I don’t know…
Those words are so popular in the medical field. I remember
hearing them often when I used to work for a clinic and even more so now that I
am on the other side with a special needs child. Maybe it’s because providers
don’t want to get sued, or they don’t want to provide false hope, or maybe they
just really don’t know. If you’re like me, then you really hate to hear the
words “I don’t know.” Nothings more frustrating as a parent to go to a
specialist searching for answers just to hear “I don’t know.” Especially in
today’s culture, we demand answers and we want them now. So to not have any or
at least any clear answer is quite unacceptable in today’s world. But what if
it’s the way we are focusing in on it that poses it to be a negative? Consider
examining the other perspective.
When the pediatric neurologist from the NICU explained our
daughter’s brain, or what was left of it, I immediately had questions to help
predict her future. I needed hope to press on with her but instead I heard a
lot of “I don’t knows” accompanied with a lot of shoulder shrugging. Being told
the back part of your newborns brain is gone and now replaced with cysts is a
pretty traumatic event. As months went on I associated “I don’t know” with that
negative experience. But seeing where she’s at now 16 months later I get it.
She shows us there is hope in “I don’t know.” Believe it or not, there’s a
silver lining of possibility and positivity in that. It’s shifting to the
opposite from “she may not walk” to “she may walk too.”
Neuroplasticity is one of my favorite words now. It’s the
ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and
reorganization. Essentially if there is damage in one part of the brain, it can
make new connections and/or pathways, like rerouting or remapping. I believe my
daughter has done this through the help of therapy and ABM. Her case isn’t
“fitting” with other predicted cases and guess what? We don’t know why but I’ll
take it! The last few weeks I’ve been in fear about repeating Olivia’s MRI in
March. I was telling my fiancé that my mental state cannot take another blow, I
was barely rebuilding. After some self-coaching I remembered that these images
will not change what my daughter is currently showing us she can do. It may
also not even show the new connections she has made because sometimes science
just can’t explain. Sometimes the only explanation is a miracle. So whatever
happens over the course of these next couple of months I choose to stay close
to my daughter and let her be the guide. We may get a few more “I don’t know if
she’ll be able to do this or that,” but that also means they don’t know that
she will either. The light of hope and positivity has been part of my life-saving anchor
and I plan to still hang tight!
“What if I fall?”
“Oh my darling, what if you fly?”
