Life. It’s the Worst.

Yes, yes, I know.  Do not be discouraged.  Life is also the best sometimes too.  And I agree.  But right now, it is the worst.  I am the worst.  Everything is the worst.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was yelling at my son to put his boots on, he had a seizure.  We were running late to pick his sister up at school, I had just put his coat on for him because he was refusing, and as his tantrum continued, and I kept on shouting that we were in a hurry, he fell to his knees, arched violently backward, head hitting the floor, and started convulsing.  At first I wasn’t sure if this was just a new level of tantrum, but he started gurgling and choking, and I rushed over to turn him onto his side to restore breathing.

Do you understand?  He flew backwards and slammed his head into the floor.  He stopped breathing.  And there was a chance that the last experience he would ever have known was me angrily shouting at him.  There was a chance that me angrily shouting at him brought on whatever was happening.  Stress and chaos do have a role to play in these things you know.  Whatever was going on, it was very clear to me that I had failed as a parent and as a human being.  I called 911 in tears, with a small percentage of me despairing over the fact that I knew exactly what to do, and that this somehow didn’t seem all that unusual.

What made it all worse was the fact that my three-year-old was not as okay with this whole thing as his sister had been.  She had come out of her seizures goofy and dopey, and generally accepting of the lemons that life had handed her.  Edward was not comfortable.  He was scared.  They had to draw blood, and he was terrified.  This morning he is still worried about it.  He keeps telling me how much it hurt, and how much he does not want to go back in for any tests.  I showed him pictures of his sister during her EEG, and she told him how much fun it was, but he is not at all convinced.

At this point I can do nothing but be with him, waiting for doctors to call and schedule exams.  I can hold his hand, watch him like a hawk, and worry.  He knows something is up.  I am not roughhousing with him like he likes.  I am hovering.  I am stressed out, and he can feel it.  This is no way to be.  But what can I do?  “Everyone gets one free seizure,” they told us at the ER.  Meaning that, unless it happens again, we are not an emergency top priority.  Life.  It’s the worst.