I was chatting with three of my oldest girlfriends last weekend about what to register for when having a baby. These are a group of friends who have been by my side through it all, there is no BS, no drama, just four loyal girlfriends that came together through the unique sport of synchronized swimming years ago when we were just kids. Three out of the four of us have kiddos and the fourth is expecting in the new year! The new mama-to-be wanted our opinions of the “must have” items for the new baby. Despite the negative experiences my boy’s faced when they were babies along with the difficulties I had getting pregnant, I still LOVE all things baby! I was so excited to look at her baby registry. As we started discussing the must-have items, my two other friends with kids made general comments such as, “you cannot survive the first three months without X, Y & Z”. I would just laugh and say “well I didn’t need any of that stuff haha”; I didn’t need that stuff because my babies were critically ill and in the NICU at Sick Kids. I find that anytime I try to make a funny joke or comment on MY experience of being in the hospital, most people respond by saying things like, but…. “everything‘s OK now”, but... “you got through it”, but... “it’s over”, but…”look at your boys now”. I know these comments come with good intentions when they find the conversation uncomfortable but I find comments like this to be upsetting rather than encouraging as they minimize my lived experience. Without being offensive to my girlfriends, I know that I am super sensitive and aware of the “but” comments. I love them and am super happy that my friends have healthy babies and cannot wait to meet the new member of our crew but looking at a baby register and talking about what is needed for the first 3 months still brings up sadness. I think as a society, we need to recognize that everyone deals with trauma differently and there shouldn’t be a timeline on your healing. Things may trigger you YEARS later and it’s normal AND okay that triggers bring you right back to the trauma. When people find out about my kids’ stories, another common response is to tell me about another kid they knew who was sick. People would respond by saying things like, “well, my sister’s husband’s cousin’s kid has cancer and they are being treated at Sick Kids and it’s really bad”. These responses would (and still do) infuriate me! I know that many people experience hardship but it’s not a competition, we have to be supportive and understanding of all circumstances. The crazy thing is that one day I found myself responding to someone making a generalized comment about a kid and family I didn’t even know! WTF, I know exactly how it feels to be on the receiving end and I still responded this way! I was shocked when I caught myself. I KNEW BETTER! It made me realize how we all want to find a solution or give hope to an uncomfortable situation instead of just acknowledging the feelings and sitting with the discomfort of the situation. I always wondered why people didn’t respond by saying things like: “I’m so sorry that was your experience”; “That is unfair and shitty”; “This was not your fault and you, your boys and family didn’t deserve this”; “It’s okay to still be angry and sad about your experience even though your kids are older”; “I’m so glad to see your boys doing well; how have you been coping?” These types of comments were seldomly said and yet it's what I really needed to hear, especially in the thick of it. I conscientiously try to provide these kinds of supportive comments to people in my life but clearly it’s not always a natural response. Why? I recognized all that I had to be grateful for but I was still angry and had so much built up rage. I started listening to A LOT of audio books during my walks. I gravitated towards books by women explaining what it means to be a woman and a mother in today's world along with the accompanying endless expectations. I really related to Rachel’s Hollis books, Girl Wash Your Face and Girl Stop Apologizing. I am also a huge fan of Brene Brown’s work and Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed. All these books pointed out the same main messages that I was getting from our society. The main ones being: always be grateful, mothers are selfless and love being moms and women never show anger. These books helped me realize that even after giving birth we are still just humans and being a mom doesn’t give you angel wings or some crazy superpowers that everyone talks about. It does however, distort your body LOL! But seriously, listening to these authors made me realize that I myself, and society as a whole has to be kinder to ourselves; it’s impossible to be perfect at everything…. My experience really left me wondering why does our society always rush to try and give advice to make things better? Why is listening to feelings so uncomfortable? Why isn't there room for anger to sit beside gratitude? For me, when people acknowledge(d) the crap in a situation, I felt heard and my experiences felt validated. I continue to work on listening and supporting the experiences of others without trying to problem solve or draw comparisons. I’m not perfect and sometimes, I find myself sliding back into comfortable territory of glossing over feelings to offer solutions or “reminders”. But I stick with it, and I challenge you to reflect on how you respond to other people’s emotional situations and spend some time acknowledging the experience of others - you may be the first one to do it!
0 Comments
*trigger warning - very sensitive topic for me, so there is profanity in this post. Just keepin' it real. Whether it's bad timing (for real, it's ALL bad timing) or whether you're there for a long-term stay like we were... there's no worse place to be to celebrate anything remotely fun or joyous... however, SickKids for one is really amazing at keeping every single holiday spirit alive. I feel like they have a list of random holidays and even celebrate those ones too, like National Book Day or something. As for the bigger holidays and events, no one ever wants to be there for that. We missed a ton of holidays when we lived there for ¾ of a year. Starting with Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Canada Day, both long weekends, Thanksgiving (which was the hardest for us), & finally Halloween. Thankfully, we were home just in time for Christmas. The Ronald McDonald House does the most amazing things for parents during these special days. Both Mother's Day and Father's Day we were greeted with a bag of goodies that were donated by different families and companies. It was a great pick-me-up! Very much appreciated! As for spending so many days at the hospital… I'll be real with you, it fucking sucked. We missed out on Summer BBQs, cottage nights, bonfire drinks and laughs… Thanksgiving hurt the most because it's the beginning of the holiday season - all the big cozy family get together ones. We stayed with Adam while our families got together and had the most delicious meals and laughs, with cousins joking and football games on tv (ROLL TIDE!). We opted out from celebrating Thanksgiving at all - my parents offered to cook and bring it to us, but we wanted nothing to do with it. Out of sight out of mind. We made it just another day. It sucked so bad. As for Halloween…. Hah. Spooky, terrifying, haunting… all a gross understatement. October 30 was the last day we were in the CCU. After a miraculous conversation and fiiiiinally an extubation, Adam was given the go ahead to go back upstairs and back "home" to 5B. When we arrived that night, I finally felt that I could relax. That for the first time in what felt like forever, we were in the clear, we were safe… we were on our way to going home!!!!!!!! We had our nurses back, familiar faces, the happiest of greetings seeing Adam had a successful surgery and missing his sweet face for a few weeks… It wasn't all rainbows and butterflies though. Every single person tried to convince me to go back to RMH (I literally LIVED bed side in the CUU) ...I know, gross - didn't leave to eat or shower… I know, I know… but when you're watching your healthy baby now hooked up to a machine breathing for him, I literally could not leave his side. So I stayed the night in 5B. I'll keep an already long story somewhat short, but that night around 1 or 2am ...after NUMEROUS times of me BEGGING our not-so-favourite nurse to change Adam's NG tube tapes….she didn't. Adam pulled it out. Keep in mind throughout his entire CCU stay they literally had signs over his bed, our 5B Fellows would come in daily to make sure NO ONE TOUCHED OR MOVED THE NG. It was acting like a stent so that his repaired esophagus could HEAL properly. If it was moved or touched it could tear his anastomosis (Lord, there's a trigger word) ...it means it could tear his repair, the surgery would be pretty much useless if it unattached because of the removal or movement of the NG, as it was left in place for his esophagus to heal around it. Adam's surgeon wanted it in as long as possible to make sure everything was perfectly healed, it was to be removed a few days before we went home, so like a month - NOT 15 days. So I closed my eyes for literally 5 seconds (honest to God, the first time I "relaxed" in WEEKS, finally feeling safe back on 5B…. to open them to Adam laughing with something in his hand. Groggy and confused af, I think to myself "umm he pulled out his replogle…. Omg he doesn't have a replogle anymore… his NG!!!! THATS HIS F&*$# NG OMG!!!!!" Guys, I screamed so damn loud… I lost my shit. Total understatement. I absolutely just lost it all. I'm talking like screaming, crying, panic attack, full blown ugly cry, shaking, not breathing… panic beyond panic. A friggin CCU nurse was dedicated to making sure Adam's head and this damn NG tube DID NOT MOVE A MILLIMETER…. and now it's in his hand. He pulled the whole thing out up through his esophagus and out of his nose. Jesus take the wheel! I thought I was going to pass out. I told the nurse numerous times she NEEDED to redo his tapes because it was waaaayy too loose and not secure. She said she'd do it. I swear I asked her a hundred times. I feel asleep for 30 seconds, she went on break, ignored my request AND THIS HAPPENED. Y'all I lost it. When I came back to, after nearly passing out… the panic was so dang strong still, but the RAGE. Thank goodness one of our fave nurses ever was there to calm me down. She assured me that it happens all the time. She sat with me and really just helped me not get escorted out for kicking the shit out of the other nurse that night. I told you, lots of swears. I'm sorry but this night and what happened literally haunts my nightmares. Thinking that everything we just went through, the literal HELL that was the CCU, and now because someone screwed up something so simple - it all could have been for nothing, and the worst part was, he'd need another surgery, another intubation, more sedation.... it was honestly the worst case scenario now that we were past the surgery and clear of infection. Anyway, Matt was at RMH because he went back to sleep… SOMEHOW before all of this NG drama happened, when he left an hour earlier he knew I was in a terrible place and he called my parents who graciously got up and drove an hour+ after midnight to be with me… by the time I caught my breath, I called my mama and BLESSSSSS them - they were in the SickKids parking lot. So after it all happened my parents were there 30 seconds later, not even knowing the shit that just went down. Talk about good timing eh. SO HALLOWEEN. (btw, not many people know that story, and it was therapeutic af to write all of that out and get it into the open. Cause Lord, it has been weighing on my soul keeping some of these experiences in. Even though I can now laugh at it… these memories haunt me, daily. Here's to hoping releasing them causes some peace). Halloween… in the morning (after I spoke to Adam's surgeon who assured me everything was fine, thank Godddd!!!) ….we dressed Adam up as a lil sushi. My parents and brother took us for all you can east sushi before Adam's surgery and we probably ate thousands of dollars worth of food lol, so for some reason I decided to dress my kid as a sushi for halloween. Don't ask - I don't know why lmao. But I literally hand sewed on felt in the shape of salmon and added a lil wasabi, and Adam was having none of it. The first day of this kid's life tube free, he was wearing a hand sewed sushi costume for Halloween. Not a super hero. Not a doctor. A sushi. Lol. We're not even Japanese ...we just really like eating sushi. He was super cute though!!! This pic is actually really hard for us to look at. Most of the time, actually ALL of our time on 5B Adam ONLY had a foot monitor (standard for every patient) attached to him. So to see him with those ...I don't even know what to call them, ports? needles? dangly poke things.... and even worse is seeing him STILL so drugged up on hard narcotics (he was being weened off of morphine and things I can't even begin to guess how to spell) ....I see it in his eyes, he wasn't fully back to himself yet. It breaks my heart. It really is so hard for me to share these images). But yeah, what I'm saying, is that you can make the best of being there. The nurses dress up, the atrium has activities, Child Life comes by with treats and gifts - they really do make every single event or holiday memorable (hah! was it ever!!!) ... whether you decide to participate or not. …..hey, do you think there's a Bravery Bead for that? |
To navigate the BTB blog, you can scroll through the posts, or if you're looking for something specific - you can click on a category below & it will take you to related posts!
••• k Archives
September 2022
Categories
All
|