Why?

Summer is upon us and my daughter has arrived which has been incredible. Little baby girl is here and her mom is also home for the next month which is great. We are getting to spend a lot of family time together and we are very lucky. Being able to spend guy time with my nearly 3 year old son, Will, who is growing up so quickly has been great. We have done all kinds of fun stuff lately; we have ridden on a steam engine, went to a work site and watched heavy equipment in action not to mention the airport to watch the big planes come in!

Being a teacher I try to cram all of my appointments into this wonderful time known as summer, so far I have been to my neurologist and my general doctor for a normal well-being check up! Not to mention my wife, our newborn and toddler son whom have all had appointments as well. Being nearly 3 and a pretty observant guy my son has figured out that going to the doc is an important part of staying healthy and living a normal life. He, his mom and sister are all doing great and the doctor always gives them stickers or a balloon to prove so. My doctors give me infusions, MRI’s and are constantly bleeding me dry in turn sending me home covered with bandages and band aids instead of toting a balloon.

Now that he is old enough to be aware of what’s going on around him he has started to take note of my well-being, in particular my gimpy leg and spastic twitches.  He has finally reached the “why?” phase of being a kid, which is both exhausting and rewarding. We try to explain as much as possible to him or show him an example that helps him better to understand “why?”  He is having a rough time understanding “why?” dad stumbles around and twitches all of the time? Recently he witnessed me stumble and wipe out and the look of terror on his face as I went down is something I will never forget. “Why did you fall, don’t do that!” Nothing beats being scolded by a crying kid as you try to lift yourself up off of the ground and make it look like nothing happened!

Will is a very quizzical little guy and when he sees me struggling he has been ordering me to the doctor to “get better” like I will take some magical MS cough syrup and be cured, I wish. We have had some time to check out my leg together and feel my cold toes and see that they don’t move at all, not like his wiggly little pigs. He points to my good leg and says “that one is good?” and I shake it around to show that it is indeed good. He points to the gimpy leg and says “this one is not working?” So I let it lay there and show him that it’s still just a big useless leg to which he responds “why?”  to which I have been telling him that “dad is sick”. This often times turns into quite the “why?” black hole but I think he is starting to understand that even though I’m sick, I’m ok? It doesn’t even make sense to me but he seems to be getting it.

Be a warrior today,

Donn

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