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At the end of July and after precarious weeks of withdrawal
symptoms, we finally weaned Addie off of Clonazapam, a seizure med. We stopped
her last dose on a Tuesday evening; by Thursday evening, her eyes centered, and
she looked at us instead of through us.
Like a newborn baby learning to see, Addie delighted us with crossing
eye movements indicating that she could see something there on her face—her
nose! We cried; we laughed; we happy danced.
Over the month of August she has made amazing strides in her
vision therapy—showing us that she can see colors and movement. She is learning to fix and follow an item and
how to operate the muscles of her eyes.
For example, we’ll place an object in her right field of vision, and she
will find it and look at it. After a while, we’ll move it to her left
field. She doesn’t know where it went,
but she can see something moving on the left in her periphery. You and I would just flick our eyes over to
the left to see something there. Addie doesn’t know how to do that, so instead,
her eyes move up out of sight into her eyelids, roll across, and then come down
to the left. It takes a lot of work for Addie
to see because her brain has yet to learn how to operate her eye muscles. I can’t wait until she begins to see our
faces!
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| Focus . . . focus . . . seize! |
We, again, are so amazed by every little thing the human
body must learn in order to function.
We’ve taken so many things for granted!
Hug a baby today! They really go
through much effort to learn how to live . . . well—just hug yourself—you’ve
made much progress! ☺
Additional benefits from the wean included Addie learning how to suck a pacifier and Addie learning how to cry and have an emotional response. On top of that, as the stress of withdrawal faded, Addie’s seizures lessened. She got to a point of having maybe 10 seizures/day instead of 40-100! Who knew that a stupid drug could impact her so much! I remember asking one of the neurologists in the hospital after Addie’s seizures worsened intensely, “Do seizure meds cause seizures?” She looked and me, smiled, and as she walked away from the bed said, “They can.” I felt baffled. In the case of Clonazapam, it was doing a whole lot more than just exacerbating Addie’s seizures. How many months of developmental progress have we lost to that mind-altering drug?
It is hard sometimes not to get really angry! I have to remind myself that I only have
20/20 vision looking backward, not forward.
Doctors are not miracle workers—they are using their limited man-made knowledge
to do the best they can. They do not
have the intention of harming their patients—they truly want to help. It would be impossible for them, especially
with their workload, to know every consequence of every drug they
administer. When I remind myself of
this, I can get the anger to flow away into a peaceful river of acceptance instead
of a torrential flood of agony.
So often, in life’s experiences, I find myself wanting to
point fingers, blame, and find fault. I trick
myself into thinking that if I just find someone responsible, the problem will
disappear. What an illusion! When I find my mind driving that direction, I
know I must make a course correction by extending charity to all those I’d like
to blame, including myself. I must let
go of the anger or resentment and especially the “if only . . ."(s). I must remember that we are all here to
learn together, to test and to try one another.
Offenses will come, and each of us will be on both the
giving and receiving end of those offenses.
But . . . how else would we learn the vital lessons of forgiveness if it
were not so? If we interacted with
faultless people, if we ourselves never erred, how would we ever learn the
beauty of forgiving or of being forgiven?
As far as blame goes, I read a proverb once that has stuck
with me: Whatever is, is God. He, the great omniscient Father, has seen the
inexplicable or seemingly blame-worthy tragedies that have or will come in each
of our lives. And still, He says, “all things work together for good to them that love God" (Romans 8:28). Not just some things, but ALL things. What a promise! There is reason, purpose, and potential behind every slammed door, missed opportunity, tragedy, trial, mistake, or deliberate offense for those who can put their trust in God. Instead of seeking to find fault or simmering in anger, what if we each instead just accept the mortal challenges that come? If we will allow God in our lives, it will all work out. And if it hasn’t worked out, then He has not yet finished His work.
