Go Ask Aunt Becky
Dear Aunt Becky-
Do you make your I Kicked Cancer’s Ass t-shirts in toddler sizes? I NEED one for my 2 year old. This kid is totally kicking cancers ass.
xoxo
Lisa
Dear Lisa,
YAY for your toddler kicking cancer’s ass! That’s AMAZING.
We do not currently make those in toddler sizes, but we need to. Period. So you’ve put a bug up my ass about it and now? We’ll make it happen. Stay tuned!
P.S. Did I mention that your kid rules?
Dear Aunt Becky,
Do you still have the shut your whore mouth shirts, I cannot locate them on the site or I could be and idiot too!!
Sure do, Prankster! Our Shut Your Whore Mouth shirts are RIGHT here! Enjoy.
P.S. Send me a snap of you with the SYWM shirt when you get it. I’ll add it to my awesome photo gallery.
Hello Aunt Becky,
First I wanted to tell you that I completely enjoy your blogs! And I admire the courage you have for being able to share with humor all you and your family goes through. I am asking if you or any of your Pranksters might have any advice for me beyond the thought of I need a hugging coat and to do the thorazine shuffle, because I do believe I have gone cocoa for coo-coo puffs.
8.5 years ago my twins passed away due to complications with CF. (CF sucks big monkey butt btw)
I was told when they were born that a massive amount of damage was done and I would not be able to have anymore children. Fast forward to present day, I have a huge miracle in my baby girl that is 5 months old now. I love her beyond reason, and want to do my level best for her.
So what the hell is my problem?
Well, I think I’m screwing up. I was so used to parenting 2 very sick little ones, that I have no clue how to be a parent to a healthy child. The poor kiddo gets interrupted naps, because out of habit, I go to make sure she’s breathing clearly, not running a fever, all of those crazy things I had to do before. I find myself having damn near a panic attack when we go to the pediatrician for shots and check ups. I try every day to tell myself that she is not them, and is healthy and I can get a full night sleep. The only reason she wakes up at night, is because I wake her up checking on her.
My logical brain knows she is healthy and I need to knock it off. But that fear, is just sitting there, almost mocking me. I tried talking to my husbands family about it, they told me I needed to get over it. Yeah, I have no real support system to speak of. I guess I’m just wondering if this is normal for parents that have been through this? Or am I just simply that crazy? Thank you in advance for your thoughts on the matter.
And for being a bright spot in many a mothers day.
Oh Prankster, I’m so sorry for the loss of your twins. That makes my heart break into a zillion tiny pieces.
I’ve thought about your question for awhile now (shut up, I CAN think)(sometimes) and in knowing that I am neither a doctor, nor do I play one on the Internet (much), I feel that you may have PTSD. It makes perfect sense, having lived through hell already, that you’d suffer such an anxiety disorder. Frankly, I’d be surprised if you DIDN’T.
If you burned your hand REALLY BADLY on the stove, you’d probably be eleventy-billion times more cautious in the future while using the stove. Raising a child after losing two children is like that, only magnified a quadrillion times.
So yes, your reaction is completely normal and expected. The good news is that while you’ll probably always be more cautious with your daughter, PTSD is a completely manageable illness. If you can find the right help, you’ll be able to work through some of the anxiety you’re experiencing. And may I invite you, AND everyone reading this to post over at Band Back Together. We have a large amount of baby loss parents who work with us who, I’m sure, understand your feelings entirely.
Sending you love and light. Please, please, please, all of you, Pranksters, please write your stories for us.
Dear Aunt Becky,
I recently joined a group of amazing ladies, we’ve been pregnant together and now we’ve started to have our babies. One of these women had her baby, a beautiful little girl and found out soon after birth that something was wrong. Her red light reflux in one of her eyes was wrong. It’s looking like right now that her daughter has a cataract, which is a huge deal for infants.
She’s waiting to get word on when they can travel to start surgery and treatment since there are apparently only a handful of surgeons who can operate on this. She’s scared, and we’re scared for her. I would love it if you could put this out there and see if there’s anyone else that has some positive stories and has been through this.
There’s so much information out there and so much of it is terrifying that it’s hard to even know where to begin.
Dear Prankster,
I’m hoping that by posting this, we can find some people who understand and have been where your friend is. I’m making it a prerogative this week to create a resource page for you on Band Back Together. Hopefully, we can collect some stories for you and your friend so people facing this scary diagnosis have somewhere to go.
Thank you so much for being such an incredible friend. She’s lucky to have you.
Much love to you and your friend.
—————–
As always Pranksters, please fill in where I left on in the comments. And let these two Pranksters know that they’re not alone. Because, we really are none of us alone.
Absolutely agree on the PTSD, Aunt Becky. You are wiser than you need to be. Kudos.
It very well could be PTSD and i agree with AB that what you’re doing is totally normal. I have a son who passed away 8 years ago shortly after he was born. a year later I was pregnant again. I had 3 other living children so I had been through normal pregnancies and births before and knew what they were like,but when I was pregnant with Holly I was a mess. Anything that seemed slightly off I would call the dr. I insisted on extra ultrasounds and after she was born it was the same way for awhile.
Give it time. Try not to beat yourself up over it. Your little girl is a gift to you and there’s nothing wrong with some extra care at this age. I’m very happy you were blessed with her.
Just sit back and try to breathe a bit.
CF does suck I was a counselor at a CF camp one year and it changed my life forever.
I agree about the possibility of PTSD. I think that she does need to “get over it” in a sense, but not in the insensitive way. What I mean is, she needs to WORK ON getting over it so she can be fully present, as well as not smother her daughter. She needs to try to focus on the utter joy of having a healthy child!
I muddled through PTSD after my husband’s heart stopped 3 times a year ago. Time, thought, blogging, positivity and did I say TIME, have all helpd. Oh, and a tiny bit of medication.
To the third question: I had a cataract when I was young. I don’t know how young, exactly, but by the time my parents knew what was happening, I was sniffing my food at day-care to figure out what it was because I couldn’t see it clearly. I had surgery when I was five. I’m now a healthy and fully-functioning twenty-year-old.
I’ve done a bit of research on the topic, and yes, it’s rare. Something like 1% or less of cataract cases occur in children. The surgery, for me, consisted of removing the natural, clouded lens and replacing it with an artificial (I’ve been told it’s a glass?) one. I don’t remember much about that besides waking up to everything being blurry, and having to have eye drops. And of course, I have a long history of visiting the eye doctor every year for check-ups. I wore an eye patch when I was younger, which they do sometimes when children are developing to make the weak eye work harder to see without the strong eye’s help, and therefore develop better. They only do it for young children, though, so it won’t be anything permanent if they do it for your friend’s child.
I’ve always had faulty depth perception, with one eye being so much weaker than the other, but it doesn’t really stop me from doing anything (although personally, sports are not my strong point!). I wore glasses as a child, and have contacts now, but I can still see without them. They just really help my bad eye to see clearer.
I have no problems besides less-than-perfect vision and depth perception, even though I had the surgery at a young age. There is definitely hope for your friend’s child!
You can always email me if you have any more questions. Best of luck to your friend and her little girl.
I absolutely agree with the PTSD suggestion. Counseling could help. Like Just Jennifer said, it’s something that will need to be actively worked on. Even the mantra “She’s healthy. She’s fine. I don’t need to check her.” could help. I do think with time it will ease up as she gets used to having a healthy child.
Call it PTSD if it helps! Honestly, if I lost twins I’d be 100% the same way and check on the baby constantly. That’s okay. After what you’ve gone through, it is absolutely a logical and reasonable and probably healthy way to respond. Its not hurting her to have you check on her all the time. You’ll adjust to healthy kid-ness with time!
First off, I am so sorry about the loss of your twins.
I had triplets and lost my son at two weeks (due to an infection). Twenty-two months later, I check my babies every night to make sure they’re breathing. I often wake them up (briefly). Such is their/my life. I am a mother that has lost a child. They are children that have lost their brother. Life isn’t always fair but it is what it is. I’m not saying that you don’t have PTSD (I’m not a doctor and I don’t know you), but I do know that I do this and I don’t have it.
For what it’s worth, every once in awhile I don’t check them and remind myself that whether I do or not, it won’t affect whether they breath or not. Truth is, we don’t have any control. The loss of a child really reminds us of this.
Let me know if you need someone to listen.
Peace, Sarah
swak50@hotmail.com
P.S. Thanks for your support Aunt Becky, you’re the BOMB!
One of our children had a doctor who offhandedly commented that he might be at high risk for some very unfavorable future outcomes. This sent me into a tailspin and us to several specialists. The specialists disagreed, but I still couldn’t stop obsessing about this possible future diagnosis. One of the specialists told me I needed to stop Googling it and instead Google “Fragile Child Syndrome” which is a funny name for parents’ treating children as if they are “fragile” when they aren’t (because the child had a traumatic birth but is fine now, because something bad happened to a sibling, etc.). As you might imagine, the behaviors that go along with this ultimately do no one any good (child or parent) – and can cause harm due to over-protectiveness — but they are very hard to let go …
I am *so* glad you reminded me of your shirts, somehow I’d forgotten to buy some!
I have two healthy children (6yrs and 18 months — and often forget how very lucky I am!), I constantly check on them in the night to make sure they are breathing. We have no history of any childhood illnesses in our families, no cases of sids, no young unexplainable deaths and yet there is a constant nagging feeling at night to make sure my children are alive and well and safe in their beds. I cant imagine how paranoid I would be if I had reason!
I think sometimes it is just ingrained in us, as mothers, to do everything within our power to love and protect our children – even is that means that we need to get up 15 times a night to check on them. I can imagine that would be amplified times a million if we had sound reason to do so.
I know that in Australia (and I am sure here in the the US) they actually have baby monitors that moniter a childs breathing and send an alarm of they stop for any period of time – normally used by moms who have had previous sids deaths. I wonder if that is something that this mom can look into and invest in? Peace of mind is priceless!
Hello Ladies,
Aunt becky, thank you so much for listening to me. Thank all of you really. I was having a rather dark day when I worte that.(sil’s suck! Lol. well mine does) I appreciate all the kind words and have in fact been seeing a therapist that diagnosed me with PTSD. I had a session yesterday and showed her your respnses, and she said that you ladies are way awesome and that AB shows a lot of wisdom with her humour. 🙂 My head shrinker lady and I have been working on retraining my brain to help me just let Kyuri be the wonderful baby she is without a looney hovering mommy. She suggested a journal so I can chronicle Nathaniel and Victoria’s lives and all my emotions surrounding them. Which I have started. ANd I am amazed at how I feel since I now have a safe place to talk about them. (my in laws don’t want to hear about them) Sarah, I have taken down your email and may very well be using it. Thank you so much. I am so, so sorry for the loss of your son! We are members of an exclusive club, and no one ever wants to be a member. I realised through writing to AB and my therapist I didn’t do one important thing after they passed. I didn’t let myself grieve. I didn’t let myself do what I needed to. Which was take time to mourn and then pick myself up and duct tape my heart back together. Now I get to do that. And one step at a time. One timer at a time( therapist has me set a timer everytime I have the urge to check on the baby, extending it one minute every day. we are all sleeping more now. Lol) I will never “get over it” so to speak. You don’t get over the loss of your child. But you learn how to deal. And you develope a set of armour. That helps keep you upright and you learn to enjoy things a little differently. Thank you again ladies. All the light and love I can spare I send to you all. 🙂
I lost my twin boys 3 years ago and now have a healthy, happy 9 month old little girl. I was diagnosed with PTSD…you know what, if you want to check on your baby, do it. My blog is http://www.awatchedbellynevergrows.wordpress.com if you need some help or want to rant…