I got a bill in the mail last week, which is highly unsurprising, because between my “Get out of -ologist free card” I’m pretty much always sending off some payment or another. So it was with exactly NO emotion whatsoever that I opened a bill from the big umbrella corporation that is home to most of my doctors.
When I put it THAT way, it sounds so sinister.
Anyway.
I opened up a bill, looked at the dates of services, squinched up my eyebrows, wondering how my daughter had walked herself to the doctor, and then looked BACK at the dates of service and realized they were asking for a co-pay from last year.
From one of her many pre-surgical neurologist appointments. The dates just happened to coincide with this month, minus a year.
Somehow, in all of the hustle and bustle of taking our daughter to and from the doctor every day or two, our daughter–whose age was still measured in days–I’d somehow forgotten this one, single co-pay. Everything else has been long paid off, all the receipts and insurance pre-authorizations shoved into a manila folder somewhere.
It’s marked maybe “Amelia.” Or “encephalocele.” Or maybe it says nothing. It could say “Happy Birthday, Steve;” I don’t actually know. There are thousands of cross-sectional pictures of her brain in that folder too, should she ever want to see how her skull wasn’t properly put together, or where her brain hung out of the back of her head.
I thought about what a difference a year makes as I wrote out the check yesterday, because it’s been almost a year since my daughter had her brain surgery. I’m the same person who wrote,
“I cannot break this feeling of doom and foreboding. I cannot imagine a life past next Thursday one way or another. I cannot believe that I am lucky enough to have this baby AND KEEP HER.”
I wish I could go back and give myself a huge reassuring hug because I remember how horribly terrified I was that she was going to pass on the table. If I could do anything, I’d go back and do that.
She kicked brain surgery in the balls on February 26, 2009:
(she was very, very, very swollen from surgery)
And here she is now, my daughter, the girl with curls like a halo. The one who regularly breaks the bones of her foe and then sucks down the marrow for a snack. My ass-kickin’ little girl.
Not to be outdone by her oldest brother, she helps wash walls, even if it’s only with a wee Playmobil brush. Also: planning on how to remove that wall with her teeth. Because OBVIOUSLY.
She even helps with laundry. If by “helping” you mean, mischievously throwing all the “too small” clothes I’d sorted carefully out all over the house with her brother so that they could roll around in them. Which, I have to say, may have made my too-small heart grow 30 sizes.
Oh Amelia Grace, how wonderful life is with you in our world. We couldn’t imagine it any other way.
One of the ways that my friend KC suggested that I think of Amelia’s encephalocele was that her brain was just so full of awesomeness that it just..exploded out the back. Obviously one skull cavity wasn’t enough to contain all that awesomesauce. She might have been onto something there, because the kid is wicked-smart.
Or, at the very least, she’s my last hope. The shining light of intelligence and common sense in my house. The last bastion of all that might be right in my house.
My eldest, Ben, has never had a whole lot of common sense. He’s the kid that would probably Superman jump off my two-story house with a sheet tied around his neck if he had any more imagination. Thank the powers that be that he was born with as much imagination as I was.
I mean, I’m the person who WANTED to have an imaginary friend but couldn’t even do that. I didn’t have enough imagination to have an imaginary friend. YEAH. Obviously my kid.
Alex, though, I thought might whip him into shape, since he has Ben doing his bidding. Alex, even at 2.5, is an evil mastermind of a child, so I figured that he’d be the brains while Ben was the brawn.
Turns out Alex is mini-Chris Farley. He’s the kid who throws himself into walls on PURPOSE only to bounce off, hop back up and yell “I’M OKAY!!” When Dave’s says he’s my clone, I’m not entirely sure he’s being flattering.
My faith in Alex steering Ben into perhaps having an evil empire where they, oh, I don’t know, maybe made me boat-loads of cash while being evil somehow screeched to an audible halt the other day.
Mimi and I were playing trains in one room, and I watched as my son’s came in and mysteriously grabbed a couple of blankets and ran back out. I waited a couple of minutes and then yelled, “what are you doing?”
“Alex set up a slide!!” Ben happily replied to me.
Shockingly this did not make me feel any better.
Mimi and I followed them out to the other room where, in fact, Alex had set up a slide and we watched as the two lug-nuts we love so dearly slid off the back of the arm of the couch onto the floor below.
Onto their heads.
My son’s were sliding from the couch onto their heads.
Happily.
No one was crying or complaining that it hurt; no. They were just using their thick skulls and faces to wipe the floor with. I swear I have never been so flabbergasted. Let’s be clear, my own IQ might rival that of peat moss, but I have never had the idea to use my face as the landing spot for falling from heights.
As soon as I recovered from my shock, I stopped them.
Then I informed my daughter that without her, her brothers might be lost forever, a couple of goons stuck picking their noses and jumping off things in the misguided idea that they can fly for the rest of their lives.
Let’s hope that she uses her power for GOOD and not evil.
——————-
Sunday was the anniversary of Mimi’s discharge from the NICU. It was still a turbulent couple of weeks before we knew anything about anything, so it wasn’t like it was the anniversary of things being all right again. I mean, if your kid is sprung from the NICU, you’re pretty much grabbing her and getting the hell out of there.
I’m having a hard time talking about all of the chaos surrounding her first weeks of life, but I’m not having a hard time expressing my gratitude. With all of your help and support, I was able to turn what was a horrible, devastating time in my life into something else.
A couple of months ago, you helped vote for me in a contest with a cash prize. I promised I would donate that to the March of Dimes. Because the one bright spot in the whole fucked up situation was knowing that Mimi and I could help other people and other babies.
We are.
I officially became a March of Dimes Mom.
And I donated my winnings to the March of Dimes. I’d show you a receipt, but I figured you could just see that $250 was added to Team Mimi’s March of Dimes widget.
So thank you. All of you.
Mimi says, “Upon further inspection, cupcakes are deemed satisfactory.”
(why yes, yes, that is frosting in her eyebrows)
And for my work with March of Dimes, I was awarded this nifty button from Give it Forward, which is a sweet ass medical fund-raising blog. So thanks, guys! I’m all a-flutter!
Yesterday, our Early Intervention therapist came over to evaluate Amelia and for the first time I was pretty sure what she would find.
I was right:
My daughter is clearly an Evil Genius.
I have no doubt that in several years, when this is really all in our rear-view mirror, and she’s taking over the world from her bedroom, plotting and scheming, I’ll laugh when I remind myself that I ever thought that she might not kick the world’s ass.
I don’t pretend to understand how or why and honestly, at this moment, I’m still in shock. I cannot believe the statistical bullet that she dodged. I can only imagine that she was put on this earth to do Big Things.
As for now, my daughter is no longer in Early Intervention. She’s still eligible, thanks to her diagnosis, but she no longer needs the evaluations, so I had her therapist close her case. She never actually needed any therapies.
So look out, world, Amelia’s here and she’s ready to kick your ass if you stand in her way. Sweet as pie until you fuck with her, that’s my daughter, and don’t you forget it.
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