Big Day Comin' Up

OK, so I'm feeling a whirlwind of thoughts/feelings/emotions right about now, as we embark on another a twist in this path of life. Tomorrow we leave for PA, ready to start Grace's casting and treatment for her relapsed clubfoot. I plan on leaving right after lunch, with the hope that Grace will catch a few zzz's on the way down. We're staying with dear friends of ours -- two little girls and a "baby," now a year old, whom we haven't even met yet. It will be a wonderful reunion.

Friday morning, bright and early, we leave for Shriner's Hospital -- a new place for me, for all of us. I only know two things about the Shriners: they do fabulous charity work, and they act silly in parades. The hospital is only about a half hour away from our friends' house, but it's in an area of the city of which I'm not that familiar. I'm a nervous driver when it comes to charting unknown territories, so I need a calm heart in just getting there.

Interestingly, my feelings are a bit different than when we first started this Clubfoot Gig when Grace was born. I was a wreck then, so full of fear and sadness. I cried buckets of tears -- for my child with a deformity, and yes, for me, a mom who just didn't want to deal with something like this. I wanted a cute, cuddly baby whom I could snuggle in my arms -- not get constantly jabbed with a heavy, awkward cast. Sure, it might sound selfish now, but the feelings at the time were honest.

There were so many unknowns then. I didn't know much about clubfoot, nor did I really want to. Too much information can overwhelm me, so in order to stay composed and relatively at ease I chose not to learn too much, and just trust the doctor. Mistake #1, I guess. I can't blame him for the relapse; that could have happened regardless of the best treatment. But it's hard not to look back now and see the missteps along the way.

But here we are, today, looking forward. A part of me is rather ... excited, perhaps? ... to just get this thing going. Not excited in an "oh, boy, Christmas is here!" kind of way, but more in a pumped up Nike "Just Do It!" mentality. Her foot has gotten noticeably worse over this month and a half, and I hate looking at it. It hurts me to look at it. How she walks, how she runs -- she scrunches her toes underneath and runs on the top/side of her foot. So hard to explain, so hard to watch. It needs to be fixed, now, so just DO IT.

Yet I'm sad ... for her, for me. I don't want to go through this again -- the casting, the brace, the looming potential of surgery, the what if's. Thankfully, my journey as whole has taught me a lot of things, mostly to toss those "what if's" right out the window, and that applies to this scenario as well. She's such a crazy, fun, carefree child who runs like the proverbial wind. It's going to be difficult to approach this interruption in her little life. It's going to hurt to watch her struggle to get around; it's going to tug at my heart to hear her cries of frustration. Oh, I'm sure she'll figure it all out sooner or later, but the adjustment will be a challenge.

A new "clubfoot mom" friend emailed me the most encouraging letter yesterday, having gone through all of this with her 5-year-old son -- the relapse, the casting, even surgery (and yes, even having started out with the same doctor!). She understood that talking to a 3-year-old about this can be difficult, if not impossible. They have no context, no framework in which to understand what's going on. I can't say "Grace, you're going to have a cast on your leg," for what does she know about casts? So this mom emailed me several pictures of her son when he was casted, sitting in his little wheelchair, standing up, moving around, SMILING. I sat Grace on my lap, told her about this little boy, pointed out what her feet look like now, how one is straight and one is curved, showed her the cast.

"Ooooohhhhhh," she said thoughtfully. "Is that little boy OK?"
Yes, he's fine -- and you will be too.

Later on, when the kids were sitting at the kitchen table, Grace grabbed a thick rubber band and started pulling it up onto her leg, fitting it snuggly on her skinny calf. "Look, Mommy!" she said, smiling. "This is my cast!"

Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Dear Lord, heal my precious child. Give us courage and strength and patience to jump through the necessary hoops to get to the point of wholeness, for it can be done.