I'm processing a lot since our girls' last doctor visit. We have been on waiting lists for various therapies for the entire two years that they've been living with us. That is a long time. However, the number of people trained in the treatments recommended for our girls does not match the number of people needing the therapy. And there is an apparent baby boom among these golden ticket therapists, so it seems there are more on maternity leave than there are taking patients. It's a frustrating situation.
But I am a card-carrying homeschool mom, so I read books, watch videos, and do my best to meet their needs. I've done this before when my son needed speech therapy, and I got tired of sitting behind a mirror at a university speech therapy program 100 miles (no lie) from home three days a week just to watch people not understand him. So, I decided to do it at home. The first time that boy said "k," I could have flown!
Later, I discovered my first daughter has the most severe dyslexia of all the dyslexias. This goes with her over-achieving, competitive personality; if she's going to be dyslexic, then she's going to out-dyslexic all the dyslexics! All the therapies available were through the public school system in our area and I was invested in staying out of that dysfunctional rabbit hole. So, I decided to do it at home.
We participated in therapies for our first foster children and the experiences were overwhelmingly positive. I learned a lot. Since then, I got my degree in education, with dual emphases in Gen Ed and SPED. The various diagnoses and possible diagnoses of our girls don't scare me very often (mostly). I feel like I can tackle them with some competency.
Put that on the shelf for a moment with me while I discuss a deeper thing that I don't like talking about. I have said before that our interactions with therapists and medical personnel for all our foster placements and adopted girls have been positive. But my experiences with doctors for myself and my children have been wildly different. Ask me how long it took to be diagnosed with POTS, and how I was treated until I was. I had an eye doctor throw a pen across the room and storm out because he conducted the entire exam not knowing my contacts were in. There was the dentist who rested his tools on my chest and grabbed 'widely' to pick them up. I can't forget the gynecologist who argued with me to get an IUD while he biopsied my uterus. When I wouldn't give in, he tore off his gloves and dropped them on the floor before walking out. He left me bleeding on those gloves, shaking. Whenever my friends went for their visits, he told them that they should tell me to come back to get the IUD, hipaa be damnned. Thankfully the experiences with my kids' doctors tended toward mere incompetence and arrogance.
My point is that I'm scared. So scared that I didn't even recognize it. The girls' current primary said she would try to push some referrals to get therapy going. I'm grateful. Relieved. I need help. They need help. It's a good thing.
But I was cooking dinner that night and making mistakes that would make my poor grandma roll in her grave. My dinner roll dough took my KitchenAid for a walk across the length of my counter. I burned my fingers as I tried to get the meat from the drumsticks I cooked. The entire room looked like I violently decorated it with a 20-pound bag of flour. I got overheated, so layers of clothes littered the floor because I'd ripped them off and dropped them where I stood. And then I cried. And cried.
My sweet husband came to my rescue, asking me what was wrong. I asked if we could just pretend that I was on my period because whatever was going on was just as reasonable as that. He stifled his laughter as he watched me tear at drumsticks and cry that it looked like meat stuck in a dinosaur's maw and that I didn't want to eat dinosaur food.
It took the next 24 hours for me to realize that I'm scared of getting entangled with therapists who'll make my girls' lives harder. I'm scared that helping in one area could exacerbate dysfunction in others. I worry about getting entrenched and not knowing how to get out.
I have no pat answers yet. It astonishes me that God works on me while I am trying to raise these girls well. I didn't think this was something I needed to address. It just is: I don't trust doctors, but I do what I need to for my kids. But maybe changes are coming?
