MY DARLING GIRL

My girl is sick. My darling girl. My beautiful child all grown up and broken- and I am powerless.

She is not sick like sick find the right medication- convalesce and get your life back sick. She is unwell in the extreme. She has an array of symptoms and problems and manifestations and abnormal shit that has her doctors bringing in all the big guns, all of the “ologies”. From cardiology through neurology and pulmonology and right up the elevator and to left why not see endocrinology (with a strong dose of WHAT THE F#&K-ology and we-don’t-know-but-there-are-a-lot-of-scary-things-it-could-be-ology) they are all lined up trying to answer the questions of why she can’t breathe and her heart doesn’t seem to respond normally and- and- and AND DAMMIT….dammit…dammit.

It’s happened before. Actually it happens maybe once or twice a year (for the past six or seven years). It has seemed to be episodic and cardiac related and she always scares us all; gets on the meds (that in the past have always fixed it) feels awful for a couple weeks and then gets better. Except this time… This time there are new symptoms and it’s not responding to all the stuff that used to work, at least not so far, not yet. Could do tomorrow- but that won’t mean it’s gone- it’ll be back (will it be even meaner next time?), it always comes back.

She’s not alone in these symptoms (but this is MY child). Others are in this place (but this is my CHILD). There is always a multidisciplinary approach to this array of disabling crap. The problem (but THIS is my child) is that they don’t know the why and the wherefore- they only know the what and some of those “whats” suck more than others and some of those “whats” have no answers at all (which maybe sucks most of all) and this is my child, my darling girl.

So you see, here, on paper (on screen? in cyberspace?) in this corner if my brain, this is where I have decided to allow the worry and the fear to dwell and erupt and play itself out and be done with it. Here, knowing (hoping) that your far-flung ears and hearts are there to listen, I will scroll out my terror, because there is comfort in the knowledge that I am not simply railing into the wind but rather into distant ears, if you will have it, the distant ears.

This is the place where worry lives. I’ve thrown it out of every other spot where it has tried to entrench itself. I will not give it power but sometimes it demands voice.

There! Now I can feel a bit of the weight off my lungs.

Now I can go back and be (for my daughter) the person who remains clear-eyed and certain that it will be all right; the person who knows that, what ever comes, we (she) can handle it and that if she is afraid than I am not and that will be enough for both of us. I can be the person who laughs and picks up her three year old and swings him through the air certain in the knowledge that Mommy will be able to do it…next time. I can make the bad jokes and whistle my way past the haunted house because I have let worry scream itself out and put the bitch in her place.

UPDATE:

Recent tests have actually evoked resposes like "Oh, honey...that's not normal." Life, however, has normalized a bit...again...this time. The full blown manifestation of all the signs and symptoms has subsided and rears it's ugly face in fits and starts. Testing continues apace and answers seem to keep just beyond the questions and worry remains in levels more and less acute depending upn the day.

We all have hopes and fears that the next "ology" will have the answers...better to know, right?