Health and Happiness

The thing about blogging is that, if you're someone like me, you want to blog about everything that has happened or is happening to you and it's not always the right thing to do. I am a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve and it sometimes gets me into hot water but I don't know any other way to be.
My life as a Mum has been wonderful, traumatic, difficult, amazing etc etc and I expect every mum would say the same thing. You are faced with situations that you would never have imagined that you would have to deal with, you have to make decisions that could change someones life.
My introduction to motherhood was not textbook. Having your longed for baby taken away from you due to a life threatening condition, baby spending 6 weeks in special care and then learning that  condition was genetic and may affect any other babies that you have was devastating. The day that my first baby was born changed my life in many, many ways.
I fell apart and then I found an inner strength that I didn't know I had. I had to deal with various medical hiccups and sit in countless hospital waiting rooms waiting for news of the latest dash to hospital.
I say 'I' but I wasn't alone. I had my husband at the time and my ever supportive family around me and I'm really not sure how I would have got through it all without them...but I did.
I would really like to go into details further but the time isn't right just yet. However, the condition that I'm referring to is hereditary arthro opthalmology otherwise known as Stickler Syndrome.
I did write my account of how the condition has affected my family in a book that was published quite a long time ago now called Stickler: The Elusive Syndrome by Wendy Hughes. I contributed to the book because I wanted to raise awareness of this relatively unknown condition. At the time most of the consultants that we saw at various outpatient appointments had no knowledge of the condition and we had to explain to them all about it which was a little unnerving when we were trusting our children with them!
I could also write quite easily about hib meningitis which caused untold anxiety and distress to us when our youngest daughter was diagnosed with it when she was 4 months old. Seeing your 4 month old daughter comatose for the best part of a week and having no idea how permanent any damage would be was heartbreaking. Watching her painfully slow recovery was miraculous.
Add to that lung cancer and vascular dementia that have also visited the family and you get some idea of the health concerns that we have faced along the way. None of this is exceptional I am sure. I know of many families that have had to deal with far,far greater misfortune than we have and I am eternally grateful to have my children healthy, happy and settled in their adult lives.
It's the personal toll that it has all taken on me over the years that I have found the hardest to deal with. My often constant anxiety over health issues raises its head fairly often and I have found myself in the depths of despair many times.
I have doubted myself, queried my suitability as a mother and as a parent, I have run away from difficult situations because I was scared of having to deal with something that I didn't want to see and I have taken to bed for days at a time because I couldn't face the outside world and what I perceived everyone would think of me.
As I'm writing this, I am in a good place. My anxiety levels are low and I feel in control and able to cope. If I was writing this when I wasn't feeling so stable , this post would have a totally different perspective. Let's hope that I don't ever do that!!!
I do try really hard not to dwell on the past. I know that I have been guilty of that on many occasions. Closure has always been difficult for me and I feel things deeply and therefore get hurt by the silliest of things - the odd throwaway comment that I take too personally and then agonize over for days - that sort of thing. But I am what I am.

Believe it or not, when I started typing this I was going to make the subject of the post about music! How on earth did I get from music to this?
Paxton, Dylan, Lennon, McClean, Bowie, Springsteen et al. Maybe tomorrow.

Try and make someone's day today. Speak to someone you have been meaning to ring for ages but keep forgetting, text someone to say 'hi', smile at the person you exchange glances with when you're out walking. A smile costs nothing and it makes you feel happy inside.

Have a wonderful day.

xxxxxx