We Still Need You.

Guys, I still need you. We still need you. 7 years into this crazy journey I still don’t have my ducks in a row. Heck, I don’t even knew where half my ducks are let alone have them in a row...The truth is, when your child has a chronic illness or special needs of any kind, chaos follows you. It doesn’t end after a long admission or surgery number umpteenth. It’s always there, even on good days. When you parent a child who needs 24 hour care you tend to LOOK like you have it all together when in reality, you are like a swollen water balloon in a field of porcupines. Just take a moment to visualize that...a water balloon with arms and legs trying to navigate it's way through a treacherous field of horror. The moment it loses its balance or something goes wrong, it pops and then, it slowly picks all its piece up and tries to put itself back together. That’s me. That's all of us. The tired, the worn, the perfect looking, the crazy, the mom’s and dads of medical miracles. Most days, we are barely keeping our heads above water and all we really need is a casserole and a hug. Easy solution, right? We just need to ask a close friend or maybe a group of close friends to take take turns making dinner on scheduled Children’s Hospital days. Or, just ask someone to come to the house to help the girls get ready and on the in the mornings were admitted to Children’s. Just ask...It sounds easy but the reality is, I’ve been doing this for SEVEN almost eight years. I assume, most of us feel that we should have our ducks in a row by now. We should be able to do this, juggle that, work inside or outside of the home and raise our children all while raising one that will always be “sick”. He’ll always have extra needs and that’s okay. But, just because we’ve accepted the fact that life will never be what we dreamt it was doesn’t mean we should be too proud, too stubborn to admit, WE STILL NEED YOU and possibly always will. We need you to remember us when you’re planning a get together and invite us even though you know it will be hard for us to come. We still need you to check in on us, not just on the hard hospital days but the boring ones too. We still need you to bring casseroles on the hard days. Sometimes, we need you to tell us you are helping us because it’s hard to ask. All in all, we just need you.