Just because you come late to spoken language or find some words hard to say doesn’t mean you can’t be a word nerd. Yesterday Sarah came down for breakfast and declared, “Amy is ornery.” I’m so proud!
We did a follow-up x-ray and Sarah’s digestive system is much clearer. YAY! She didn’t go to school all week except on Friday, but Friday was a great day for her. Her last couple of volunteer sessions have also been extra wonderful, with her volunteers noticing increased connection and spark. On Wednesday, L. wrote, “Sarah was on fire today - really sharp and inquisitive and funny. She really must be feeling so much better and clearer. I could see all of the things we dream for her today!”
There was one day when Sarah asked for a protein shake and as I went to get her almond milk for it I sang a little made-up “ boopity boopity doopity do” song. I paused just because I had gotten the milk and then Sarah picked up the tune and sang a little bit! I hadn’t even been trying to invite participation! Another time when I asked Amy to get her water bottle, Sarah said, “I’ll get it!” and ran to do just that.
This week overall has felt super amazing in many ways and I also feel sort of small, raw, and confused, while also feeling excited, determined, relieved, and inspired.
We started the GAPS diet for Sarah over 3 years ago to see if it would help her cognitively but also to help get her off of laxatives, which she had been on for basically her whole life. We thought it had worked. I certainly wouldn’t wish to undo it because now our whole family eats way more healthily. However, we now see that it really hadn’t worked in terms of constipation. Or maybe it did and didn’t at the same time. I don’t know how old her blockages were. I didn’t know that a person could be backed up and still poop regularly. So will things now be ok since we cleared the blockage? Or does her slight hypotonia (low muscle tone) contribute to the problem in a way that diet can’t solve? Are many many foods actually ok? Or are even more foods not ok? I know nothing! I am confused! I am eager to hear from the naturopath with the results of the most recent tests we did, some of which will give more information about allergies and intolerances. I am mainly so relieved that we are clearing the blockage and that Sarah is responding so well.
I also feel incredibly hopeful about ending my cycle of headaches and possibly never having them again. I have no proof except what feels so right and true in my cells. I feel like with my team of massage therapists, Alexander teacher, my own AT work, my acupuncturist, and my confidants I am in the best possible place to escape the cluster. I am aware in ways I never have been of how my headache pattern fires when I tighten certain muscles, which I habitually do all the time. This is so amazing to notice because it gives me the power to consciously change my habits (it takes a lot of time and diligence and awareness but is soooooo worth it). It is also incredibly humbling if this really is the way out because then it has been my own self completely responsible for these headaches all along. Still, I feel like everything is really going to be ok. I am healing from trauma to my system that I didn’t even know I was carrying. I have had such ongoing low-level fear of the headaches for the past 20 years. I am also more aware of some of the fears I have been carrying regarding scary moments in Sarah’s life (her birth, her seizures as a baby, her falling down stairs, her pneumonia, her anaphylaxis, her not wanting to eat for the first couple years of her life, her coming to milestones so late that I didn’t know if they would happen). It is a relief to unearth the places in my muscles where I have been holding these fears that I didn’t clear at the time. Now I am clearing them and I’ve had some good cries doing so. I could feel in my heart how much grief I carry about maybe not doing enough for Sarah. When I stepped in to tell myself that was crap because of course I do enough then I could feel more tightening. I needed to let the grief be there, let it be noticed, and then I could let it go once it had said its piece.
I want to run around with a large flag of joy streaming behind me, yelling to everyone about how I have the most amazing life. The most amazing support team! The most amazing husband! The most amazing mom! The most amazing bodyworkers! The most amazing Sarah-Rise mentor! The most amazing volunteers! The most amazing sister-in-law! The most amazing overall supportive family! The most amazing overall supportive friends! The most amazing daughters! The most amazing current school for Sarah! The most amazing house! The most amazing jobs! The most amazing varied ways of supporting Sarah!
Some of the biggest blessings in my life have come from the things that have felt the hardest: my headaches and Sarah having special needs. Look at what a treasure trove has come from that! I know so many deeply incredible people that it boggles my mind.
I am renewingly aware of the tiny works of art in tiny moments of life. The little things that Carl does when he comes home, having loving attention for me and the kids regardless of what his day was before that. How does he do that?! The way Sonia can read my mind and take care of something in the house or be with a child before I even say the thought. The way my volunteers come every week and greet Sarah with such joy and delight. The way my bodyworkers care so attentively for my muscles and self, sensing what needs to happen when I am not even consciously aware of it. In my very clear moments I can see that I could approach each moment of life with the same thinking I do with my clients, thinking of how to support each fraught moment as I would support a tight muscle. Press it? support from elsewhere? give a slight and slow tug? just wait? This clearly feels like the answer to life, the universe, and everything. And then my kids whine and yell and I somehow am not so clear anymore and my habits come in in roaring force.
Anyway, I am raw, whole, vulnerable, flying, healing, hopeful, clear, and uncertain all at once. I hope your Sundays are going well too.
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