Find
The Blessings Through The Trials
As I sat outside the room looking at her
through the glass windows, my heart broke for her future. She was sitting in the hospital playroom
smiling and talking with her dad, her mind was distracted from the new life she
would have; a life of shots, pain, worry and the constant obstacles that come
with this new diagnosis. All I could
think was, “Why? Why my little girl? How will we do this? She is so young.” The tears would not stop falling from my
eyes. I had a small idea of what she
would go through. We had received the
same devastating news just a few months ago for our oldest son.
Just
3 months earlier, my son was not feeling well.
He was constantly tired and very thirsty. I knew something was wrong. After what I thought would be a quick
doctor’s appointment, we found out he had type 1 diabetes. I was in complete shock. He was healthy, played baseball daily and was
thin and very active. How could he have diabetes?
How is this even possible? What I soon
came to learn is that type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. Anyone at any age could get it and there is
nothing you can do to avoid getting it.
I remember while in the hospital with my son I was completely heartbroken
for him. As I struggled to understand
and learn more about the disease, I asked the doctor, “What are the chances any
of our other children will get this?” My heart became at ease when I heard,
“There’s only a 3% chance of his siblings getting type 1 diabetes.”
For the next few months we learned how to
deal with this new diagnosis for my son.
We soon found out that it was a tedious, constant, unrelenting disease
that would never go away. I watched him
suffer through more than 6 shots, 8 finger pricks, emotional ups and downs,
pain, sadness, and hardship every single day.
There wasn’t a day that he could take a break from the disease. As a mother it was painful to watch him struggle
and know there was nothing I could do to take this disease away; nothing I
could do to alleviate the pain he was going through. I would find myself in tears late into the
night, worrying about a diabetic seizure, or other complications with the
disease. After a few months, I finally
felt like, “Okay, we can do this, it’s going to be really hard, but we can help
him have a fulfilling life despite this disease.” I felt like I had come to terms with the
diagnosis; then another blow to my heart-my 4 year old daughter was diagnosed
with type 1 diabetes.
This new diagnosis was devastating. I watched her cry and had to hold her down for
the doctors to give her shots, knowing that she needed to get the insulin to
live. She would look into my eyes with
an expression of fear and sadness. I had
to tell her, “It’s ok, it won’t hurt too much.” I felt like I was lying to
her. She would have to go through this
pain every single day just to stay alive.
The next 2 days were filled with diabetes education, shots, finger
pricks, and trying as hard as I could to help her understand that all of this
pain was necessary; something that is really hard for a 4 year old to
understand. After the second day, I
decided we needed a break and we would go to the hospital’s playroom. My husband had just shown up and we walked
down the long hospital halls and down the elevator towards the playroom. When we got there I said, “I’m going to sit
out here for a few minutes.” My husband
and daughter continued to the playroom.
There I was, looking at her sweet little
face, an innocent, carefree young girl but that carefree life was going to be
filled with difficulty and pain that no child should have to endure. I sat
there caught in pity for her life, sadness for her pain, and worry for her
future. After about an hour we decided
to head back to her hospital room. We
walked into the elevator. After going up
one floor another child entered the elevator.
This sweet little girl was in a wheelchair and had an IV in her arm. A nurse was accompanying her to a different
floor. I looked over at my daughter and
she was hopping around, smiling and then did a ballerina twirl. She looked so
carefree and happy to be active and unplugged from her IV. Right then it hit me, “She is going to be
just fine. We can do this! She will go through the daily struggles, but
she will still be able to run, play and live her life!” At that moment I knew that I had to stop
feeling sorry for her and help strengthen her.
In the following weeks I helped her become
independent in checking her blood glucose.
She was so excited to be able to finally do it by herself. She felt accomplished, brave and strong. We decided to do something for the children
still in the hospital. We gathered gift bags filled with toys, books, and
crayons to deliver to the hospital for the children who were still there. My daughter and I delivered over 50 gift bags
to the children’s hospital for those children who were not able to leave. I thought back to just a few weeks before
when I was caught in my own sadness. It
had distracted me from the reality that I was truly blessed in many ways. I was reminded of that little girl in the
wheelchair in the hospital elevator. Although
that little girl didn’t know it, she had helped me. That moment in the elevator helped me out of
my pity slump, find gratitude for the blessings in my life and seek out ways to
serve others. Sometimes in life things
can seem unbearable until you realize the blessing sitting right in front of
you.
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