Wednesday, April 3, 2019

13 days

On Saturday night Sonzee had one of her typical 15-minute seizures.  Her oldest sister sat down next to her completely unprompted and began stroking her head.  When I got the seizure tracker app open the video being captured was just so sweet that for a split second I could almost forget the reason behind the comforting.  I was not really thinking about much at the time besides that I needed to finish getting Sonzee's TPN ready, and then the silence was broken by an innocent 9-year-old asking if one of Sonzee's CDKL5 siblings walks. 

For the next 13 min and 59 seconds, my oldest continued to ask about the skillset of this other CDKL5 child and then spoke about another CDKL5 sibling who had passed who would have been her age and in her grade.  During the entire conversational exchange, she rubbed Sonzee's arm, her head, and was talking to her.  At one point she explained to Sonzee that she has seizures at the worst time because she made her siblings late to school last week.  From one perspective it was as if she was just chatting with her sister over breakfast, yet the reality was that her sister was actively seizing.
I sent the video to the mom of one of the children my oldest was referring to during the conversation and she replied "okay I am going to ignore the fact that the video is actually of a long seizure and tell you that it is good...[oldest sister] is too too aware though, it really breaks your heart". 

As we continue with 13 days remaining until Sonzee's diagnosis day anniversary, it is even more striking to me how much a diagnosis of CDKL5 effects not just the child, but the entire family.  April 16, 2015, was not just the beginning of Sonya's Story, it really was the start of a new chapter for every single member of our family that forever changed, and in some cases completely reshaped and shifted the trajectory for each of our individual lives.  While I know the positive traits our children are likely to gain because of such a diagnosis, a lot of the experiences they have to endure continuously break my heart.

The Mighty Contributor

2 comments:

  1. On the positive side. My oldest became a combat medic and then a Houston police officer. My second became a nurse practitioner here in Phoenix. They were 4 & 6 when we had a CMV baby. We embrace each difficult day. We cry. We rejoice. We love.💙

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