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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The Gifts of CF

I am totally stealing this idea from a friend of mine's blog. It's a great blog about organizing (of which I need all the help I can get) and you should check it out: http://declareorder.blogspot.com (LG, I hope you don't mind that I am sharing and I just realized you and Leo have the same initials.)

When I was teaching, I always felt so bad for the kids that had food allergies. It seemed difficult to manage and intrusive to their lives. The parents at the grade I taught (2nd) were still very nervous about the kids being in school all day and my heart went out to them for how much they worried. I remember when introducing Nico to solid foods, I would say a little prayer of thanks that he didn't have a reaction. How stressful to have to worry about everything your child puts in their mouth. With the twins, there was no worry about food allergies because I was too busy worrying about CF.

My friend wrote a wonderful post sharing the gifts of food allergies that she got from a newsletter. I never thought of it that way and I am impressed with her ability to enlighten me and others. While reading it, I realized that a few of them hold true for CF and in that spirit, I am going to list the gifts of CF. This is a true challenge and I thank her for inspiring me.

The Gifts of CF
These are the ones I got from my friend.
  •  You are active in your child's academic life; the administration, nurse, and teachers all know you.
  •  You've become more than you were (stronger, wiser, more assertive) to keep your child healthy and happy.
     
  • Your child knows what it feels like to be different and has learned to be compassionate to others.
  •  Your family has learned to "look out for each other," allowing children to learn true caring.
  •  Your child has learned that his or her actions can have extreme consequences and has learned to make responsible decisions (we are still working on this one).

These are my own.
  • You don't have to worry about junk food consumption.
  • Your child learns how to take pills by the age of three so there is no messy, ill-tasting liquid to mess with.
  • Your child learns early on how to sit still for long periods of time because they have to for treatments and while doing the vest.
  • When your child goes to a sleep away camp with his baseball team and you are worried because it is his first time away from you for that long, your husband gets to stay in the dorm with the coaches.
  • You know every breath and every cough and have the knowledge sometimes even before the doctors of what your child needs. 
  • You are forced to have hard discussions with your children which opens lines of communication for other issues that come up.
  • There is an immense pride in seeing your child triumph over all he battles. (I know pride is one of the seven deadly sins but I'm pretty sure God didn't have CF in mind when that was written.)
  • One of the biggest gifts is that we can all get caught up in the small, petty B.S. but CF forces you to realize that in the grand scheme of things, the small, petty B.S. doesn't matter. There are bigger issues than travel baseball tryouts or being weaned off the bottle or losing 10lbs.
This was definitely a challenge for me but I am glad I did it. It is proof that you can find the positive in any situation and focusing on that instead of the negatives (which these days have been bogging me down) makes for a much brighter day and a much brighter outlook.

2 Comments:

At July 26, 2011 at 8:46 AM , Blogger Declare Order said...

Thanks for the luv AnneMarie :) I know I make it look easy sometimes, but remember I have 1/2 as many kids as you!...we are still working on "responsible decisions" too! Have a happy day...

 
At July 28, 2011 at 4:32 AM , Blogger Kendra Mareva said...

What an inspiring exercise! :) It's something we can all put to practice with whatever challenges us in a big way.

 

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