I am so very thankful for all of the support we are receiving from our circle of family and friends. I can easily state that this support is a life-line for me. Twelve years in, I am painfully aware of how effectively my resilience has been eroded by the stress I feel managing Cailyn’s health journey. I first noticed my shaky resilience when I realized a number of years ago that it was harder for me to get to my “happy place”, where I was 100% confident that everything was going to work out beautifully. It inspired me to visualize resilience as a cup of coffee that gets drained by each and every sip, and only gets filled by conscious efforts to replenish it. Your notes of encouragement and love add sips of coffee to my cup… I am indescribably thankful.
Finding balance in my life is challenging me at the moment. As a way of coping with my fear for my daughter and the extremely uncomfortable uncertainty present in all of these medical journeys, I take time each day to recite my blessings. I’m very aware that some of the blessings for which I’m thankful are a direct result of this crazy journey: One, I don’t take the important things for granted… I know how precious it is to have “hang time” with my girls, with my family, with my friends. Two, the “small stuff” doesn’t cause me to sweat as much as I’m sure I would without the perspective I’ve gained along the way. Three, our lives have been touched by exceptional people and organizations that have selflessly done whatever they could to make our journey easier and to facilitate special moments of joy or peace for us. Lastly, the last twelve years have provided me many opportunities to strengthen the coping skills I’m going to continue to need.
I believe these are wonderful blessings to have but I also know that they have been gained at a very real and significant cost. Undeniably, there have been many times over the last month that my knowledge of our blessings hasn’t been enough to counter-balance my fear and concern. It is almost impossible to reconcile that the same circumstances that have produced and reinforced our blessings have also brought real “life and death” considerations. This imbalance inspires me to agree with my Dad when he says that “the price of admission (to these blessings) is too high”!
Here’s to regaining my balance…