Scars

                Well now,  we have had an eventful afternoon.  Feisty Pants must have been wishing for something exciting to happen and it did.    One of our local hospitals has a movable mammogram.  Basically, it is a big Winnebago with a mammogram machine inside it.   They use it for outreach and screenings for breast cancer (duh).  Today, however, it was more like something out of the Road Warrior.  (Mad Max and the Mammograms of Mayhem?)  As it was driving past my house, it hit my cable and phone lines and snapped them in half.  It even pulled the junction boxes right off the side of my house.  Shook the whole neighborhood.  And scared the dog.  Feisty Pants was thrilled.  Then she realized we have no cable.  She is no longer thrilled at all.  Even a bike ride did not cheer her up.  Not even the two trucks and three workmen trying to piece it all back together are interesting her anymore.  Normally she likes tv but is not so attached to it.  But she is eleven, so the minute she is told she cannot have something she is dead certain that is ALL she ever wanted in her whole life.  And right now, that is tv.

               I have to say, I know how she feels.   Normally, I could give a rat’s fanny about the phone.   I have hard time paying attention to what is said to me (as opposed to what I see.)  So phones are work.  But the minute I cannot call 911 from a landline, I get very,  very nervous.  Losing electricity to run her machines (food pump, pulse oximeter, suction machine, nebulizer, etc.) is a seriously big deal.  But having those machines in your house automatically comes with a contingency plan.  (Legal forms and everything.)  Not having access to 911 is a bigger deal.  I have a cell but with an out of state number and no idea if that changes how 911 operates for me.  I don’t want to find out the hard way.  Forget the fact that she is not sick now.  Forget the fact that it’s summer and that’s a GOOD time of year for her, health wise.  Forget the fact that we haven’t had to call 911 since she was five.  All those horrible nights of running hellbent to call 911 and start cpr come flooding back in a horrible rush of Dear God, What if??

             That’s what this post is about I guess.  The fact is that there are some things that will be forever different for you once you are the parent of a special needs kid.  This weekend there was an accident on my street .  A drunk driver slammed into a telephone pole.  I heard a bang then what sounded to my groggy ears like my kid crying (it was the driver screaming for help outside) and then heard my husband call 911. I flew downstairs is an adrenalized rush only to have Goo tell me to be quiet before I woke up Feisty Pants who was sleeping and breathing peacefully.  It has been years since we had that kind of crisis.  But it never leaves you.  There are a million joys in parenting any child.  Mine is no different in that respect.  But there are a million ways it is different.  Some of them you’ll be proud of.  Some of them you won’t notice until someone else points them out.  And some will just be there, like a scar you hardly notice until it gets cold (or the phone goes out) and then it aches in ways you forgot you knew. Not much for it though, but to borrow a cup of determination from your kid and roll with it.  Trust me, they’ve got tons to spare.