Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Surreal

This past week has seen me tredge through hell and back. I wandered the fields of hope and despair and have come to rest at the valley of acceptance. When I first heard Puck's diagnosis and realized how seriously sick he was my heart broke. No mother ever wants to hear heart failure put into a sentence regarding their child. And let's be honest.."heart failure" equates to death in most people's minds. The heart is definitely a necessity and when it's failing that generally doesn't seem like a manageable problem.

But the weird and true fact is.."congestive heart failure" can be managed...for years. I don't know how long I will have to "manage" his heart failure for. I don't know what the future holds. He may require heart surgery, he may not. All I know for certain right now is that he's alive, he's thriving, and my fears of waking up beside him to find he has passed away are slowly fading.

It's a surreal world I live in now. One where I find myself being thankful that the only problems with his heart is a ventricular septal defect. But I suppose I'm trying to take the advice I gave to Puck before he was even born. The reality is that life will give you good times and bad. And their will be moments where you will "cry real tears, and ache real aches, and hurt real hurts" and as much as I have wanted to skip over this period of time, the fact is it has made me stronger. It has made me a better mother. I no longer take my children's health for granted. I no longer believe "that it could never happen to me" because the world doesn't work that way. The world doesn't care if your a good person, or if the baby you are crying over is innocent and blameless. This world will give us all challenges, and it's how we meet those challenges which will define us as a person.

I told you Puck to never live in the future because we never know how far that future goes. I told you that when your moment came to grasp onto it and enjoy it while you could. So that's what I'm doing baby boy. Yesterday gave me that moment...when I saw that scale and realized you had gained weight! And so I'm going to hold onto that moment for as long as I can. Because today maybe all we have, and today you're heart is beating, and your lungs are breathing, and your body is warm and snuggable. So my moment today is going to be all the cuddles I can manage.

2 comments:

Lonnie said...

Carrie, if I could choose a daughter, I would choose you. XO

carrie said...

Aww thanks Lon! I would say I would choose you as a mother but I think my own mother would be annoyed and offended by that statement...lol!