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needs: Switching OT for Taekwondo

We just had too many appointments. Its ‘we’ because her appointments were mine to book, travel to, prepare and pay for. At that stage she was well enough for school 4 days a week.  4 days less Wednesday morning when she had tutoring. That brings her back to 3 ½ school days. Minus the 2 OT sessions where she missed a couple of hours. She was so fried after OT she would often not go back to school.  That leaves a total of 2 school days, and you could almost ensure there would be an incursion from the bank or Italian pizza day on one of them, which for a kid falling behind wasn’t really worth me washing a uniform and packing lunch for.

With all the signing-in late, or signing-out early, the woman in the office (they are always women) had gone from sympathetic (which I don’t really need) to judgement (which I really don’t need). My girl was struggling with learning difficulties and missed school made it impossible for her and frustrating for her teachers. Absence from school was also social quicksand for a girl who already missed the cues.

On Saturdays, we were having family Physio. It was all gym gear and laughter, but it was another appointment. Every practitioner brought their own view and their own homework to fit in. The family diet reverted to take out, and we were fractured. My boy was left behind, with others, and fell between the cracks and I really didn’t have the energy to talk to my beloved when he asked about my day. It was easier to say “fine”, than realise we were too tired to see it wasn’t.

The appointments, reviews and progress reports were good, bad and ugly. As a 5, 6, 7, 8-year-old she was well acquainted with “out of range” and the exercises targeted weakness, reinforcing (to her) that she was weak. Being a patient and being the Mum can be tough. It digs in and is a gateway to double chocolate caramel slice in sad waiting room cafés.

Somewhere in that merry go round I had coffee with the very best of friends; you know the one where you can say anything and she will make it ok. I got it all out, the way I felt about the appointments, the missed school, the woman in the office, the OT, the tutor, the Physio, the money, that I had to take her, the fact she had to go, what I was missing out on with my boy… I got it all out. And she said-

“Yeah, we dumped OT, you can’t go forever. Why don’t you try something instead?”

That’s where we were.  Now, I look at her in her taekwondo gear, strong and fierce without a shred of fragility and him proud in his black belt. Somewhere along the way, we committed to taekwondo like therapy, and it became their haven, their self-esteem and their strength.

Needs: our hand signals

We have a secret language. It came from necessity, privately, publicly, urgently, in a hot moment when we needed to be connected. Without warning, something was said, something that didn’t sit right with them and it didn’t sit right with me. My dudes’ eyes reached out to mine, for an anchor and in a tap and a nod they knew, yeah that wasn’t cool, that’s not who we are, and I whispered “not Creanish” for the first time. 

Fast forward. I didn’t get advance notice that an authority figure was going off script. I could see the kids drank it like a milkshake. Why shouldn’t they, their parents had driven them there and expected them to listen. I leaned over quietly and tried to give them a look like “Not this, I am ideologically opposed to this” because my eyebrows are all that and my son gave me a nod that looked like he understood and said “Yeah, pancakes”. After, in our car, I turned to them and said when someone, anyone says something I’m not cool with, I will give you this signal and I tapped two fingers on my arm and their arms. It’s our secret language. Two fingers tapped on my arm means “Not Creanish.”

Fast forward. I’m sitting in the hospital with my girl and a doctor we have never seen before is doubting a working treatment plan and washing her regular doctor in negativity.  My girl is trembling as she hears the things she knows for certain become translucent.  Water hits the tissue paper of her medical identity. She’s on rocky ground and I lean across and tap her arm with two fingers. I’m kicking him off her team.  My girl smiles and turns to give her full attention. She’s protected now. There is nothing he can say. She knows he’s “not Creanish”.

Fast forward.  At school pick up. Another Mum is insistent about the Father’s Day breakfast.  It is important, to her. My kids have slowly circled from their classrooms. Minutes pass and the Mum is not even breathing as she rattles off information. I am looking for a gap to leave and they are searching for a gap to plead. Their eyes are fretting. We move too late. “It was the worst day ever, I couldn’t hold on anymore, why does she want to talk when I need you”. Sobs. I get down low and swim in those tears. “You’re absolutely right. And when you give me this signal (tapping 3 fingers) it means “TO THE CAR”. She lets out a breath. He taps three fingers on my arm. TO THE CAR, like TO home, TO just the three of us.

Fast forward. We were going out, well we were going in but we were at the movies. It was still a dark room with bed like chairs but a movie was the whole world that day. I tried to reassure her. We would be fine. Just a family movie. She tried to say something. I tried to reassure her again. Sometimes I don’t hear her, like my super focus blurs other details. I heard the hurl hitting the popcorn. We all hear that. It sounds violent and brings a side serve of mother guilt. Wipes out. Hair back, jumper change and then we saw the rest of the movie. After the film, she was dancing beside her seat as the credits rolled, vomit forgotten, just joy. When we got to the car, she turned around and said “hey guys when I give you this signal, (tap 4 fingers) it means I’m going to throw up.”

Fast forward. I’m saying goodnight. I’m saying I love you so much. I’m saying I love you more than all the hairs on all the bears. I’m saying I love you more than all the sand on all the beaches.¹ And he says breathily “I wish we could say this all the time, anywhere, any place.”  A long sigh escapes him and I can almost hear his brain whirring. “I know Mum when I do this, and he waves his five curvy fingers in the air, it means I LOVE YOU SO MUCH.”

Fast forward. My girl is having an MRI. “You can sit outside Mum” the tech said with no nonsense direction. I’m not his mother.  I smile big and give my girl a squeeze. “Nah, I can sit inside like last time” I half laugh as I fake my way in. I am always trying to make myself smaller, and smiley-er in those rooms. “Ok well you can sit down at the end of the machine.” A concession, a victory. I restrain my high five and feign obedience. We pay attention to directions we know too well.  Take off all metal. Left at home.  I carefully sit in the parent chair thinking of the parents before me who claimed this chair. I begin breathing all my love and strength into her. I place my hand on her foot. She is bravery incarnate. The MRI has begun. I am tapping my fingers on her foot. I…LOVE…YOU…SO…MUCH.

Fast forward. Doctors are talking and I am patting her. Doctors are still talking and she doesn’t understand. She can’t speak. It’s been a hard day’s night. There is a new team reviewing the images.  I give her five finger taps over and over.  I…LOVE…YOU…SO…MUCH I…LOVE…YOU…SO…MUCH. I am asking if we can order all her blood tests from the one draw, if the different teams are talking to each other, if they have her current medication.  She splays 4 fingers out.  I pass the spew bowl just before she needs it, before Doctors realise what’s going on. She taps me with 5 fingers. In an instant, our eyes lock. They can keep talking. We’ve got this.

Fast forward. Christmas concert. He’s pumped. He is a tree. He is carrying on the family tradition of starring as trees, rocks and lamps. He comes out on stage, I love him. He curls 5 fingers down by his side. He’s too cool for a wave. I see it. It’s our language. Wherever, whenever we need each other. I…LOVE…YOU…SO…MUCH.

¹Wonderous Maggie Dent, thank you for that one. www.maggiedent.com