May 30, 2017
There has been a fine balance of us wanting to bubble wrap him and wanting to see him take his bike off the ramp. It is hard to strike that balance. On one hand we are dealing with a normal 3 (almost 4) year old boy who thinks he is awesome at everything. He is certain he can fly if he jumps off the playhouse in the backyard; he yells at me while he is learning to ride a 2 wheel bike, “Let Go!! I know how!”; he told me yesterday that he can read; and he is fairly certain he is a super hero. But on the other hand we are also dealing with a boy who can’t see great and has a bleeding problem. There is no arguing with him we sometimes just have to “let go”.
This morning Tegan was in his usual super hero mood and flung himself on the couch and smacked his head hard on the side arm of the couch that has a board running along it. He screamed in pain and then…passed out. It was terrifying. He closed his eyes and came too in about 2 seconds, but it was awful. We took him to Children’s Hospital because we weren’t sure if he was ok or not. He was crying that his head hurt and we were not going to play doctor here and decided to let them determine if he was ok. He had to stay for 3 hours while they did neuro monitoring and exams just to make sure there wasn’t a slow bleed. He was given the ok and we left.
One hour later after discharge from Children’s I take Tegan with me to a school training I had with some of my students. I brought Tegan with me because I wanted to keep him close in case symptoms arose. Let me tell you he was fine. He was running around doing twists in the air, eating fishies and playing rescue bots. Then superman sees a beach ball, goes in for the kick, lands his foot on top of the ball, flies up and smacks his head on the ground. Seriously☹.
Three hours later we are back home playing in the backyard and Tegan is riding his scooter around and slams into the water table and now he has a huge egg size bump with a bruise on his shin.
This was just today. Crazy 3-year-old boy + legally blind + bleeding problem + wants to jump off the playground equipment = two moms who feel exhausted with worry, but don’t want him to know.
We are stressed out. I don’t mind him getting hurt, but there is a point in a day that he maxes out for us. No more Tegan!!! Sit here and do not move!! You are allowed 2 minor injuries a day, after that you are confined to quiet activities that we can control what happens!!
Sometimes I just wish I could do this without the worry. I love seeing this crazy boy jump off everything and climb to the top, but I hate to say no Tegan you can’t, so we spot him and watch him try. He rides his bike and has run into parked cars, but he has his helmet on. He runs around the playground and occasionally runs into the small trees, but those little trees have lots of give so he usually bounces right off and keeps running.
Most people see these things and know that he can’t see and their faces and voices say, “Oh…poor buddy.” But I think we see these things and think, “Tegan stop!!! We let you run into two trees and now you are done!!” This is just part of his life, we once had his physical therapist suggest a helmet to wear all of the time, personally I love this idea, I ran it past him but he said. “no!” Fine…I guess we will continue to worry, we promise to not bubble wrap you, or tell you that you can’t, but we promise to be there to spot you and try to keep you safe. You are making this hard on us thinking you are all powerful, but that is ok, one day you will know too much and I like you not worrying for now, we can do that for you.
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