We just hit the third anniversary of one of the scariest moments I have had with Bridger - when I walked into his room in the night to check on him and found him gray, covered in vomit and unresponsive. I yelled for Alan and we gently moved him from his bed to the floor where he proceeded to launch into a full tonic clonic seizure that would not stop. I was on the phone with 911 and went down to the front door to watch for the ambulance while Alan, with the most steady and calm voice, would shout down updates for me to relay to the 911 operator. His dialogue went something like this: "Ok, he is not breathing now. . . come on, Bridger, you can make it. . . Now he is turning blue. . . .Bridger, stay with us. . ." It is a side of our husband's that not many of us ever have to see. But having seen that side, I love him in a whole new way. He is a rock. I have written about this incident before, but have left out some details in my previous telling. My omission -- the part about me.
I was a mess. I was trembling and shaking as I watched for the ambulance (as well as the trailing ambulance, fire engine, fire and rescue suburban, and two police cars) to pull up. I opened the front door as they rushed in with all of their life saving gear in tow. The first person in the door, however, did not rush up the stairs to Bridger's room. She came to me -- the scared, trembling mom standing next to the door and she took me over to the couch and sat me down and put an oxygen mask on me. She held my hand as people rushed up and down the stairs, eventually carrying a gurney out the front door with a small convulsing child on it and an EMT manually pumping oxygen into his lungs. She drove me in her car with the emergency lights on (though it was against policy) closely following the ambulance and translated the updates that were broadcast over the radio. She walked me into the hospital, transferred me to the care of the hospital social worker and then discreetly disappeared forever. Despite all of the fear and critical attention needed for Bridger, she only had concern for me.
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That is not attention that is often ever cast my way. From the hundreds of medical appointments we attend each year to the countless social pleasantries I exchange to others in passing, "How is Bridger?" are always the first words out of people's lips. Often it is followed by, "and how are the other kids?" Once in a while, I feel a little whisper inside of me saying, "and what about me?"
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Special needs moms are so smothered by the weight, commotion and overwhelming presentation of this special package that we are so far removed from anyone's radar. I recently attended a play and watched all of those stage hands wearing black clothing, dashing across the stage making sure all of the backdrops are changed and props in place, all the while hiding, ducking and camouflaged from the common view. That is what I feel like.
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Well-meaning acquaintances will offer their wisdom that, "You have to make sure and take care of yourself." Doctors, who see all too well the demands of this journey, know better than to offer such lofty and trite advice. They simply look at me with the most sincere and genuine eyes and tell me I am doing amazing. Then they bury me with a new load of prescriptions, recommendations, follow up and new specialists to see and send me out the door.
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So what about me? What about any special needs mom? Though we don't want attention, praise or anything of the sort, a bit of respect is always appreciated for doing superhuman feats with a very human body. Our "take care of yourself" time comes in the most pathetic forms -- we might browse the newest items of a special needs equipment catalog while we wait for an inherently late Special Education bus to arrive or we might go to the doctor for our own ailing bodies once in a while, or pause to give an extra long greeting to a friend we run into in the store as we ignore the screams from our child that come for daring to do so. For me, my "take care of yourself" time has come in the form of a long neglected back surgery so that, after I heed my 3 months of restrictions to not lift Bridger (ha), I can lift him again with moderate pain instead of severe pain. So here I lay absorbing a stack of magazines centered around life sustaining information like home organization and getting better abs, tuning out a home repair show, taking an occasional nap as I sleep off the pain meds, trying not to think about another surgery that awaits me in the future when Bridger grows from his 4' body to his 6' + one.
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Yep, I got my wish. Right now, it is all about me.
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*please pardon any grammatical errors, run on sentences or other nonsensical ramblings. This post was written fully under the influence of Percocet.
