Splendid Mayhem: Trip # 2

Welcome To Holland

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.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Trip # 2

We are gearing up for another trip to St Louis. We will be leaving Tuesday. Our agenda is as follows:

Tuesday: driving- yuck! Esp with a baby that dislikes his carseat!

Wednesday: Logen's MRI is at 9:50am. We have to be at the hosp to get checked in at 8:30am. The nurse is suppose to call me next Tuesday to give me the details- ie: sedation, etc. (I will post more on this later) The MRI will be on the "so called birthmark" on the left thigh as well as the brain including the fossa (something). The rest of the day we will be hangin' out at the hotel. Not likely for Logen to want to go out and do anything! He will probably be cranky and tired from the sedation.

Thursday: We see Dr Gutman at 1:30pm. He's the neurofibroma dr. He will be giving us the results from the MRI. I had Ar Chidlren's send St Louie the actual images of his first head MRI so we could compare.

Friday: driving home- we may stop in Springfield so the boys can look around at Bass Pro Shop. Adam has been wanting to go there since January!

I will try and remember not to forget the lap top this trip! I am sure Thursday appt will provide great info. (HOPEFULLY GOOD INFO!)

2 comments:

AnonymousJuly 13, 2007 at 9:03 AM
Ya'll will definitely be in my thoughts and prayers next week!! I really hope it is awesome news, and if nothing else, just a definite answer!

Hope the drive goes well. Bella HATED her carseat until we got her a big girl carseat (the kind they can sit in from birth til it changes to a booster seat) and LOVED it because she could see everything around her instead of just the ceiling. I got mine at WM and love it-FYI Ben's lab tested it and it passed all inspections for safety.

Had to do the same thing for when we went grocery shopping-she started hating being in the carrier because she realized there was a world around here other than the ceiling and lights, so I bought one of those covers that straps into the buggy seat (had to use lots of extra padded cuz she is a tink)-OMG made a HUGE difference!!!
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Andrea "The H family"July 13, 2007 at 10:39 PM
Hey..praying it goes well.

Hope your doing ok...big hugs,
A
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