Yesterday morning, right after I published my blog, I took my dogs outside. My phone rang and I saw that it was our middle son calling. I knew what he was going to say before I even said “hello.” He and my youngest son had gone to a local park to play in a pick-up soccer game. My youngest son had an epileptic seizure on the field, in the middle of the game. I am grateful that my middle son was with my youngest son during this time. My middle son is a student in medical school and he, like the rest of our family, has witnessed many of his little brother’s seizures. In fact, my middle son witnessed my youngest son having his first major seizure, when my middle son was driving them both to their high school, many years ago. He attributes that experience as one of the major reasons why he decided to go into medicine. My middle son knows what to do when a seizure happens. He took good care of his brother, as always. The local EMT crew came. They know us by name now. They took good care of my son, as always. Luckily, since they were on the grass, and his brother was with him, my youngest son wasn’t greatly hurt, just some sore muscles and a scratched up face from some pebbles in the grass. He came home to recover from his seizure. He came home to my waiting arms.
My regular readers know that we have been going through hell this fall with my son’s epilepsy. His seizures are currently not being well-controlled by medicine. In September and October, my son suffered at least one major seizure a week, landing him in the hospital three times. He is currently taking five different anti-seizure medications, as doctors scour for a medication combo and a dosage, that works to keep the seizures controlled. We were cautiously optimistic that we had finally found that holy grail of medications, because this November, our son was almost one-month seizure free. Yesterday ended that streak.
I feel horrible today. I felt horrible yesterday. I feel deflated, dejected and scared out of my mind. But, honestly, I felt wonderful throughout our Thanksgiving break with our family. I felt pretty good the week before Thanksgiving break. I even felt pretty good the week before the week before Thanksgiving break. I sometimes cautioned myself that “I was setting myself up for a big fall,” with all of my hopeful optimism, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to feel good again.
During Thanksgiving break, our family, all six of us, had a great time together. We cooked, we shopped, we went to the movies, we even went boating. My youngest son went to the gym with his brothers, and golfing with his buddies who were home for Thanksgiving break. I won’t pretend that I didn’t have nervous moments. I won’t pretend that I stopped being hyper-aware of any strange noises in the house. I won’t pretend that I didn’t keep my son on a strict medication schedule. But I relaxed, I laughed, I savored. I had so much fun. I felt so much joy.
And today I feel so, so sad, but during the rest of November, I mostly felt ease and comfort and relief, because I let myself feel those better feelings. If I had stayed miserable and fearful and depressed and angry, all of November, yesterday’s seizure would have still happened. Despite what we erroneously believe, worry doesn’t stop any negative experiences from happening. Worry doesn’t help anything at all, and we all know this, but I got a very clear example of this fact, taught to me with this lucid life experience. I am thankful that I let myself enjoy a nice, and hopeful month, because I would have still felt so, so sad today, even if I had fretted and worried and been miserable for the whole month of November.
I say to you this: if you are in a budding new relationship that you are enjoying, savor it. Experience this relationship fully and excitedly, without fretting if and when it is going to end. If you have lost a lot of weight, be proud of yourself. Delight in your triumph. Don’t spend time worrying if you are going to gain all of the weight back. If things are going well in your job, with your family, with your friends, with your health, with your bank account, with your life, soak it all in. Enjoy the good! Facts are, upsetting, negative things happen in life sometimes. That’s just the way of life. No one is immune. Save feeling lousy for those times. Save it up, and rightfully feel miserable when you are in the middle of a rough patch. But don’t let those awful feelings seep into your good times. Let your bad times, make your good times feel that much more amazing and glorious and precious. You are strong enough to handle adversity, and wise enough to know that by feeling happiness in the good times, you are giving yourself something to look forward to, when you are in the middle of experiencing your hard times. Give yourself the gift of savoring life in the moment.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.