FTF: Disabled x2 by Leslie O'Donnell
Here is November's First Things First article. This article comes from Leslie O'Donnell. Although Leslie’s background is in disability activism, psych education & special-ed teaching, Leslie O'Donnell now finds herself in the full-time career of special-needs parenting. The mother of a neurologically disabled toddler, Leslie asks the tough questions and offers the tougher answers.
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Two weeks ago, I woke up at 5:30am in excruciating and unfamiliar pain. The doctor on-call that night listened to my symptoms and thought it sounded like kidney stones. What I heard was, “You will have to pull a still-exhausted Jamie out of bed, and torture him and everyone else by dragging him through a long visit to just the sort of medical facility that he has really bad memories of and phobias about. This will potentially lead into him getting to leave only by being torn away from you, who will have to stay there getting treated, therefore NOT BE THERE TO BE HIS MOMMY.” Suddenly, my pain levels and diagnostic prospects mattered a whole lot less. Well, they did to me, anyway. My husband, devoted daddy and husband that he is, was having none of it. “Just how expendable do you think you are?!?!” he not-quite-asked me.
It’s funny. You never expect it to be flattering if your husband looks at you as if you were the most infuriating idiot in the world. As it turns out, it can be.
Testing showed that my kidneys were fine, but my gallbladder had had just about enough of me. I had to resign myself to all the infinite lamentable ramifications of NOT BEING THERE for my child, that a special needs mommy is a little too good at thinking of. Furthermore, while they just barely managed to remove the organ laproscopically, I had to resign myself to a one day emergency surgery that still managed to turn into three days and two nights in the hospital. Still, now that I’ve been home for a week, Jamie has mostly recovered, and I can again hug him silly without immediately screaming in pain or throwing up, it is somewhat easier to remind myself that by putting him through those three days without me, I was able to avoid a more intensive version of the surgery which would have kept us apart for far longer. More importantly, I was able to make sure, at least on this account, that Mommy would remain with him, in a more general sense, to get him through all the other traumatic surprises life can hold in store.
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Disabled x2
By Leslie O'DonnellTwo weeks ago, I woke up at 5:30am in excruciating and unfamiliar pain. The doctor on-call that night listened to my symptoms and thought it sounded like kidney stones. What I heard was, “You will have to pull a still-exhausted Jamie out of bed, and torture him and everyone else by dragging him through a long visit to just the sort of medical facility that he has really bad memories of and phobias about. This will potentially lead into him getting to leave only by being torn away from you, who will have to stay there getting treated, therefore NOT BE THERE TO BE HIS MOMMY.” Suddenly, my pain levels and diagnostic prospects mattered a whole lot less. Well, they did to me, anyway. My husband, devoted daddy and husband that he is, was having none of it. “Just how expendable do you think you are?!?!” he not-quite-asked me.
It’s funny. You never expect it to be flattering if your husband looks at you as if you were the most infuriating idiot in the world. As it turns out, it can be.
Testing showed that my kidneys were fine, but my gallbladder had had just about enough of me. I had to resign myself to all the infinite lamentable ramifications of NOT BEING THERE for my child, that a special needs mommy is a little too good at thinking of. Furthermore, while they just barely managed to remove the organ laproscopically, I had to resign myself to a one day emergency surgery that still managed to turn into three days and two nights in the hospital. Still, now that I’ve been home for a week, Jamie has mostly recovered, and I can again hug him silly without immediately screaming in pain or throwing up, it is somewhat easier to remind myself that by putting him through those three days without me, I was able to avoid a more intensive version of the surgery which would have kept us apart for far longer. More importantly, I was able to make sure, at least on this account, that Mommy would remain with him, in a more general sense, to get him through all the other traumatic surprises life can hold in store.
Read more »
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