Splendid Mayhem: St Louis Bound (Again!) & Logen Update

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.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

St Louis Bound (Again!) & Logen Update

Hey All! Hope you all are doing well... :)

We are on the road to St Louis (again!). Logen has 2 appointments on Monday. He sees the Neuro and Epilepsy Doc this trip.

In the past 2 weeks to 3 weeks he's started having seizures again, so we made a med increase. He's also been having some "quirky" little jerking movements, increased drooling, and just some random things I don't like. So, I was glad it started around the time for our appointments. (If it had to start at all...)

Logen was moved to a new school this year (b/c of injuries last year and lack of progress). So far, so good. He seems to be doing very well. He appears to be happy about staying there and I don't get that "yuck" feeling I got when he was at "the other place".

I will update after our appt! Please pray for good news. Our 3 month post-surgery date is Oct 2, so we *should* be getting something soon! I am getting sooooo very anxious.

1 comment:

SheilaSeptember 20, 2009 at 9:29 PM
Keeping you in my thoughts, Jess! I'm looking forward to the update. I hope you're feeling better too!
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