I have had a very emotional time of late. Many of you that know me well, know about my boy and the wait for surgery since October. Well I got the phone call saying when he is to be done thanks to my doctor rattling some cages for me.
He is to go in this week, for intensive IV treatment to help prepare his lungs for the surgery.
Then he will have the operation for his nasel polyps. It will not be a easy operation as it is near his sight and brain. I'm hoping the polyps haven't grown roots as they are well known for this, and they do grow back.
Finally a chance for my boy to breath properly the first time in 4 years and hopefuly regain some sense of smell, and for his fingers not to be blue from lack of oxygen.
It's funny how you share so much of your selves to strangers on blog land yet people who know me don't often see this side of a mum worried sick.
I will be offline for a little while as I will be travelling back and forth each day to the hospital, a 3 hour round trip. I will check in though.
I was first given this poem below when I had Matthew, it is really how I feel and many others with children with a disabilty. Please take the time to read it
The Poem "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.
It still touches me today, that poem.
Jen
PS: Thank you to all who have been sending me their warm wishes.
PPS: Just wanted to say "hi" to my dear friend Dawnie who is going through a rough time, I am thinking of you dear girl take care.
How thrilled was I when the multitalented Judy Wil
kenfeld asked me to submit a piece of my jewerly using an original idea of her's that she had just had made. A "silver Charlotte" which she was having cast up in metal (hm metal.)
What a girl Bernie Berlin is I didn't do her class but she was so lovely and giving in her time to me to encourage my art work and teaching,her advice was wonderful.And Bernie Nice ring girl???
