just thought I was entitled to.

It was hard because I really wanted my old life back.

I didn’t want to think about all of the challenges that now faced my family.

I wanted to remain where I was, even if it meant I would never grow.

I wanted my son’s life to be easy.

I could only look at him and cry. I just looked at him and repeated the 2 words that had become my mantra to my children.

I’m sorry.

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8 things I wish I would have known when Oli was born.

26 Jan

“None of us is as smart as all of us.” Eric Schmidt

1. I am my child’s parent 1st.

I am not her therapist, or teacher. I am definitely not her drill sergeant. It’s okay to just be her mom sometimes. Of course, I still have to work with her at home. But, I no longer have that tremendous amount of guilt when I just cuddle her instead of doing physical therapy exercises. I don’t feel guilty when I carry her up the stairs once in a while instead of forcing her to walk up them when she doesn’t want to.

A woman from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired told me this when Oli was 4 years old. It was the first time anyone ever gave me permission to “just be her mom”. I will never forget that because it was the gift that I had been aching to receive since the day she was born.

2. Think about today.

Boy, does this one catch me up sometimes… I don’t need to worry about the things that Oli will or won’t do 10 years from now. (I really like to do this!) It just weighs me down when I do. I have realized that she can do what she can do today and that is just fine. I really can’t tell you what her future will look like but, for right now, what she is doing is perfect.

3. Don’t be afraid to be Donald Trump

If a doctor talks about Oli while she’s in the room like she is not even there, I fire them.

If a doctor is not compassionate and does not realize the he/she is treating my whole family and not just my little girl, I fire them.

If a doctor or therapist seems annoyed that my 2 year old is crying and my 7 year old keeps interrupting because he wants me to look at his latest accomplishment on his Nintendo DS game, I fire them.

These doctors and therapists have no idea how many times I have dragged my other children to these appointments. How many hours of their short lives have been spent in waiting rooms and in the car driving to different appointments. If they cannot respect the fact that my other children are also affected by Oli’s disabilities, we find someone who does.

4. Google is my friend.

5. Laughter is an even better friend.

6. I probably have Post Traumatic Stress

Oli’s wonderful pediatrician in Las Vegas, Dr. Hyun, told Seth and I this while we were sitting in her office one day.

It could have been our red swollen eyes, lack of matching clothes,all around disheveled appearance and the “Holy shit! What just happened?” look on our faces that tipped her off.

It was the first validation I received that all the craziness in my head had a diagnosis.

7. Functional not Perfect

So many therapists would spend hours trying to get Oli to do things perfectly. She was never successful because the reality is, no child does things perfectly when they are just learning to do something. Special needs or not.

Oli’s new physical therapist, Cathrine, was working on trying to get Oli to stand up from the middle of the floor. (We had been working on this for a couple of years with different therapists.)

She told me on her first visit, “I don’t care how she does it. I just want her to be able to do it. It doesn’t have to look pretty.”

And guess what….Oli did it!

8. Special = Expensive

Having a special needs child is very very expensive. I had to claim bankruptcy when Oli was 6 months old because of the mounting medical bills, co-pays, and things our insurance didn’t cover.

Very Special = Very expensive

(It’s okay. I’ll still take very special, even though it means I’m broke all the time.)

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They didn’t have a special needs mother hat in my size

21 Jan

“There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…” -John Lennon

I would love to talk about those first few days in the hospital after Oli was born as being beautiful and full of acceptance. I would love to say “They told me she was blind and I immediately put on my special needs mother hat and began my new identity.” That’s not exactly what happened. I went through a lot in the first years of Oli’s life to get me where I am today. I wouldn’t be doing her story justice if I just painted a pretty picture and pretended it wasn’t hell. Of course I loved her. I’ve always loved her more than anything. But that’s been part of my problem. I loved her so much but, I couldn’t fix her. I couldn’t give her eyes or sight. I couldn’t take away all the hardships and pain that I knew were in her future. I couldn’t make society treat her with respect or hell, even a human being, as a special needs child. I’ve had experiences with more than one doctor referring to her only as a diagnosis. Talking to me like she was an object and telling me everything that could possibly be wrong with her and not to expect much.

Lying in that hospital bed, after she was born, was absolutely the lowest part of my life. Mostly because I am a -worst-case-scenario- kind of girl. I can take a perfectly sunny day at the park and turn it into, an escaped convict jumps out of the bushes and kidnaps me where I spend the next 5 years locked in his basement forced to eat pickles and honey, in my mind. That’s just how my mind works. I just wasn’t ready to accept this life that had just punched me in the face. She didn’t fit into my perfect little box of what I wanted my future to look like.

Now, let me say something about life that I learned at that moment.

Life did not care that I had an 18 month old son at home. Life did not care that I currently had a full time job to get back to. Life did not care that I felt I did not deserve this. Life did not care that I felt somehow cheated. Life simply handed me this baby girl and said, “Ok. Here you go. Now what are you going to do? Are you going to run away? Fight this with every fiber of your being? Or are you going to accept this and move on?” Me being me, of course, I chose option number 2.

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