c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Our little Charlotte Faith has reminded us that Holland is still on our itinerary.
For the past week or so Rob and I have read the report over and over. Hoping that it would change, maybe we missed something in reading it? Maybe her lab work was mixed up with another child, maybe somewhere along the line there was an error of some sort? However, we do realize that there are no mistakes. None in the lab work, the reports, no errors. There are no mistakes...she is perfect, and we are so very blessed to share every day with her.
Charlotte has something called an Inborn Error of Metabolism. Her body doesn't process cobalamin (vitamin B12) like it should. Because her body doesn't process cobalamin like it should, an organic acid called methylmelonic acid builds up and can cause damage. The genetics, neurogenetics and neurologist all agree at this point that she has an Inborn Error of Cobalamin Metabolism, but we will need to wait on further lab work to determine what type exactly it may be. They believe hers to be type cblC, cblD, cblF or TC2. What type it is will dictate the course of treatment, but more than likely it will be a combination of watching her closely, supplementing certian medications, and dietary changes consisting of low protien, and high carbohydrates.
We've been told that some of the complications are developmental delay, mental retardation, vision problems, stroke, and multi-system organ failure to name a few. Well, we were also told our Aaron would remain on his g-tube for at least 5 years...guess who just fought me for Easter candy tonight? You got it...my Aaron...the one WITHOUT the g-tube!! (I'm not against feeding tubes, for any tubie parents that may be reading. They are lifesaving But I am thrilled our doctors were wrong in stating he would need one for the long term) We are going to remain positive, and expect a good report on our next follow up on Thursday.
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