amber rahim

Chronic illness: the parts we don't talk about

Tag Archives: Chronic illness


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The Art of Lego

The thing about chronic illness is that it never stops. At times it can feel like those drops of water that carve through rock. Sometimes it creates a stillness in me and words disappear. Silence. Kind of what I have wanted from my kids today (who doesn’t?).

I am also in the mood for some art this week so that’s what this post is about.  Cool art. I saw that there is an Expo starting in Amsterdam tomorrow, The Art of the Brick which is an exhibition of over 70 sculptures made from Lego.

While this is nothing compared to the amazing works of art my kids and I create together (with F usually designing and me usually being the “finder” of all those cool weird shaped but tiny pieces), there are some in the exhibition that are passable.

(And I bet the artist Nathan Sawaya didn’t need finder to dig through all the different colours and sizes for just the right piece. I bet he had them all delivered and sorted exactly how he wanted them. Yes, there is definitely an envious tone to this bit of my post. Lego hurts. When you are digging through that box and especially when stepped on).

Having googled and seen images I now have a dilemma.

A. Go the the expo with my kids and

  1. hope S doesn’t break off a piece so she can play
  2. give F grand ideas about what we can make when we get home

 

B. Stay at home and miss out.

What to do?

In the meantime, here are some that represent the kinds of creations I imagine my efforts produce (and may explain why I actually get upset when the kids break them apart after 3 days. Master pieces ruined!)

We actually had a real one of these in my parents’ shop:

lego till

This is what I think F will want to make:

lego figures

Some art that I just love. How did they do this with those little bricks?

Lego Scream

lego waves

lego girl with earring

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Things we don’t talk about: PTSD and EMDR

So while on that cliff edge last week I remembered something: writing about the things we don’t normally talk about. I actually wrote this post awhile ago but somehow always skipped publishing it. It’s time now.

p.s. The shoes worked. Just thinking about them brings me back to that guiltless feeling and being on the brink is not so disorientating anymore.

PTSD, let’s talk

I don’t know where I am going with this.  I just read someone else’s blog and I got the urge to write about this.

As a woman in her 30’s, living in safe Holland, I was suprised to find out that I had PTSD.  Now what follows are not scientific or medical explanations, just the words that I have found to explain my experience.

I didn’t realise it for 3 years but looking back I can see that it was a time where I lived on adrenaline and with a constant sadness and fear that coloured everything in my life.

During my pregnancy, my daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic kidney disorder that almost killed her in the first few weeks of life.

There were complications and basically I was keeping my legs crossed to delay the birth for as long as possible.  She was born at 30 weeks.

It was an emergency cesearean and once they had whipped her out they put her in an incubator and did a drive by so I could see her and then whisked her off.

I didn’t see her again for 24 hours.

I was pregnant one minute and then I wasn’t.  It was like she had died, which she almost did.

From the beginning I understood why I couldn’t see her, they had work to do.  They had to keep her heart beating, stop her dehydrating.  Hugs with mum had to wait.

After the first week I was able to see her everyday and then I had her at home so I knew, logically, that she was alive.

But something happened in the stress of that day.  I think it was too much for my mind and something got scrambled.

The normal process of filing got interupted – I mean, who has time to do the filing when all this is happening?

So my brain was unable to file the event and put it in the past

This is how I make sense of PTSD.

Things happen.  We experience them and then we file them into our memory storage.  We take them from ” this is happening” to “this happened”.

What happened to me was that the experience of my daughter dying stayed in the present, it never moved into the “this (didn’t) happen” category.

It stayed in the present so as a result I carried around the fear, sadness, adrenaline for 3 years.  No wonder I was on edge.

So where does EMDR fit in? This stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

image

Well, as a simple patient, this is what I understand from the doctor’s explanation.

EMDR helps move the experience from the “this is happening” stage to where they belong, the “this happened” stage.

By engaging both sides of the brain while re-living / talking through the experience, something happens and the brain is able to do the filing.  It’s like it says “what are you doing out here making a mess?  let’s get you put away”.

It works.  I don’t understand why following a light from left to right (or following a sound) has this effect but it does.  So thank you to whoever figured this out (wow you must have tried out some weird stuff to come up with this).

I didn’t know I had PTSD and it took a couple of months of therapy before even the therapist saw it.

So this is what I have learned:

you can hide it – even from yourself.

Getting treatment works.  It released me from the past so that I could go into the process of grief and dealing with it.

When something doesn’t feel quite right, pay attention.

I think I had a pretty mild case.  My heart goes out to those who have it, especially those who have suffered more than I have.

 


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On the Brink

Some people say that life is like a roller coaster. Mine is, or rather, what happens inside of me is like a roller coaster. One week content and satisfied and the next, not. As I journey through my life, trying to bring up confident children, trying to create a new career for myself as a coach or just manage to get through the day, I slip and slide between the two.

This week as been a “not” week so here I am On the Brink.

 

Standing on the edge of a very tall cliff.

Strapped to a glider.

Not knowing what I am doing, no one has taught me how.

Yet I am supposed to jump, leap, leave the safety of earth beneath my feet.

And my job is to NOT smash to the ground and crumble.

Stay in the air and get to my destination.

Navigate. Set a course. Live up to expectations.

I am scared to jump yet I have vertigo and standing on this edge is physically painful.

Nausea. Dizziness. Spinning.

It is unbearable to stay here and I must move.

The destination is too far away, I can barely see it.

What can I see? Right in front of me.

Focus on my feet.

Put my fancy shoes on.

Take the first step.

That is enough for today.

Tomorrow will bring another cliff.

 

fancy shoes

 


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What’s different about chronic illness? No.2: Disturbance

On Tuesday evenings a nurse comes to our house to look after F so that J and I can go out. We mostly go together and sometimes we each go our own way with friends. You know, try to have a social life.

This Tuesday I came home to find her on her chair in her room, wrapped up in her quilt. Eyes closed. Disturbed. Her bed was wet and so the bedding was being changed.

I stepped into the room to help out and the only thing she said was “can I go back to bed?”

Every night around this time we get her out of bed to take her to the bathroom. Due to Bartters Syndrome she pees so much that, even with super absorbent night pants, we can’t keep her clothes or bed dry without this nightly trip out of bed (and sometimes not even then).

I often wonder what it is like for her, to never be able to sleep through the night undisturbed. Never.

I think I got a bit of an answer when I saw her there on the chair, eyes closed.

We delight in the beauty of the


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The downside of bringing up independent kids

I have written before about bringing up kids who are independent, make their own decisions, are self sufficient. It’s a good thing. Yet sometimes it’s not.

As other MoBs (mothers of bartterskids) know, we are also teaching our children how to manage their illness. This can involve life or death decisions.

We know that one day we need to let go and let them make their own choices. They need to strike out on their own, solve their own problems and not involve us in the process. We hope that when that time comes, we have done enough that they know how to make good choices for themselves.

Yet humans do not always make good choices. It is always at the back of my mind that one day F will stop taking her meds. This terrifies me and the for the sake of keeping her well, alive even, I could violate her right to choose and force it on her. But that only works short term and legal independence comes at the age of 18 and what do I do then? Or what happens when I am gone? I want her to look after herself so that means she has to do it. So I need to let her make her own decisions.

So what if she does something stupid and ends up in hospital? What if she hurts herself?

I do not know what I will do but it is inevitable that both my children will make choices I don’t agree with, do things that I think (and know) will hurt them.

This dilemma that we face drives me nuts – we want them to be independent but we want them to do what we say!

What do we do?

Whether your child is ill and doesn’t take their medicine or is in trouble and doesn’t accept the help that is offered; or you think their friends are bad for them or you just want their jeans to actually cover their butts (both girls and boys), this is what I have realised:

These lives are not ours. We are only guardians. Only they are the kings and queens of their lives. And a King or Queen is an absolute ruler.

So I hope that by preparing them for independence and, when they are almost ready, letting go, that they will rule their kingdom wisely. And if they don’t, give me the compassion to forgive myself for letting them choose.

My second hope is this: that when they have tried it on their own, made mistakes, given us grey hair (ok, in my case, more grey hair) let’s pray that it doesn’t take too long for them to realise that it’s ok to seek advice, that they don’t have to do it all alone. All rulers need an advisor. Let’s pray that our act of letting go makes it easy for them to turn to us when they need us.

So I’m going to keep doing those little things to prepare both my girls; get them to tidy up their own toys, let F administer her own meds, let S brush her own teeth. Then as they get bigger, let them do bigger things.

I hope that when the time comes, I can let them go (without giving them a long list of instructions of what not to do).

Dedicated to my parents who brought me up to be smart and gave me the freedom to make my own choices. Some have been brilliant and some have been spectacularly stupid.  Thanks for praising the good and being there during the bad.


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Rare Disease Awareness Day 2014


rdd-logo

28th Feb 2014 was the 7th Rare Disease Day.  I only found out about it this year so although a lot of work has been done (over 1000 events in 70 countries have been held) there is still work to be done.  So this is my first contribution.  Go and have a look at what they have to say (but first finish reading my post ;0).

What is a rare disease?  I wrote about my definition in a previous post and the people at Rare Disease Day have a more scientific definition but when you get to their common problems bit you’ll see the similarities.  Nobody knows much about them.

In addition to the obvious impact of this lack of knowledge there is an underlying problem that we don’t really look at: empathy or rather, the lack of.

Let’s start with my lack of empathy. A few years ago whenever I heard someone talk about their child having a cold or being sick there was a part of me that muttered “oh puh-lease!  That’s nothing.  You have no idea how lucky you are”.

I couldn’t listen to their stories, I didn’t understand what that was like: to see your child healthy one moment and then suddenly change and become sick.  My baby was sick all the time.  I couldn’t relate. I had no empathy for them.

It took a little patience on my part (and isolating myself from other people and feeling pretty alone, to be honest) for me to realise that we do have something in common: being a parent of a child who is sick.

Every parent worries. It’s never nice when your kids are sick.  I don’t mean just the cleaning up the puke and poop. Seeing your child in pain, with a fever, knowing that you have done all you can and you still can’t take away their pain. These are the really crappy moments.

So, although I don’t know what your life is like when your child is healthy and ok most of the time, I do know what it is like to see my child suffer so I offer you my empathy, parent to parent.

In honour of Rare Disease Day I ask you to offer your empathy to all those people who have a rare disease.  You may not know what their disease is or what impact it has on their lives or even how much harder life is for them. But you do know what it is like to get sick or look after a sick child. You can relate, you can empathise.

Let them know that.

p.s. it’s not sympathy we are looking for, just some understanding.