Tuesday, July 15, 2014

'Fraid Not


        So, we have made through the paperwork blizzard.  Well, most of it anyway.  Feisty Pants is happily ensconced back in school and therapy. Well, most of that anyway. Things are humming along nicely.  So, of course, something has to come around with a monkey wrench to gum up the works. 
        In this case, it's a combination of weather and someone's fear.  This wet, humid, warm weather is terrible for Feisty Pants.  Wet and warm equals mildew in the air.  Add to that a high pollen count season. Mulitply that by a disabled kid with allergies and mildew sensitivities. All that adds up to Feisty Pants having a wheezy, sneezy, snotty summer.  To the uninitiated, FP seems like a sick kid.  But she's not.  Her sat rates (oxygen saturation rates - a measure of how well she's breathing) are fine, considering.  She has no fever. Her vision is "on".  (Kid's with a cortical visual impairment can "shut off" their vision when tired or ill or overwhelmed)  She does not have the raccoon eyes she gets when ill. In short, she is not showing any of the signs that Goo and I have come to get nervous over. But if you do not know what her normal is, she looks like a kid with a bad head cold.
          But, someone with some medical training who deals with Feisty Pants is having a panic attack.  And, kinda wants us to panic a bit too and rush to the doctor rightthisverysecond darn it.  Sigh.  I get why.  When you do ANYTHING in the medical profession, the training involves, in part, scaring the hell out of the student.   You want to impress on them the weight of import of everyday decisions and how quickly things can go wrong.  We all want them to take their job seriously because it is our health and survival they deal with.  They see my beautiful, vulnerable, very disabled daughter and instantly see how she does not fit their molds.  They instantly see all the things that have gone wrong and can easily go wrong again. She scares the hell out of them for a damn good reason and frankly, she should.
            But, she's a kid, first and foremost.  Not a delicate piece of china.  Not an elderly person whose body no longer bounces back the way it used to.  She's tough as nails and has survived things that leave us mere mortals in shock and awe in the dust. Wrapping her in cotton wool and hiding her from the world only cuts down her actually being a kid and having a childhood and a life.  Not going to happen on my watch.  She deserves what every kid deserves, a childhood and a chance.  I am not a fool, thankyouverymuch, I have and will continue to schlep her cute tushy to doctors and hospitals up and down the Mid-Atlantic seaboard for as long as it is necessary.  But I have seen too much, been inside too many ambulances during real emergencies, slept too little and held my breath far too long to care about someone else's fear.  Your fear is YOUR problem.  I've got enough of my own baggage to carry. I don't need any of yours.  Just please, don't act like I don't care because I am calm when you are not.  
         

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