Most parents can probably identify with the experience of trying to be the best parent that they can be while living through personally difficult times. We all face them - death of a loved one; illness; accidents; financial worries; or relationship problems. Life doesn't wait for the ideal moment to throw these challenges at us. Rarely do we have the luxury of facing just one obstacle at a time. Life's problems tend to come at us in clusters instead of single, easily handled challenges. At least that has been my experience.
The last two years of my life seems to have been one shocking event after another. Please understand that this is not a pity party or a plea for sympathy. It is merely a statement of fact. As I have discussed previously, my husband and I have worked diligently to repair and strengthen a marriage that in the past was one of the absolute best but had begun to weaken due to neglect as we cared for our youngest son with his health and learning issues. It is a challenge that may have been overwhelming in and of itself. But it is just one of many challenges that we have had to learn to face together. Some of our biggest challenges have taken place in the last nine months alone. Following months of gallbladder attacks that they mistakenly took for an ulcer, I was admitted to the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery and pancreatitis. It was severe enough that my small intestine had begun to shut down. The day I was discharged from the hospital, as I began to come out of the anesthesia, I realized that I had no hearing in my left ear. At some point during my hospitalization, I had gone deaf. In addition, I was having trouble keeping my balance and focusing my eyes together. I lost the ability to read for almost three weeks. What followed was weeks of specialist appointments and tests. The only treatment option available to try to help me regain my hearing was to have liquid prednisone injected through my ear drum and into my inner ear. This was done three times on a weekly basis. To say it was uncomfortable, is a bit of an understatement.
As the summer began to draw to a close, I was faced with the need to adjust to the reality of teaching in a corrections setting with only one functional ear (the loss is profound and permanent). At the same time, our family was bracing for the reality of my youngest son, with all of his learning/developmental issues, starting school. How would we balance it all? How would we face his issues as well as our own? The idea was daunting and overwhelming.
We did okay. There was a definite learning curve with both issues. Just as we seemed to be finding our stride, I started losing fields of vision. When I say I lost fields of vision, I mean I would only see the top half of a view. Everything below mid line would be black or black and sparkly. Or I could see out of one eye, but not both. Sometimes things just seemed out of balance or foggy. The vision loss usually lasted an hour or two, then would return to normal. This new development earned me a series of new tests and specialist appointments. Good times. Oh yeah, good times. It was finally determined by a neurologist and optomologist that I had ocular migraines. No. They didn't know why for sure. They decided to put me on a medicine called Neurotin to help rectify this problem. It seemed to help.
During this time, we were trying to get my youngest son's Individualized Education Plan (IEP) in place. This followed months of testing and waiting. The school finally had everything in place to start services for him at school. I was trying to stay on top of school documents, school meetings, and everything else he needed me to be doing to make him successful, while I was distracted by my own issues. I often felt I was letting him down.
Around this same time period, my audiologist and ENT specialist talked to me about a surgical procedure that could be used to help me regain my hearing to some degree. They called it the BAHA implant. As a trial, they let me wear a headband devise with a small receiver attached on the side of my hearing loss. For the first time since June, I could hear. This was a very emotional moment and definitely helped me make the decision to have the surgery. It would involve hollowing out a bowl of tissue behind my deaf ear and implanting a titanium rod (abutment) into my skull. After three months of healing, they would attach a small receiver to the abutment. Sound would travel from the receiver, through my skull, to my good ear, providing the ability to hear again. Initially, my health insurance denied me the surgery, but my doctor spoke on my behalf and they reevaluated my case and approved it. The initial surgery went well. The hearing cap fell off the day after the surgery and we had to go back in to have it put back in place but everything else seemed to be going well. It was an interesting experience. Once the healing cap, which looked like a men's athletic cup, came off permanently, I had to rely on my husband for even basic care of the surgical site. He had to wash my hair for me as I tried to keep the incision site dry. He cleaned and bandaged my head for me. During this time, he did homework and kiddo duty. I couldn't have done it physically, mentally, or emotionally without him. He has been an amazing rock through all of it.
Then a week before Christmas, while at work, in the middle of teaching, the implant fell out. I mean literally fell out of my head. It was very, very disheartening. My ENT specialist said it only happens in three percent of all surgical cases. I hadn't done anything wrong. The implant had just failed to adhere, or grow fast to the bone in my skull. I would need to wait three weeks for the original site to heal. After it was found to be healed, the surgeon would re-implant another titanium abutment in an adjacent location. That meant I was starting all over. It would be three MORE months after this new surgery before I would be able to get my receiver and gain my hearing back. This was a very serious blow to my spirits. Fortunately, we got through the holiday season unscathed and the new implant was successfully implanted in mid-January. I was scheduled to get my receiver in mid-April, but the specialist called and rescheduled the appointment to mid-May. Disappointing but at least things are going as anticipated this time.
I am currently writing this while signed off from work recovering from pneumonia. It has indeed been a year of challenges. Please recognize that I know that there are many, many people who face much more serious and overwhelming problems than I have described. A wonderful woman that I graduated school with is facing cancer for like the third or fourth time. That is much more traumatic than what I have gone through. The point I am trying to make is that life can be challenging, even traumatic. So how do you get through it and still manage to raise happy successful children? How do you meet their needs while trying to meet your own? These are the questions I have had to address, particularly over the last year. I am still learning to answer them.
For me, it has taken recognizing that I'm going to screw up. There are no perfect parents, just those who are trying their darnedest to get it right. I have had to learn to ask for help from friends and family. This isn't easy for me. I have also had to learn to lean on my husband through the tough times. Again, not an easy thing for an independent, Type A individual. Most importantly, I have learned to lean on my God and Savior. As problem after problem kept coming, I began to question, "Why?" I live by the motto of help others; be kind and polite; do the right thing always. So why did life keep knocking me down? I have come to the conclusion that God is preparing me. For what? I'm not sure. His time, not mine.
In many ways, the challenges of the last year have made the beautiful moments in life even more clear. There have been times, while recovering from one of my four surgeries, that I would see something happening in my home and think "Freeze. Right there. Don't forget that moment. It is so special and dear and amazing. Don't let it slip by." These moments usually involve my children interacting with each other in a loving or funny way. The image of my two boys curled up on the couch, totally engrossed in The Three Stooges, laughing out loud, eyes sparkling with joy and humor. Or they involve my husband caring for my children in his own loving and devoted way. I can see him leaning over the back of my son's chair, leaned over talking to him, as they work on homework. Not momentous moments, but the beauty of those scenes, stays with me. Maybe if I hadn't gone through the struggles of the last couple years, I wouldn't appreciate the little moments of beauty in my life. I vow to keep my eyes and heart open and wait to see where God leads me.
No comments:
Post a Comment