Wednesday 1 July 2009

More signs you might have a disabled child

Your phone's predictive text auto-corrects AM to BM, bath to cath, and son to poo.

You receive an auto-reminder text stating "You have an appointment tomorrow at 10AM"; and when you fail to find any record of the appointment in your diary you have a choice of two different hospitals, two different children (with three different names), and ten different specialists to run past the several different appointments secretaries in order to narrow it down.

Your friend has pneumonia, and your first thought is not "oh dear, how awful, what can I do to help?" but "Oooo good, someone who can tell me how it feels".

You can't understand why a friend is so concerned about her child's refusal to drink, until you suddenly remember not every child has a gastrostomy.

You go out for lunch with a few friends, and you need four vans to carry just ten of you. At the coffee shop, all ten of you can fit around one small picnic table, because five of you have brought your own (wheel)chairs. During the meal, three children have at least one seizure each, two have coughing fits, and one screeches at eardrum bursting volume. You all agree it's been a lovely afternoon.

Conversation roams freely between holiday plans, the week ahead, equipment, and contrary to popular expectation, only touches very briefly on poo. Scones and the death of a child both feature, and both are given equal consideration. The extraordinary becomes commonplace; the humdrum everyday becomes a treasure to be savoured. An hour under a tree, a sandwich made by someone else. And friendship. It was a lovely afternoon.
Tia

3 comments:

sarah bess said...

Wonderful!!
The first one was so hilarious...but then all of them were! Great post!

HennHouse said...

Fabulous post... I too love the first one...!

Tina said...

three cheers for Rosy!

good friends are a blessing.

hugs

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