It's been a crazy 2 weeks. Crazy isn't even the right word. I keep telling myself to write a blog about it and I don't know how. I have such conflicting emotions. All I know is that I keep crying about dumb things. And we all know that when you cry about the dumb things you're crying about something else. I haven't let myself cry much since Ocean's diagnosis. I cried once in the hospital when our diabetes educator, and now friend, finally convinced me that he had diabetes. I think I said this before but I didn't believe them for like the first five days that we were in the hospital. And then when we got home there was no time for tears. It's been a year - I've been devastated, I've had panic attacks, I've been furious but I can count on one hand how many times I cried. I cried when I had the infamous attack on a roll of insulation (blog post "current stage of grief: fuckin pissed) but it was an angry cry. I cried as I held my son at home after his dental surgery as he cried and screamed in pain, in confusion, in hunger and I'm sure in anger. I cried hard that night. I remember holding him and just sobbing because I couldn't fix it. I couldn't fix any of it. I couldn't protect him from diabetes. I couldn't protect him from them yanking out six of his teeth when I thought they were going to try to save the teeth. I couldn't protect him from waking up alone in the after surgery room scared and confused. I remember laying down next to him on the bed and whispering in his ear "mommy's here." PS. Why the hell do they wait until your kid is awake to come get you? I thought I would be there when he woke up so he wouldn't be scared. I can't imagine how frightened he was. It makes me anxious just thinking back on it. The second he heard my voice he calmed down. Blood was running from his mouth, his cheeks were swollen to double their size. All that blood. All that PTSD soaring back from just six months before. We were in the same hospital, on the same floor, in the same waiting room.
I give Ocean 5 to 7 insulin shots a day. Most of the time he doesn't react much. He prefers them in his arms but his arms are getting beat up so I've had to start doing them in his thighs. He doesn't like it but once it's over he just moves on. Except for this morning. I went to give him a shot and he squirmed away for me. I held him down and gave it to him. Afterwards he looked at me different. He looked at me like I hurt him on purpose. He tried to bite me in response. Like you hurt me, So I'm going to hurt you. I cried. It always felt like he didn't connect me to the shot. But today his eyes held betrayal. All I could do was pull him close and cradle him in my arms. My arms that are supposed to protect him. My hands that are supposed to keep him from harm. Those same hands that hurt him every day.
That's a little like how I feel with all of this attention we are getting. I want to curl up with him and hide. Most of it is positive. Only some trolls and that's to be expected. But even with the positive response I feel like I want to hide even more. I'm sitting here trying to figure out why. And I guess it's because our story is so real to us every day. Our memories and PTSD from the hospital are still very real. I like to keep them in a little box in the back of my mind tightly closed. I tell myself I will deal with it at some point but I can feel it bursting at the seams, saying deal with me. Look at me. When I focus all my energy on the day to day requirements of keeping Ocean alive I can mostly ignore those memories. But I think that's what's happening. All of this talk. All of this attention. It's making my mind to say -deal with me. Look at me.
No. I don't want to. But the tears seem to be spilling from the box. Weakening it. Willing it to open.
