Shoved to Them
After almost a week of increasing leg strength, Ella caught a cold from one of her siblings and began collapsing again. That was Friday. Her legs are still too weak to hold her.
This cold has hit her really hard much more so than the other kids, and I know that’s part of having an autoimmune disease, but I’ve never seen such a huge difference between them before now. We’ve been to the GP and the chiropractor and have a neurology appointment on the 8th, in the meantime she’s back on crutches and bored.
As I sat this afternoon and watched her moving from the couch to the table and back again, I was struck by such a sense of gratitude for the life we are fortunate to live. I keep wondering what we would do if I were working and we depended on my salary, how would I care for her and still pay the bills? What if we didn’t homeschool? How would the schools adapt to meet her ever changing disability? As disrupting as this has been within our household, I’m so grateful that we have not had to deal with all these additional complications.
I know that the way we live is not desirable or realistic for every family, but when dealing with the cluster of stress and heartache of Ella’s medical issues I keep thinking of the moms who aren’t this fortunate and have to juggle debilitating illness with work and school. All I think is that there but for the Grace of God…. So if you are that mom, please know that I think you are heroic, and that I’ve been praying for you all day. If you know a mom with a chronically ill child (whether or not she works outside the home), please reach out to her and offer to help if you are able to do so. This is hard. I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t. It’s lonely, and scary, and hard.
Which is why I’m grateful today, because while I’m hanging out here in the Land of Suck I don’t have work and school suck to add to it….and today that feels like an awful lot to say thank you for.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In