Here’s what I think about strength in the face of adversity – there’s no such thing. In terms of myself, that is.
Since I’ve started writing, putting snippets of tales on the screen (and on actual paper, once upon a time), I’ve gotten the word strong as a reply. As if still being alive, or able to put together semi-coherent sentences despite beatings and drugs is an amazing feat.
It’s not.
We deal with the hands we’re given and sometimes, we make silly, stupid mistakes (or worse, intentionally destructive path changes) that are on par with returning half of our hand and crossing fingers. Sometimes we do so out of the gate, before instinct’s kicked in and told us that our opponent is holding trip aces. And we get fucked. Or sometimes, we get a royal flush.
What matters is not the hand, nor how many people see you sweat through your bad poker face, but how many chips you walk away with. And maybe how many high balls you had, sitting at the table.
And everyone’s reality – their own shitty childhoods or defacing boyfriends or grief over losing a loved one – is just as real and wrong and hurtful as the next’s. No one gets special points, I think, for having lived more though I admit to sometimes sneering in someone’s direction who has been incredibly sheltered and is crying because their father didn’t buy them an apartment or something.
So, that being said, sometimes cracks and fissures appear in my hard nougat shell that some people have referred to as strong. And I’m left mentally yelling at a god I don’t believe in, “for fuck sakes. I am just this one little person. How much do you think I can handle? You’re crushing me.”
With certain exceptions, I’ve been making those silent statements for weeks, at least. Sometimes, it seems like years.
For all the good in my life, the angels, and beauty, and the wonder that is watching Isobel be her own person, there are counterparts and it seems, sometimes, that they only come out in tandem. When it rains, it pours, etc.
First came one of my friends being released from her employment – someone I used to ghost write for, and therefore a sizable amount of writing income was lost for me and she was panicked.
Then came Isobel’s (forgive the details) fucking ass bleeding. Which led to a doctor’s appointment explaining the likihood that her dairy sensitivity had progressed, to a point at least severe enough for her lower intestine to bleed.
Why? Repeated exposure. I’ll admit, I’d been good about not giving her anything directly dairy linked, but I wasn’t checking labels like a proper food sleuth should. I helped that develop in her. But I didn’t know.
So, I made it perfectly, succinctly clear that both of us parents needed to make sure not one damn bit of dairy ingredients went into her body. I succeeded in my task, but I failed, because he came home with her, saying things like, “it was only a little,” as I sputtered at his neglect.
A few weeks passed by, weeks during which he’s alternated loving me, trying to love me via email, giving me the silent treatment and lecturing me that, “she can’t live on just fruits, vegetables and meat and bread. It’s not healthy.” Apparently, there’s concern that a lack of milk in her diet, even though milk is making her fucking bleed inside (sorry, a touch upset), will lead to brittle bones.
I explained, trying not to laugh in his face, about calcium fortified rice milk and orange juice, about broccoli and beef and spinach and they’re iron-laden-ness. About really? How it’s the fucking perfect diet for a human being. I stopped myself before I retorted my thought ‘I suppose a diet rich in milk, beer, wine and gas station convenience store food would be much healthier?’
Because I’m mature, obviously.
We went back for a follow up appointment today, with some new symptoms. I played the doctor, honestly, professing a complete lack of research and knowledge. Not colouring his perspective at all. Verdict?
Isobel is being referred to a pediatrician – akin to a specialist, if you live in BC’s medical system – to be tested for celiac disease. I said a wheat allergy? (I was pretending I knew nothing, remember.) And he said that with her mood swings and energy swings and constant tiredness but inability to settle, it was a stronger indicator for gluten being the problem.
So, Isobel will need to go for testing. And I can’t change one thing about her diet because whenever those tests are done, they want her ripe with gluten and such. I’m a little terrified to feed her, guys.
She’s been tested for dairy and gluten before – a year ago when Stargirl accompanied us the the children’s hospital to have her blood drawn (is it wrong that I was so proud of her for not even flinching?) – and the tests came back negative. Which might make a more conclusive test required: a biopsy of, if I understand this properly, her stomach lining.
Oh, did I mention that the doctor mentioned that I should let her dad know that she’s to have absolutely no dairy? That was a perfect poker-face opportunity.
It’s been mentioned by a few that his visitation with her might need to be discontinued because he chooses to proceed in the ill-informed, head-in-the-sand manner about her health he has done. Especially if gluten is a problem (milk and gluten? Is like, in everything.) To protect her health, not as a punishment.
Do you understand, really, how much that blows? How heartbreaking that might be, that this person I want to just grow up and be the person he can be, might, again, be separated from his child. By me. Because of his actions. For the fourth time in the past year and a half. It’s fucking clown shoes.
Despite that anger and sadness over him, the constant thought in my last week of watching her be sicker and suffering stomachaches and mood swings and even the bedtime routine of screaming (which, after nearly two hours on Saturday night brought me to powerless, angry tears) is this:
My baby. My poor little baby.
It’s too much for me…
There isn’t enough strength left, if there was any, at all. These bony shoulders are being broken from the weight of it all. And all I can do is put on a happy face and love her from a bit of a distance because she doesn’t often let me love her closely. It’s breaking my heart, all of this shit that should not be a part of our lives. Of hers.
I have friends hurting. I see things not working out as they should for others who’ve met so many challenges already, they shouldn’t need to fight anymore. And it’s just all too heavy.
Then I got an email that made me smile, saying my blog had been ranked relatively high on the mommy blogger spectrum of Mommy Blips. And it’s something small and insignificant to real life scenarios, but it was something, wherein there’s only been a few somethings lately…
So please, do me a favour. I don’t want comments about being strong or this too shall passes. I want you to tell me something good in your life. Please. Make me smile and be happy for you, okay?
