Fear Mongering

With our recent move came a whole new set of professionals to help us make sure that Ella’s full potential is met. On top of Preschool and Ballet, Ella now has an aid at school (whom she shares with two other children) and has started speech therapy, which, fingers crossed, seems to be going great. She also has a paediatrician, which admittedly, she has never had before. We were skeptical at first as this woman was well past the age of retirement but even so she seems engaged, well informed and can help us with the things we need, like referrals to Opthamology and Audiology. She also is diligent in putting in requisitions for all the appropriate tests that come along with Down Syndrome. Every year, around Ella’s birthday she gets blood work done to check two things: Blood count (primarily, in my mind, for leukaemia) and Thyroid function. Oddly enough, this one little poke is enough to turn normal into chaos as you agonize over what the results will be when, in reality, just days ago, you would have been perfectly fine with believing all was well and healthy. We had it done in Cambridge around her birthday but given the new system, our ped. put in the requisition anyway. I am getting better at waiting and trusting that everything is alright and there is nothing to get worked up about so when I received a call today, my heart stopped. Nothing too alarming, but her Thyroid levels were high? or were they low? and her platelets were low and hemoglobin high. I know what your thinking. What on earth does that mean? I feel the same way. I stressed about it for most of the day until I could pull out all of her past blood work to draw up a comparison. While I thought that she had had high hemoglobin in the past I was wrong but that being said, she always has something that is high or low and no one has ever been worried about it. For example, today, the paediatrician said Ella’s platelets were at 181 with the normal range ending at 200. What is interesting however, is that in Alberta, the normal range dips down to 145 and in England 165. So really?? In addition, her platelets in the past were only at 185 and 201, so really, not much better.

As a parent it is so hard to make sense of all the medical mumbo jumbo that you are instantly supposed to know as soon as you have a child with Down Syndrome and more often than not, it just causes anxiety. But isn’t that being a parent of any child? Suddenly, your world is full of worry about school, health and good decisions, to the point that it can keep you from living your life normally or at best, being effective and joyful.

Last week, I had the privilege of speaking with someone who counsels (for lack of a better term) men who have addictions (mostly pornography). He said, that what they have to do is teach them how to take control of their thoughts. They renounce the thought. They proclaim that they belong to Jesus and they ask Jesus to take control. Be it porn, money or worry, we all have idols in our lives. Crap that we refuse to surrender to God. It’s not easy, and it will take time and I can’t help but wonder if I need to approach my worry in the same way. It is the devil’s devise and a major joy stealer, when really I could be doing better things with my time…like blogging about truth or spending time with my kids, which brings me to what I was originally going to post on tonight. My Autumn Bucket list. Yes, something I got off of Pinterest and thought was a wonderful idea.

My Autumn Bucket List

Try a new pumpkin recipe: these were amazing!

Make homemade butternut squash ravioli

Drink Mulled apple cider in front of the fire.

Go to the Pumpkin Patch

Carve Pumpkins

Decorate cookies

Picnic in the park (if the park ever dries out)

Practice being thankful

Take a detour just see the autumn trees

Make apple pie

Lie in bed and listen to the rain (there has been plenty of that the last couple of days)

Some of the most beautiful moments of this life are the understated still in pajamas, saturday morning breakfast kind.

What is on your list?

As a footnote: Ella will have her blood work redone tomorrow just in case it was a one-off thing and corrects itself…and I will not worry about it….but if you found yourself praying about it tonight that wouldn’t hurt either 🙂

Also, if you find yourself praying, could you also pray for a little girl name Bea. She will be one of Ella’s best friends I’m sure, she is just 4 months old, is blessed with designer genes and today had heart surgery. She came out of it well and now needs some extra-supernatural intervention to help her heart grow strong for a fast and effective recovery. Thanks!