This image has been on my mind all week.  Truth be told there is an awful lot on my mind,  and I apologize that most of it is likely to come out jumbled.  When I don’t get to the computer regularly there is all this stream of consciousness stuff…

My girl feels cruddy.  And I know, “its a big surgery,” and “it takes time to even things out.”  But it really stinks.  Her thyroid numbers are way out of whack.  The endocrinologist is absent… most of the time, and even if he couldn’t answer my questions, I’d like to be able to ask them.  If my thyroid numbers were as wacky as hers you’d be scraping me off the floor.  Here comes the crazy mom – trying to restrain myself for one more blood work cycle before I fire him too.  Good thing I live in a big city.  I might well run out of doctors otherwise.

It is so hard to watch her  – feeling betrayed by her own body.

She is bright.  And kind.  And super rational.  She gets the whole idea that people have it worse.  She is grounded.

But sometimes she is 10.  And she doesn’t understand why she can’t keep up.  Cognitively she can dance.  But physically…

She has to decide on a Friday if we are busy on Saturday morning.  This way she knows if she can play gym.  She gets through the gym period, and often has the time of her life… but we have to block out hours on Saturday to recover.  She played last week.  She had the time of her life.  Good thing the school staff doesn’t have to watch her get out of bed on Saturday.

And running.  How she LOVES to run.  And she’s fast.  But she can’t.  Not for long anyway.  Tendonitis, inflammation.  And forget it this week as we TRIED to lower the Celebrex.

Never mind the swimming.  She belongs to a team that practices 4 times a week.  On a good week we get there twice.  Not for lack of trying, but exhaustion gets in the way.  It is CYO season now, so she is with a more recreational team too.  Some fun times.  But she wants to be faster.  And she could be.  But her body betrays her.  And it makes her angry.

And now the headache.  The migraine  returned 2 days ago despite the recent medication increase.  She is just so very tired.  The neurologist called me tonight.  Increase the Celebrex.  See if that helps.  So much for less medicine.  Let’s pray for relief.

I think alot about the others.  I think about the other’s with RARE Diseases.  I think about the ones less fortunate than us.

I also think about the other’s with Cowden’s Syndrome.  I have never met them – any of them except my own girl.  But, we “know” quite a few.  There are some I keep in touch with on an individual basis, a few Meghan corresponds with, and the bulk of them come from a Facebook group for Cowden’s sufferers.  We share experiences and ideas, and successes and disappointments.  We toss things out to each other before the rest of the world.  We speak safely to people who “get it.”  And although even among us our symptoms vary widely, and I believe a lack of research keeps us from being sure what is Cowden’s related, they are my best support.

I often go to bed and wake worried about these people I’ve never met.  I think about their physical struggles, and their family struggles.  I pray for them when they have tests, and surgeries, and they do the same for us.  People could argue they aren’t “real” friends.  I would have to disagree.  They give me hope.

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Then there are days like yesterday, when you arrive at home after 14 hours at work to find a package on the counter.  And inside the package are jeans for Meghan and I.  Carefully sewn on each rear pocket is the denim ribbon symbol.  Also in the package was a bag “Hope, It’s in our Genes.”  Yep.  It sure is.  A friend of my sister’s.  Inspired my some crazy words she’s read here.  Go figure.  Grateful.

And there are the events coming up.  The fifth grade events.  The ones where she will try her best to fit in.  The ones where her PTA has carefully worked behind the scenes to help her feel “normal” as they serve her dinner at the Father Daughter Dance, and the Fifth Grade Dance.  The trip that someone will have to come to – because there won’t be any safe food there, and the growing realization that so much socialization in life revolves around food.  Just another way to feel different.  But she plugs along.  Keeps that smile.  stays focused on the good as best she can.  Because she is acutely aware that there is a lot of good.  And painfully aware that things are fleeting.

We miss my father.  It’s only been a few months, but every day seems to contain a bill, or a banking issue, or a quest to sort through the photos left behind so I can copy them for my siblings and get about the business of sharing them with the world.  There is a glitch in each direction.  No major problems.  Always just a series of minor ones.  He may not have been always around, but the time he was was powerful.  Maybe I keep myself too busy. Maybe I worry about tasks insignificant to others.  But I do, we do what we can to keep his memory alive.  We talk about reality, and we keep our most special missions close to our hearts.

There should be sunshine and roses.  But there isn’t.  Well maybe there is… if we look hard enough.  All I seem to hear are stories of tragedy, heartache and pain.  In my own family, and in general conversation there are serious illnesses, untimely death, suffering, pain, and sadness.  I don’t profess to know the grand plan.  Not for a moment.  And I am sure its better that way.    I have only learned to find the blessings I can in whatever I can, as frequently as I can.  That is what keeps me sane.

I am far from perfect at this.  FAR from perfect.  But I – like all of us, am a work in progress.  So as the days sometimes seem insurmountable…  I remind myself, and my girl – that we have to follow Dory’s advice…