Breakdowns come and go

Breakdowns come and go

Written Nov 25, 2011 11:18pm by Amber Gannon Medina

"I was having this discussion
In a taxi heading downtown
Rearranging my position
On this friend of mine who had
A little bit of a breakdown
I said breakdowns come
And breakdowns go
So what are you going to do about it
That's what I'd like to know
You don't feel you could love me
But I feel you could"

-Paul Simon, Gumboots

I thought by now my breakdowns would be over with. I figured-I've passed the month mark, I am through all the emotions and stages of grief. Right? Lets get down to business......

I should have known that I am working my way through uncharted territory-I feel like one of the ragtag characters in the 1980's movie "Time Travelers"-its as if I keep getting dropped into completely different scenarios, right in the middle of some very important tumultuous situation and I have to figure it out all over again. So earlier this week I had a little breakdown. It came out of nowhere. One minute I was sitting in the Lactation Room and the next moment it felt like my heart was splitting. And it would not stop! It didn't stop once I was done pumping, it didn't stop when I walked through the CICU, and even though I did not want to scare our poor nurse, it didn't stop in Mira's room. It was a total and complete purging, and there was not much I could do to control it.

And you know what? It felt horrible-this very intense mixture of grief and sorrow and darkness that just kept coming and coming. But once it was all out and over with....I felt like a 50 pound weight had been taken off my shoulders. When I walked over to Mira, I felt a new intensity to my love for her. I realized my heart had been somewhat closed through all of this-because how can you get through weeks of your daughter being in pain, of being poked and prodded, without closing off some of your heart? With the purging, I felt a newfound fierceness and determination-Mira, I said-you WILL get better, you WILL be well-there is no option here you little Stinker.

I am not telling you this with the delusion that somehow that speech contributed to her improved health but Mira IS progressing. There are certainly steps backward, Mira does not like to commit to too much too fast (she is like me that way!). She is still leaky and when they lower her diuretics she shows them how puffy she can get. She was fed breast milk throughout Wednesday and seemed to do really well, UNTIL they discovered she had been holding it all in her tummy and not digesting it (sneaky!). And she is still on heavy doses of medications-methadone, valium, diuretics, antibiotics, just to name a few. 

Even with all of these little baby steps backwards, Mira is doing a lot better. She is pink and chubby-which makes you see (or think) she is getting better just by looking at her. Her lungs had been pretty hazy for awhile and they are looking clear and strong. She is doing really well on the methadone, needs very few interventions with Morphine and has also come down on her sedative. Mira has finally tipped the scale, and even though she is very slow in progressing, she seems to be on the road to recovery. It made my day when one of her doctors said that he felt it was safe to say, she was NOT "critical" anymore.

Tonight we had one of the best visits with her that we have had in a long time. Really one of the best since she was born. When we arrived at the hospital, she had already been awake for a good amount of time (I secretly like to think she knows when we are coming, and gets ready to greet us). She was WIDE awake-her big blue eyes staring at just about everything-at the new mobile hanging from her crib (we joked that the psychedelic designs would go well with her dose of methadone-our humour has gotten so sick!), at our faces, the design on my jacket, people moving around her room....I had discovered a few articles talking about simple games I could play with her, and so I tried out the "mimic" game. I stuck my tongue out at her and she stuck hers out right back! I wiggled my eyebrows at her....and well, lets just say Mira likes to start out slow and I was still excited she had caught on to my tongue trick! So we played lets stick our tongues out at each other for quite awhile. I also got a smile from her in there somewhere. I've become one of THOSE parents-the ones that embarrass all the people sitting around them in the restaurant with their baby talk or the parents that tell stories about their kids that only they think are amusing or very very impressive. I thought I would care when I became that person...I don't!

I am sure that with any newborn, watching their milestones is very exciting, and even the simplest trick is seen by parents as an amazing feat. I am happy to have this "normal" experience with my daughter. I am also aware that for us the very small triumphs have, and will continue to get us through the days and now the weeks of stalled progress. I can't hold her still, we can't do tummy time for many months to come, she will have to go through withdrawal from narcotics (etc etc)-BUT I can stick my tongue out at her and buy her mobiles to stare at with those insanely sweet wide eyes of hers. I can watch those same eyes grow very very big at the wonderment of things I take for granted-things that are so new and amazing to a little baby who hasn't even seen the sun.

After my breakdown this past week, I realized something that felt very profound to me. I asked myself if I knew what I know now at the very beginning of this, would I choose it all over again? And I answered YES! I answered with honesty, and I answered without hesitation. Mira has opened us all up to so much love, wonderment and faith-it has made me such a different person than the woman I knew before October 17th. It has made me a person I never want to let go of. So whenever I forget that this life was always my choice, or when I feel sorry for myself, I am going to read this and remind myself-I choose all of this-the good and the bad.  I choose Mira and all that comes with her and I won't be lying when I say I am so very thankful for all of it. What a blessing that I am reminded on a daily basis what is most important in life and how easy it is to take simple things for granted.