On the Outskirts

From where I stand now, I have difficulty travelling back in time and remembering the first few years of Meredith’s life. For literally years, we lived in a constant state of fight or flight, survival mode and crisis. These regular crises came in the form of severe sleep deprivation to sudden episodes of apnea that required 911 calls and the reality that she may not survive. When we were in the thick of it, people would regularly say, “I don’t know how you do it,” and we, like programmed robots, would reply, “You just do.”
Since December, we have had some space from the daily onslaught of stress and the unknowns and have quickly adjusted into a period of (dare I say?) predictability and most importantly, regular sleep (a combination of seizure medication and full time night nursing). What is confusing me, though, is how quickly I have forgotten how bad it was some days. I mean, it was really, really horrendous at times and now, the further I move away from it, the less I can recall. I read blog posts and status’ on Facebook by parents who are in the throes of this specialty of parenting and I although I can empathize, I also feel very removed from it all.
This concerns me as I have a sense that those years should have more of a grip on me but in some ways, it’s as though none of it happened. Could it be that high levels of stress hormones and severe lack of proper sleep causes a person to experience a muted version of their reality? Or perhaps, in order to survive the unrelenting stress, we shut down to some degree so that years later the memories are not as easily accessible. Could this be some sort of primal defense mechanism or means of protection?

We had grown accustomed to living in that high degree of stress and had, for the most part, accepted that for the rest of Meredith’s life, this would be how we lived.  Of course, we endlessly searched for ways to improve Meredith’s quality of life and consequently ours  but we never imagined that things would stabilize or resemble some sort of  ‘normal.’
Now, that we are six months into our improved quality of life, there have been some positive developments. We only hold Meredith for maybe an hour and a half in 24 hours; a far cry from six months ago when her nights were plagued with nocturnal seizures and holding her 8 hours per night was not a rarity. I also feel as though we have been launched out of the land of active medical fragility and as we move further away from the day in, day out “wait-and-see” frame of mind, I feel like we are on the outskirts of a club we once belonged to.
And then three weeks ago, I went in to check on Meredith and she was not breathing the way she should be breathing. I quickly administered oxygen while calling one of our relief workers who lives close by to ensure I had someone on-call to accompany me should we have to head to the ER. My husband was on his way to work and I called him immediately after securing a back-up. Within minutes, Meredith came around and was back to her normal breathing pattern and smiling at me.
To say that I went into a bit of a shock would be an understatement and for a few days afterward, I felt the heavy presence of our old life. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that although we may be on the outskirts for the time being, it isn’t permanent and we can easily and unexpectedly jump back into the life we had inhabited for a decade. This extended leave from the way things used to be has given us reprieve to regroup, catch our breath, connect with ourselves and with each other and to engage in life again in a way that was not possible for years.

I am grateful everyday to be in a peaceful place for a change (as unfamiliar as it is) but I don’t want to forget those early years. I know that we will never go back to that intensity of the early years as they naturally toughened us up and we have risen high above the normal quota allotted for resiliency. I know, though, that staying on the outskirts indefinitely is also not an option. It is the very nature of medical fragility to accept that all things come to pass whether you want them to or not and in the time it takes to exhale, you can find yourself back in the club,  reflecting on that brief moment spent on the outskirts.