Tag

grief

Jan 20
1

On the Emotional Struggle

By | #teammikaere | No Comments

There was an article I read a while ago, which was shared all over the special needs community. PTSD Helps Parents Keep Their Medically Fragile Children Alive — But At What Cost?

It was validating, I guess, but not super helpful. The main point is that the ongoing strain of the special needs life causes intense stress resulting in PTSD. There was a comparison that treating PTSD in special needs parents was similar to treating it in service members engaged in active combat.

However, the ‘how to deal with stress’ or PTSD advice was low on the ground, or as the article put it: there are ‘financial or logistical barriers’ to carers receiving care.

And I get that. I don’t know when I’m meant to fit in self care in Mikaere’s day (don’t tell me the line about how important it is, because I don’t want to hear it – I already KNOW it. Not knowing how important it is not my problem). Truth: I also don’t have the funds for the care, or the funds needed to pay for a nurse while I go to do whatever it is. Just as a comparison: I have had my hair cut exactly twice this year, both times when I was away without Sam and Kai, that I saved up over MONTHS for. If I can’t manage a haircut while taking care of Mikaere I couldn’t see myself managing regular therapy.

(Side note: I want to clarify that we get couples therapy through our hospice, specifically to tackle bereavement and the special needs life. Our therapist comes to us so we don’t need to worry about care for Mikaere. It’s also paid for by our hospice, which we’re grateful for. But a session every few weeks is helpful when you’re in a safe space and maintaining, but in our life too much happens for us ever to get to the ‘maintaining’ part of things. We’re always tackling the next crisis).

Thing is,  I cycle through the occasional periods of ‘I’m fine, look at me do all the things’ with the debilitating downsides of extreme and chronic grief and depression. I’m going to pause here for a moment, because it feels weird to admit this at large to the internet. But the truth is, children have died. Many children, that we knew and love. My child will one day die, and I don’t know whether that’s soon, or not soon (both realities are inconceivably scary). If you add in the sleep deprivation from around the clock care, and the relentless day-to-day appointments and therapy, I think extreme and chronic grief and depression is an appropriate response.

The thing is, when I’m so down, doing anything other than taking care of Mikaere is tough. (Side note: I will never be so down that I can’t care for my son. He will always get the meds and feeds and care he needs, because idea that his already limited life should be anything less because of my feelings is impossible and will not happen).

I just… I feel like my emotions are raw, just under the surface all the time. It comes with all the shame and guilt and feelings like I should be better at holding it all together. I should be better for Mikaere. (To be clear, again, in case any stranger on the internet feels the need to DM me with their concerns  – his needs always come ahead of mine, because if they don’t he’ll go into a seizure coma and die. Even in my deepest darkest abyss, I’ve will never not be able to take care of him).

You guys… so many children we care about have died. I talk about this all of the time, but I’m really struggling with it. There are big gapping holes in my heart. My child is so disabled and his disorder is terminal – the phrase ‘all is right with the world’ will never again be relevant to me. I’m constantly fighting for the next thing, constantly trying to figure how to get more for Mikaere, how to keep our little ship afloat, keep him happy and healthy. How I’m meant to hold on to the happy when our day to days are so stressful is beyond me.

I’m at a loss. I feel like I basically need to find another outlet for my emotions. I think about the gym. I think about more 1-1 therapy. I think about how we’re a single income family and how I’m meant to find time and money to do these things and the idea of finding time in Mikaere’s schedule and organising care… it seems impossible.

And then I mentioned it to our Homestart Worker. Homestart are charity, and they have a therapist who does pro-bono sessions.  And now I’m set to see a therapist. I’m nervous, not really sure about how it’s going to go. I’m also really nervous about unpacking all the feelings from the last three years that I’ve packed waaaay down so I can get on with my day to day.

I’m scared to stay where I am, in the infeasible present, and I’m scared to start therapy, and facing the giant mess of grief I’m holding tight. I don’t fully understand how people navigate the world of pallative and grief and special needs without crumbling. The last three years have been so brutal. Facing more years seems huge (and idea of not facing more years seems impossibly crushing).

If someone has a magic wand they could wave, that’s the solution I could use right now. (Or you can fundraise/donate towards a cure. I’m shaving my head for NKH research, so yeah. Donations would work too).

 

Jun 07
0

Drinking shouldn’t be a Coping and Resilience Strategy

By | #teammikaere | One Comment

Following up on that last post, I want to talk about how I went to a ‘Coping and Resilience Strategies’ talk at our special needs playgroup centre a while back (way way back). You’d think it would have been well timed, right?

There was an educational psychologist who had a special needs son who had come to talk to parents like us. She was ten years ahead in her special needs journey and felt she was able to come chat to us. Perhaps it was that I was the only parent there with a terminal diagnosis, and one of the few who was regularly receiving announcements of other children we knew who had died, but her talk didn’t resonate with me.

First, she talked about coping. I think there is a huge difference between coping (which we all do out of necessity to keep our children safe and alive) and coping well.

I’m not coping well. And you can tell. I’m snappy, unfocused, and go from fine to deep deep in the abyss. In the meantime I have to hustle to get myself moving, but that hustle has zero results, I’m hustling but I’m a mess. I’m easily distracted and really have to force myself with lists and checks to make sure Mikaere’s needs are met (I’m not talking about his basic needs, I can do feeds, nappy changes and meds and appointments with my eyes closed. I’m talking about chasing up that gastro and respiratory referral that went nowhere, calling back the wheelchair lady who called to book an assessment and his anti-epileptic dose needs increasing and I should reach out to the neurologist and I need to chase the nerve/skin biopsy sample to make sure the fibroblasts get to the researcher, and I need the community nurse to update the gp with his latest doses cause the pharmacy got a prescription with the wrong ones last week. The OT needs chasing, because he’s due another block, and his chair needs a new pommel/groin strap that makes his current chair unsafe. Can I fit in more CME or ABM? I need to chase the therapist…) That stuff, the never ending special needs loose ends that would fly off into the wind if I’m not careful).

But it’s work. It’s work that requires attention to detail and focus and time and I have none of those things. At first I was all make it achievable. Do five things. Just five. But then Kai had a seizure or an unexpected therapist showed up on the wrong day or the carer was sick and couldn’t come and my day was derailed. My days are always derailed.

So come 3pm and I haven’t eaten and am only half dressed (despite the three therapy appointments we’ve already had) and I need to hustle to get Kai down for a nap and still do his blend before 6pm and just… I’m struggling. I’m struggling. It’s all hands on deck, what do I need to do to get through.

Anyway, back to that talk. She didn’t give us strategies for coping. She asked US to provide strategies. Shut up. I have no strategies, which is why I came to the damn talk. I want to know what it is I can do that fits in Kai’s day that’s affordable that I can do.

There weren’t many. Exercise and therapy and socialising (aka, drinking. Not even kidding). But they’re all things that get cancelled on a derailed day, and our days are often derailed. The main thing on the list that I could do was drink. I’m not even kidding. But I can’t use alcohol as a coping strategy because I need to be sober for Kai.

After the not very helpful talk I went to the local pub with a handful of other social needs parents. I drank gin and bitched about the inefficiency of the NHS central booking/appointment system, and nodded as other parents bitched about EHCP’s and having to fill out the DLA forms and fighting with their dieticians about the blended diet. It was beautiful. But that was one night, when my boy was safe at home with Sam and a nurse. That’s not a regular thing, and so sue me if I don’t want drinking to become my main coping mechanism.

My point is we live the special needs life. It’s hard. So hard. But we move forward out of necessity, because these are our kids lives. We cope out of necessity. We show up. But that doesn’t mean we’re coping well.

Coping well, that’s what I want to know how to do.

It occurs to me, that as I reach well over two years of living the special needs life, as he gets older and requires more support, and the support we get is less, I now understand why special needs parents ahead of us have the attitudes they do. They’ve been in the wars longer, they’re less green, and they don’t have answers either.

I don’t have any answers. Hey ho. Onwards we go.

Apr 30
0

On moving between fear and loss

By | #teammikaere | No Comments

In the NKH Community there’s a death bandwagon that happens after a family announce their angel has gained their wings. Hundreds of messages are sent to the family. Publicly every NKH page has an announcement, with a picture. It takes over facebook, really. Hundreds of comments are left for the family, and hundreds of comments are sent to the people who posted about the community loss. They have prayers, and are sorry for all the losses and are sending so much love (I’ve said those platitudes too, no judgement here).

I’m not sure how I feel about this bandwagon – this giant flood of not so comforting posts. I’m torn.

I’ve been that poster. I’ve posted about more children passing than I would like too. I said I was devastated, and heartbroken and struggling. But truth is for most of the children I’ve posted about – I’d never met that child. I’d known them through the community, through the posts that their parents made. The pictures they put up. The messages they sent. Halle Mae. Kaleb. Mayanak. Cathryn. Gregory. Siem.

I say their names to remember them. They’re important, and they were so loved and will be fiercely missed.

But truth is, I never met them. I don’t have relationships with their parents. The grief of their parents I imagine is huge and very much theirs. But I don’t know them and I can’t know for sure. My grief? I didn’t know it at the time but my grief is fear that it will happen to my child. I posted about these children in such a blithe manner. I really did. I had feelings and I took to the internet (I still am, clearly).

But now I’ve had tiny insight to the other side. Alexander, a boy I knew in real life outside of the internet and met, several times in the last two years died. I adore his Mama, and we’d send messages and do visits and invite each other to the few social gatherings we arranged each year. We’re on each others Christmas Card Lists. I knew he was ill and visited when I could. I knew when it was days and couldn’t visit and it broke me. They graciously let us know when he’d gained his wings, and oh. I had a whole lot of complex feelings, and I felt so strongly for his parents. I struggled, and thought of him constantly.

It was raw, this grief. Because this grief wasn’t about my son, it wasn’t about how I felt about NKH, it wasn’t a fear that one day NKH will take Mikaere. This grief was about Alexander, the dent he’d made in our lives and the hole that exists where he was. I was feeling his loss, specifically. His loss, and such compassion and love for his parents and their loss.

And after his parents let the world know and the memorial posts came flooding in I wanted to tell everyone to shut up. I didn’t, of course. They have grief and feelings and love and none of it was malicious and they have every right to post and make videos and share their grief and they should absolutely do that.

After some gentle examination I worked how I was upset because I could see the difference in my posts. The difference between grief and my fear for Mikaere, and grief that’s because I feel the loss for Alexander specifically. I wanted to say the later feels more genuine, I don’t think that’s true. It’s grief. Complex and unwieldy. I don’t know if that difference even matters. My grief is all over the place, and I’m trying to think and feel my way through it.

I’m struggling. I don’t know how to feel about it. But I do know that I want you to know about it. Not my grief and my feelings but I want to talk about grief. I wish there was more open, genuine talk about grief and death. I can’t help but feel that if we as a society were more open to grief and death, and if we were okay to sit with the uncomfortable together for one hot minute without trying to shy away or fix the unfixable the burden might be less. That we might be able to sit together to remember the people who are important to us, that we could openly feel and say how grief is complex. How death is unfair and brutal and a relief and grace and there is anger and pain and love and hurt and it’s all mixed in together. That we can love and miss and grieve openly without someone telling us to pull it together, or hide it away.

And I get how crazy that is, because here I am trying desperately (and openly) trying to come to terms with my grief over and over and over. In one post after another. I’m trying to be open to feeling what I feel around grief and death. Right now it feels so wrong, and hurts and it’s heavy and huge. I can’t help but think there must be some other way (or rather, that there must be some better way forward for managing those feelings). That there is a way to have a better and healthier relationship with life, illness and death.

We’ll see. I’m sure there will be more posts on grief.

Mar 28
1

Still thinking about Grief

By | #teammikaere | One Comment

Okay. I’ve spoken to so many people about grief. About people who work in hospice, who work in hospitals, who have lost parents or partners or children.

Grief is huge and it touches everyone.

I feel like I’m in the (fairly) unique position of the special needs life with a terminal child. I grieve the special needs life, that we never got to experience the special needs life,that Kai has NKH. I grieve children we know and love who have died, and those that will die. I grieve that one day Kai will die.

My present and my future is filled with grief. Constant. Cyclic. Never ending.

I’m going to tell you a thing. I don’t tell you because I’m looking for pity, but I do feel like it’s a part of the path we’re walking.  I’m down you guys. Not in a ‘just a bit down, a bit sad’ way, but in a ‘lost all hope currently in the dark abyss’ kind of way.

Intellectually I’ve always know that my baby is going to die. I’ve always know that children with NKH die. I’ve always known that my child is disabled.

Emotionally I didn’t feel until these last few months. There are children *dying*. Children have DIED. Halle Mae. Kaleb. Alexander. Cathryn. Gregory. Siem. Those are children who were so loved, and had lives and families and now because of NKH have died. I didn’t know all those children personally, but Alexander (and our sweet friend Rauirí) – their losses both threw me into the left field of murky grief (even now I want to excuse my feelings – my feelings are inconsequential to their families grief, the idea of losing your child is nothing next to actually losing your child).

And as I was desperately trying to manage those feelings, of what it was like to have children you know and love pass away, it became really clear that Mikaere isn’t severe. We cheer on his milestones but what it means is he has a longer life expectancy than we originally thought… except, life length is not the same as quality of life. And then my beautiful boy turned two. As I carried him in my arms, his little head resting on my shoulder, I watched a boy younger than Kai jump through some fallen leaves. Another child walked by, holding his dads hand as he toddled past.

My son is disabled. And that’s hard to admit, because I don’t want that life for him, or for us.

Intellectually it’s easy to say that it would be better if he died sooner, rather than later. He’d suffer less, less seizures, less pain. But I can’t wish for my baby to die, I just can’t.

And I feel stuck in the middle. My beautiful baby boy is disabled and is going to die. Between the grief I have for the children who have died, and grief I have that mine will, and the grief that our life is not the neurotypical… I feel helpless. I feel hopeless.

I feel like there is nothing I can do – literally. I can’t fix this. I can’t fix my baby. I can’t heal him, or take away the NKH or the damage that’s been done. I can’t make any choices that would relieve him of those symptoms. Excellent care, or shit care – he’s still have seizures. He’s still suffering. He’s still hurting. And we’re still stuck in that hard place, the horrid special needs life where Kai has seizures and pain and hospital visits (not all the time, granted. But a lot of the time) and then when all of this is finished, when it’s all said and done, it will be because he’s died. When there have been so many other children we know and have loved who have died… this reality is painfully raw and close.

So. I’m in the dark-lost-all-hope-in-the-deep-abyss place. I’m finding it hard to get out of it, hey. I’m slow to move, tired and I snap at Sam over tiny things. I can’t get myself moving, and caring for Kai is about all I can do (I miss the girl from last year, who was determined to make change and had a million different fundraising things on the go. Where did she go?)

I’m going to ask that you hold all your well meaning comments to yourself for a moment. Yes we’re talking to a therapist who specialises in special needs, bereavement and palliative care, yes we’re very strong and we’re amazing parents and no you probably can’t imagine and I’d really like if you weren’t sorry, or were thinking of us or sending love.

I don’t mean to be callous here, but when you send me the same words that everyone else sends me it becomes meaningless. Platitudes feel insincere and widen the isolation gap because I feel like you don’t understand, like I wasn’t clear enough, or my feelings are too big for you to meaningfully respond to.

The way to avoid platitudes is to be specific – what specifically are you sorry about, and why is that important to you? What are you thinking, genuinely? What thoughts are you sending and why? It’s harder to express and requires more work on your part, but if the connection is genuine, it makes me feel less alone. I read a quote about how words aren’t measured at the speakers mouth but the listeners ear. It seems apt and explains why platitudes are so so shit to receive.

Platitudes aside, here’s what I’d like: tell me something amazing that happened to you today. Tell me something that’s made you laugh today. Tell me something happy.  Fill my comment thread with happy happy things.

If you were about to type ‘I’m here if you need me’ or ‘if there’s anything you need’- here is what I need: a cure for my baby. Here’s how you can help: donate. Fundraise. Run a bake sale/competition at work. Run a 10k and fundraise on just giving. Give up chocolate for a month, and for every craving donate a £1. Start a swear jar and donate the contents at the end of six weeks. Sell something on eBay. Have a fundraising BBQ. Run a raffle. Raise £10. Raise £50. Raise £5000. Raise something.

If you know me in person, please come visit. If you can’t visit, please call me for a chat. Just to say hi. A two minute hello. If you can’t call, or I don’t answer because I’m busy with Kaikai, leave a 30 second whatsapp audio message, so I can hear you. I can’t tell you how heart warming it is to hear someones voice. I’ll take it, greedily, that 30 second audio file. Isolation, I’m struggling with it. That abyss feels deeper when I’m alone all day with my thoughts and a nonverbal baby. As I type this, I’m sat by Kai, who has just had a seizure and is now in that horrible sleeping-recovery phase. I can’t go anywhere, and I’m heartbroken, having to watch him suffer over and over. I’m lonely and scared for our future and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I know, I know, so many people have said ‘just call me if you need, anytime, call me’ and I’m grateful, but I can’t get out of my head long enough to recognise I could use the company and do something about it. Please don’t wait for me to call you. Please just call to say hey,  a two minute conversation when you’re free.

It’s a weird place to be in. I literally don’t see a way to turn. We’re either living the special needs life (which has moments of up but mostly moments of extreme down), or we’re living without Mikaere (I can only think how horrific that would be for us). Both of those options seem unfathomonly unfair and hard and devastating. I don’t know how to navigate through the grief either of those situations. It seems hopeless. My present and my future are filled with so much grief. And so, abyss. That’s where I am right now. Womp.

Nov 05
0

On normalising death

By | #teammikaere | No Comments

There are a few NKH kids right now who are struggling. Who are at home and ill. Who are in hospital on the ward. Who are in hospice, on what the doctors say is towards the end of their lives. It’s hard, being in a virtual community, physically so far away knowing these families are hurting, that these kids are suffering.

There are also many children who have fought their fight with NKH, who have gained their angel wings and are no longer suffering. Their families are still grieving, though. Still hurting.

And I say all these things, but I don’t have words for how deep the suffering is. How truly intense and horrific it is. I don’t have words for that kind of anguish.

I struggle. I don’t have words and I think this is all coming out wrong – how do I talk about this? How do I talk about the tears and the emotions just below the surface? How I’m constantly grappling with how I feel, with grief. Is it a relief for all the children who have passed? Will it be a relief for the children who are suffering right now, considering how much pain and hurt there has been in their lives? Is there relief for their families? Will there one day be relief for us?

Because that’s the thing, I can’t comprehend Mikaere dying. I can’t. But he will, one day, because NKH is terminal.  I don’t want death to visit us. I don’t want death to visit any of the families that are waiting for it right now. I don’t want the curtain of grief to envelop any of our NKH families. I just don’t.

And I feel powerless to help. The families who children have passed, the families that are struggling.  I don’t feel I can bring comfort to them. I don’t know how to support them. I send messages to let them know we’re thinking of them (and I am, all day every day) but it feels… inconsequential. I feel powerless to help our little family, and the endless waiting and fear for the terminal end.

There have been a few times we’ve waited for the news. A handful of times we’ve sat, anxiously waiting for that call, to hear when another child gained their angel wings. We’d send love and thoughts and cry. We’d talk about organ failure and seizures and that respiratory arrest is more likely to happen before cardiac arrest. We talk about the dignified death bill, and slower than slow breathing rates. We’re normalising the lead up to death.

I hate that this kind of conversation is normal for us now. That we as parents fight so hard to keep our children happy and healthy, and that we’re powerless in the end to stop the pain and suffering that comes with NKH.

I hate that our days with our kids are tinged with the word terminal. That sometime in our future with Mikaere we’ll be in the same position. That we’ll, one day, be watching his organs fail and be witness to his pain and his suffering. To his death. Just like other NKH families are right now.

I’m heartbroken. I’m absolutely heartbroken.

I’m talking about death and dying today because November 2nd, was NKH Remembrance Day. I’m late by a few days, but I want to pause and remember our NKH kids.

I want remember Alexander, the sweetest little sausage there was. I want to to remember Kaleb, and his cheeky grin.

Gregory, and his brother Elijah who is missing him. Halle Mae. And Cathryn. Maynak. Siem.

There are actually many more children. There’s a list. A list of 124 children who have died from NKH whose names should be remembered. There’s a slide show, even. And I started reading the names… there are so many names. Too many names.

And I’m aware that these names, they’re just the ones in our NKH group. They’re just the ones we know about. Other languages, other countries… they have their own groups with children who are dying before their time. They also probably don’t include the families whose babies died before they could even find support in the NKH groups.

Too many names. Too many children.

I don’t want them to be forgotten. I want to remember them, I want their families to know I remember them. To know their names, and their faces. They made marks, they made a difference. They were loved.

I held my little guy a bit closer today while I remember the others. And I think about how all of those children were so loved like I love my little guy. So loved and cherished. NKH can suck it.

 

Oct 24
1

On yoga and safe spaces to share

By | #teammikaere | No Comments

I’ve started going to yoga. There’s a lady who does it in our local park for a fiver. When it’s warm enough, we go and we stretch and move and practise our yoga. I am not very good, but there is no judgement and my body feels better after. So off I go. Today there was a reading. I missed the beginning, I was in my own head.

But I caught the last bit, and it basically came down to don’t be afraid to feel what you’re feeling. Be vulnerable, explore your emotions.

I tend to bite down on my emotions. My logical, intellectual side is more mature than my emotional intelligence for sure. I usually only express those emotions in safe places, like therapy, or at home with Sam. Not in public. Definitely not in yoga.

But as our instructor urged us, I cautiously settled my mind, cleared my thoughts and gently took a peek. And then I slammed those feelings way way back into a tiny box and pushed it as far away from my brain as possible, bringing my thoughts back to the present immediately. The feel of the mat, where my body was grounded, the (more ragged than gentle) breath in and out. What I could hear. I thought frantically of what I was going to eat for lunch that day.

Fuck exploring those feelings at yoga.

There was only two of us, that day at yoga. And we chatted at the end. The reading came up, and the other girl said she really enjoyed it. It was helpful for her. She was feeling some residual conflict with an unbalanced friendship and was able to gently process her way through and let it go. I listened, fascinated. How amazing, genuinely, to have that be what needs processing. How healthy. I was jealous. Sure enough, the conversation turned to me, and what I thought of being vulnerable and open to feeling what I’m feeling.

I said it was difficult, because when I explored my feelings that morning what I got back was ‘please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die’ with such hope and desperation and love, it was overwhelming. My very rational fear of my son dying and it being a very real possibility is always right there just under the surface, it’s intense and overwhelming.

I had tears streaming down my face, and they were both taken back a bit. They clearly weren’t expecting this. They don’t know me very well, and they don’t really know me as the lady who has a son with a terminal metabolic disorder.

And then we did that dance. The not quite pity dance, but the ‘theres a definite need to comfort me but they don’t quite know what to say’ dance. The poor girl with the friendships felt that her problems weren’t problems (but they are, my problems don’t take away from anyone else’s problems) and they expressed how important it was that I look after myself and practise self care and how amazing and strong I am for parenting like I do.

I moved the conversation on to less emotional ground because that dance is awkward for everyone, despite the kindest of intentions (they really are the nicest of people).

Side note: if you’re at a loss for what to say, say “that sounds really hard. How are you feeling about that?” or if you don’t want to go deep and meaningful, “That sounds really hard. How is your son doing right now?” because chances are he’s fine and it gives me a chance to move the conversation to the positive.

We left shortly after, and my grief lingered all day. Long story short, yoga is not the place to explore all those emotions if you’re a special needs parent with a child who as a terminal disorder.

I’m grateful we have access to therapy and safe spaces to share. I definitely won’t be exploring all those feels in yoga again, that’s for sure.

Oct 22
1

On feeding into the world of pretend

By | #teammikaere | No Comments

I talk a lot about the ‘what if’ daydream in my head.  The ‘what if Mikaere never had NKH’ daydream.  I think goes hand in hand with grief, with loss. When you grieve something has happened that you didn’t want to, the flip side is that there was another option, another path, another something that you expected/hoped for/wanted. For us, obviously, it’s that Mikaere didn’t have NKH. That he was neurotypical. That he didn’t have two little missense mutations in one tiny gene.

Daydreaming about what it would be like if Mikaere was neurotypical is a dangerous, dangerous past time. It’s like a sink hole, so I shy away from it. At the same time, I also want to confront what Mikaere is not – I want to rip that band aid off so that it doesn’t hurt so much the next time I’m faced with the gap. So that the developmental gap that’s widening by the day isn’t so unexpectedly large that it’s crippling.

So I straddle the line between hanging out with kids that are Mikaere’s age (thanks to our wonderful NCT friends and their gorgeous babes), the grief that he’s not developmentally where they are and imagining what it would be like.

I’ve noticed recently that when I’m having a hard day, when we have back to back appointments or Mikaere is projectile vomiting everything or the seizures are uncontrollable – I have a bad habit of leaning towards the daydream. If I’m writing posts, I’ll post the photo where Mikaere looks more neurotypical. That if you weren’t here behind the camera you wouldn’t even know. I like the photos where Mikaere looks neurotypical best.

There’s one photo I love. Friends of ours have a son that was born on the same day as Mikaere and we went to visit. I lay Mikaere down on the floor where he’s most comfortable and T roamed, as a toddler who has independent mobility is want to do. But there was a moment where T lay down next to Mikaere and they both laughed.

I love that photo. I love that T lay down and was the sweetest little guy. That he wanted to do what Mikaere was doing, with zero knowledge of disability or difference or anything. I’ll forever love T for that tiny tiny moment.

But I realised I love that photo because it looks like, just for a minute, what a neurotypical life could be like with Mikaere. It feeds into the world of pretend, if you weren’t there – it looks like two boys playing together. The reality is they’re not. T had a wonderful, kind moment with Mikaere before he toddled off and Mikaere had a moment of awareness that T was there, but the truth is they didn’t play together.

It’s insane how to the very depth of all I am I wish they had been. How much I wish Mikaere was neurotypical. He’s not, I know. But I struggle with the cognitive dissonance of knowing he’s not, and the emotional intensity with which I wish it was otherwise.

It’s been almost two years of this cyclic grief. Over and over and over again I battle with this. Over and over again I’m faced with such grief that Mikaere suffers. And when he’s not suffering, when he’s happy and content and smiling at us and making small gains – that his life will never be as full or as varied as a neurotypical life.

That he will never love romantically, to know those butterfly feelings when you meet someone. He’ll never know what it’s like to travel independently, to delight in discovering a new place with new people living differently to you. He’ll never know what it’s like to work hard and be considered an expert at something, he’ll never know the satisfaction of when your peers recognise something you’ve achieved. He’ll never know what it’s like to snowboard, to pick a line, to make fresh tracks down a powder black run on a bluebird day (Its been a long time since I’ve been to the snow, but it remains one of the greatest joys I’ve ever had). He’ll never know what it’s like to kite surf, or boogie board or cook an amazing meal for the glory of it. He’ll never sit in a side restaurant in Japan eating the best oyster of his life, or jump off the back of boat into crystal clear waters in Croatia. He’ll never be able to introduce someone he loves to the things he loves. He’ll never adventure with a group of friends, getting up to mischief. He’ll never feel the satisfaction of creating something others can’t.

These are my life highlights. I’m devastated the highlights of his life will be smaller than mine. And I know that these are all just the highlights, and he’ll also never experience the downsides of a broken heart or the culture shock of being somewhere out of your depth or break a wrist taking a jump with a bad landing. But fuck, aren’t the highlights worth it?

And the hard thing, the thing I really struggle with – this grief is cyclic. It’s never ending. For as long as Mikaere lives – and past that, I suspect for as long as I live this is something I’m going to carry. This big dark grief that my child will never have the opportunities I did, that he’ll not live a live as full as others and he’ll forever be disabled.

I know for certain it’s this grief that pushes me to fundraise. That pushes me to figure out the next thing I can do to raise more money for NKH Research. That this big, dark stupid grief fires that ‘do something about it’ tick I have. And so I push and I design and I build websites and read research papers and oh god, the whole time I’m furiously wishing my son wasn’t disabled.

He is though. So onwards we go.

PS – if you want to donate, as always, we’re fundraising at justgiving.com/team-mikaere. All funds go to Prof. Nick Greene, who is researching a cure for NKH.

Sep 26
0

On grief

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It’s taken me four months to post this. I don’t know how to talk about grief. I don’t know what to feel, or what’s appropriate. Is there an appropriate way to grieve? A beautiful baby boy has gained his angel wings. He didn’t have NKH, the underlying cause of his disability wasn’t diagnosed. But he was part of our special needs playgroup. He was in our Monday morning gang.

I feel so all over the place. In the beginning, I cried endlessly for this small sweet boy. But I felt out of sorts, grieving, because I also feel like I’m so far removed from their family, because it’s just a playgroup, but honestly I’m devastated. For him and his family. Is it inappropriate that I feel an inordinate amount of grief for him? Is it even inordinate?

I cry for us, too. Because I feel like, despite my best efforts, I’m now constantly looking out for signs that Mikaere is on the precipice of an acute deterioration. For the longest time, I felt that genuinely he wouldn’t pass, that all the doctors were wrong and he’d have years ahead of him. That the ‘terminal’ part of his disorder was just a label, but not really one that applied to Mikaere. But now the sweetest little boy who should be here and fine is not. And the word ‘terminal’ as it applies to Mikaere has taken on a new, scarily finite meaning.

I was unprepared for the grief I feel. The shock of it. It feels messy and all over the place and the big overarching and devastating truth is one day it will be us. It colours my grief, which perhaps is why even the merest thought causes a moment of tears.

I’m so overwhelmingly filled with compassion for this little family. But I don’t have words and I refuse to say the platitudes. I don’t want to add to their grief, so I grieve privately. And then I feel like my grief must be minuscule compared to theirs (which just seems unimaginable and huge and so unfair) and should I even be feeling this way considering how tenuous our link? A link which I’m absolutely gutted will be no more, our after group catch-ups will be done now.

Grief is messy and I feel like I’m continuously finding new depths in what I feel about death and terminal disorders. I’m all over the place. Everything feels huge and bitsy at the same time. Like I’m trying to fit the uncertainty ahead for us and the unfair and too early deaths and all of the it-wasn’t-meant-to-be-this-ways together but the puzzle pieces don’t fit, so it’s all jagged and confusing and what do I do with all these feelings I have?

I spend hours thinking about the nature of grief. Of disbelief and how when you think you’re okay it smacks you in the face. Of how our therapist talks about snakes and ladders and shock. How you can’t know, hour to hour day to day how you feel (will you go up a ladder? Down a snake?). How I read somewhere that your grief doesn’t diminish with time. It’s that your life grows as time passes and it becomes easier to manage. I wonder how we’re meant to grow as people when our live distils down to our special needs baby and his needs. Our world revolves around Kai? How do we outgrow that? How are people meant to grieve and grow?

I sometimes think about that Frank Turner Song, Long Live the Queen. The line goes “We live to dance another day, it’s just now we have to dance for one more of us.” and I think how I’d want to live extra for everything that Kai couldn’t. And then I think back to what our therapist said, about living in the moment, enjoying the moment. Acknowledging where we are but also not denying ourselves fun and happiness right now. Choose joy, she said. I think about how hard it is to enjoy the moment when your future is so uncertain.

A friend told me once that something more than momentary happiness is intertwined quite heavily with three things, are you safe? Are you connected? Are you heading towards a purpose?

It’s hard to apply that to the special needs life, because my family isn’t safe (with a terminal disorder, not really), we’re constantly trying to manage the giant span between those with neurotypical children (the life we expected to live) and the highly medicalised special needs life, and we’re heavily isolated in the world of medical everything, and my purpose for anything other than Mikaere switched off the moment he was born, and as a special needs Mum my purpose only lasts as long as Mikaere is with us.

So, enjoying the moment feels like we’re trying to cling to the good the best we can while we wrangle with the idea that the larger building blocks of more substantial, satisfying happiness is generally denied to us.

My thoughts are all over the place, I keep jumping from one metaphor to the next, as I try make sense of it all.

Really the special needs life is utter shit for all involved.  I feel like enjoying the moment is to accept the shit, to accept that we’re headed for heartache, and I can’t do that. We’re essentially struggling with a life of grief and uncertainty and hardship and I don’t know how to feel about that. I just don’t. Instead I’m desperately trying to make time for the small moments, the moments with Mikaere where he’s feeling joy. I feel like I’m trying desperately to enjoy every moment with him, but it’s hard to relax when I’m so worried.

I feel like I’ve been thrown into this whirlpool of grief and terminal disorders and it’s overwhelming. But when I distill it down, mostly it’s been a time where I think it’s beyond horrid this sweet little boy gained his wings. And I’m so sad for his family, so upset at the loss for everyone who knew him. I hope he’s at peace. I wish his family peace and relief in the face of profound grief.

Fly high Rauirí. You were well loved and you’ll be fiercely missed by so many. You had a huge impact on our world.

(Even saying that doesn’t feel enough to convey the emotions I have for this whole situation. There are no words to convey the complexity of this kind of grief).

—-

Fourth months on I still feel as strongly as I did when I wrote this. But the upside is that I still see his Mum and I still remember Rauirí on a regular basis. I think of him most days. Grief is a multi-faceted crazy thing, and we live within it. The special needs life is such a bizarre life to live. If you’d like to donate, Rauirí’s Dad was raising funds for Small Steps with an epic bike ride with his work here or the family asked for donations to Shooting Star Chase, Rauirí’s hospice.

 

Sep 21
1

On saying goodbye to Alexander

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Alexander was the very first NKH child we ever met. We were in hospice on end of life care and they drove up, from over an hour away to meet us. He opened our eyes to what was possible. That we might survive that stint in hospice (we did) and that life with NKH was absolutely possible.

Since then we’ve made a point to spend as much time as we could with them. We drove the two hours for their Halloween party last year. When he was in hospital I drove down again. Earlier this year when they were in a London hospital, I armed myself with delicious takeout  and we sat around his hospital bed catching up. Earlier this year we did a meet up with Eloise, Neil and Doms as well as Kirsty, Jon and Alexander. What a fun day that was.

Alexander’s beautiful, with the longest eyelashes you ever did see and the most piercing blue eyes. He’s got such presence. His parents have been an amazing source of comfort for us. They’ve been our cheerleaders, they’ve been a wealth of information. And they’ve also been fun. Jon is into Formula One like Sam, and when Jon stayed at ours instead of the hospital they flew drone simulators together.

They love their son with such overwhelming fierceness it gave me hope for what life was going to be like with our son. That it was possible to live on fierce love, that it was possible to survive all the adversity on love alone.

Earlier this week Alexander died.

Devastation doesn’t have enough meaning to explain the hole he’s leaving in so many lives. The giant hole he’s leaving in ours. Alexander was a fighter and he fought such a phenomenal fight. He dictated how things went right to the very end, and was a phenomenal, phenomenal person.

He is so loved. So so so loved. So many of us are broken and the world seems like a darker place without him. Alexander will be fiercely missed.

Fly high Alexander. We love you.

Apr 11
2

On the MRI

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Mikaere is doing really well, for the most part. We know this. We know his eyesight is improving and his tone and abilities are improving. We know Mikaere is doing the best he can and we’re currently in a time of forward momentum when things are good.

Except that we went and saw a neurologist who said that Mikaere’s MRI showed a loss in brain mass. A loss in BRAIN MASS. There is less of Mikaere’s brain because his neurones are dying.

Despite knowing this was likely intellectually, seeing it spelt out on a black and white MRI scan felt like a punch to the face.

We are doing everything, everything we possibly can to help him. And still, NKH is robbing Kai of his brain matter. His brain is being damaged, constantly. All day every day parts of his brain are dying. It was very very clear, even to me (someone who has no knowledge of neuro-radiology)

flicking between the scan he had with his gastro and the scan he had when he was born just how much damage has happened.

It makes me feel like I’m not enough.

The truth is that there isn’t anything I can do to slow the brain damage that’s taking place.

But I can fundraise for a cure. I can support Josephs Goal who in turn supports Nick Greene, who I feverently believe is closest to a clinical trial that will help he most number of NKH kids. They also support Dr Van Hove, who is the researcher with the most experience in NKH. It’s his research and knowledge that has opened the field for other researchers.

I believe between these two, they’ll find a cure for my baby.

I know I keep banging on. And on and on and on. But, if you’re able please help. Buy an Eva Book. Donate. Volunteer, if you’re able. We’re always looking for help to run fundraisers.

Help us find a cure. Help us find a way to stop stupid NKH from killing more neurones off in my sons brain.

Please help. It’s hard to sit in an appointment to hear his brain is deteriorating.