Impartial

This week in our CDKL5 support group we welcomed so many new families who have babies.  I now consider anyone younger than Sonzee a baby and I am struggling with the realization that in just three short months she will be two.  This is a challenging concept to wrap my head around for so many reasons; I am having trouble picking the ones to focus on for this post.  With the challenges her 21 months of life have thrown at her, I am really proud and content with the place she is currently, however, I cannot ignore the elephant in the room that says, "None of the past 21 months has been normal, and none of it is fair".  I really think that the best lesson of my life I learned in 5th grade with Miss Bailey when she introduced our class to the word "impartial" with the sentence, "Life is not impartial".  Nothing like a great review of 21 months to say, "Miss Bailey, you were absolutely correct".

Sonzee is alive, she is absorbing food, she is healthy..., but we should not have to think about these things.  I should be chasing a toddler around my house; picking her up from the ground as she falls as she runs after her siblings trying to join in their shenanigans.  I should be enrolling her into dance class with Miss Jenny and Miss Emily.  She should be running around the gym with Coach Susan.  The appointments I make should not be with neurology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, ophthalmology, and/or interventional radiology.  I should not be parking in a handicap parking space and unfolding a stroller with a blue placard that explains it is being used as a wheelchair. 

My favorite part of having three girls is opening up the drawer of clothing and reminiscing over what her sisters did while wearing each outfit, knowing how every fade, stain, and spot was caused.  I love when her sister says "that laeya's?  That not mine.  That Sonzee’s?"  Words I most likely will not ever hear come from Sonzee's mouth.  The clothing will be passed down to her baby cousin, and it will bring me so much joy and happiness to watch her do the things in them that Sonzee has not, but it will also sting.  This is not how it is supposed to be.  My heart hurts.

When I look at Sonzee while she is in the pool with children her age it is completely mind boggling that they are the same age.  When children her age walk up to the stroller it stings when they say "baby", not because they are calling her a "baby", but because they are absolutely correct, she looks and acts like a baby.  It is the truth that hurts.  It is our current situation that is painful.  I do not understand why this had to happen to her.  I honestly do not try to make heads or tails of it, but I wish I knew why she has to suffer.

As each day goes by I am so thankful that she is still here with us, but it also gets scarier for me to think "how much time does she have left".  While I am being honest, there are days when her suffering is just so horrific that I wonder, "Which outcome is better for her?"  There have been days during the past 21 months that I have wondered which box to check off when they ask about 911 or comfort measures.  These are not the type of parenting questions I should be answering about my 21-month-old child.  This is not fair.  

There have been many positives that have occurred over the past 21 months, but none of them came without having to battle.  Nothing since her birth has been easy, and nothing about her future will be either.  Each day since her birth I have lived on a tight rope trying to balance.  The atmosphere in our lives each day over the past 21 months has been dictated by how she feels.  We live in a constant state of limbo while walking on eggshells hoping and praying that no matter what, a rebound will occur.  As I previously stated, today things are going well because things are going well for Sonzee, but it does not change the aching pit in my stomach of how different this life is from the one I envisioned.  I wish our family had never known of CDKL5, but as I learned in grade school about 22 years ago...life is not impartial.


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