Hard Lesson

I still can remember sitting in that chair, filling out more paperwork as tears dripped on the papers in my lap. I was in complete shock. "They're just wrong -- we shouldn't be here. Surely, this neurologist had something wrong somewhere. He had to be mistaken...there's just no way." The worry and the "what if's" consumed me to the point of nausea. I had created just about every scenario in my head and the only thing I could do is cry.

I glanced over at Taylor sitting next to me and just stared at her while she read a book. She was so little that her feet barely hung over the seat of the chair. For a minute or two the worry that had consumed me just minutes before was overpowered by pride. I sat there a few minutes more, watching her turn through the pages with her thick, pudgy hands. She was far too young to read but her imagination still told her a good story. And as quick as I was overwhelmed with adoration and pride, the worry resided again.

"She's only 4. How is this fair? If it IS a tumor, what happens next? What if it happens at school...all the kids will make fun of her. Would she ever be able to drive? What about swimming and sports? What are our treatment options? Medication? Is it harmful? Did I give this to her? Are my genes responsible for this?"

Just the week before Taylor had had a seizure. Our pediatrician insisted we bring her in and in the course of the hours (and numerous tests) to follow, we were told it was epilepsy. The days between her first seizure and that day in the neurologist's office, were endlessly spent in long bouts of crying, worry, and self-pity.

I must've been lost somewhere in my wondering mind and lack of sleep when I was startled by the waiting room door opening. The window in the top half of the door framed a young mom, maybe in her late thirties, cumbersomely opening the door. After a few minutes wrestling the bags on her shoulder and the doorknob, the door slowly swung open, and she pushed thru her wheelchair-confined son. It seemed like an hour, but it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds that I watched her glide him into the waiting room and park him almost directly in front of me. I know I had to have been staring at them, and I know she knew -- she had to have felt my eyes fixed on the two of them.

He was reclined in his black wheelchair with his hands folded neatly in his lap, his legs slightly elevated. He wore a dark blue sweat suit but was covered up with a Batman blanket tucked clear to his chin. He must've been eight years old. Maybe nine. His sandy blonde hair was barely peeking out of the red helmet strapped firmly to his little head.

His mom walked over to the receptionist to check them in and then returned to her son, sitting in the chair next to him. She had short dark hair and skin and her cheeks were rosy. She removed her coat to reveal a crisp, white, button-down shirt tucked neatly into her jeans.

She leaned over to her son, flashed him a warm smile and pulled down his blanket. Having seen an episode in the same waiting room the week before, I knew the straps around his chest were for his own safety...his seizures were obviously far worse than Taylor's and were responsible for the restraints and the helmet. She adjusted the bib around his neck and sat back in her chair. I forced myself to look away, choosing to look at Taylor as a distraction to what was before me. And as if she knew of my discomfort, the nurse appeared and called us back to the exam room.

I gathered our coats, and as I passed, I glanced at the mom who had been rustling in her purse. There she sat with a compact mirror in her hand, beginning to apply her lipstick.

The next hour was a blur and when the fog finally lifted, I found myself in my car, crying hysterically. I was so ashamed at myself and disappointed for the way I had been acting.

"ERICKA!!! What are you doing?!? Taylor is fine! She’ll outgrow it!! She'll have a normal life. THAT Mom in there will never see her son ride a bike, or run to first base. You don't have it so bad! This is not the end of the world!! Do you have any idea how lucky you are?"

I learned a hard, hard lesson that day. I cried the entire way home...thankful that I would never know what that mom in that waiting room experienced on a day to day basis. I would never know the heartache, the discourage, or the loneliness. I would never know what it’s like to try to bathe a child with a physical impairment. Or have to purchase a van that’s wheelchair accessible. I would never know.

There are still times when I find myself reminded of that day....and how lucky I am. Taylor WAS fine, and she IS perfectly normal. She outgrew the epilepsy and is (thank God!) healthy. She plays sports -- too many sometimes -- and she swims like a fish. She's smart and she's absolutely beautiful.

But every so often, when I feel like I've been beaten in my life, when things just aren't going my way -- regardless of the situation -- I'm taken back to that long car ride home, when I was hysterically sobbing, promising myself that I would never, ever, let myself forget that someone, somewhere, could trump the hand that I was dealt and would trade places with me in a heartbeat.

Last week was one of those weeks. Every time I turned around, I was facing another battle that defeated me. I was broken down and overwhelmed. But at the end of every day, when I laid my head down on the pillow, I remembered this day and the mom who, despite her own battles, still put on her lipstick.