epicurean
Member
As mummy to my child with special needs, I find myself always trouble-shooting coz challenges/problems/medical issues keep sprouting up. Most of the time, the negative, depressing, worrying, scary stuff overshadows the happy, positive things coz the former is just so much stark and more pressing in needing me to respond to it. Yet it's the happy, sweet blessings that keep me going day after day by giving me the reserves that I need to deal with the problematic, scary issues.
I'm hoping that we can help to lift each other's spirits by sharing about the things (big, small, simple, trivial) that we're thankful for when it comes to our children with their special needs.
For me, it's seeing Sebastien being more smiley the past few months, especially in direct response to something we say or do. It's a particularly sweet blessing coz his EEG done last year showed flat brain waves and his doc told us that there's hardly any difference in his brain waves between when he's asleep and when he's awake. Meaning there's very little brain activity happening most of the time and that he's THAT severely mentally impaired.
But recently he would smile when I talk to him though not consistently all the time. He smiled when we gave him an orange to smell and see and he kept smiling each time that orange entered his line of vision and smell. In the morning, he smiles at the person feeding him before agreeing to drinking his milk. He smiles when doing his exercises ... tickling his sides, back, tummy and elbows always gets him laughing. The sweetest smile to date was given to his friend from his PICU days, a little gal who's paraplegic ... we parents put them lying side by side for some peer interaction ... they sussed each other out and started smiling at each other. Needless to say, we parents were thrilled to bits and couldn't stop laughing at how they were enjoying each other's company.
Somehow the road isn't so difficult to walk when there are moments like these.
I'm hoping that we can help to lift each other's spirits by sharing about the things (big, small, simple, trivial) that we're thankful for when it comes to our children with their special needs.
For me, it's seeing Sebastien being more smiley the past few months, especially in direct response to something we say or do. It's a particularly sweet blessing coz his EEG done last year showed flat brain waves and his doc told us that there's hardly any difference in his brain waves between when he's asleep and when he's awake. Meaning there's very little brain activity happening most of the time and that he's THAT severely mentally impaired.
But recently he would smile when I talk to him though not consistently all the time. He smiled when we gave him an orange to smell and see and he kept smiling each time that orange entered his line of vision and smell. In the morning, he smiles at the person feeding him before agreeing to drinking his milk. He smiles when doing his exercises ... tickling his sides, back, tummy and elbows always gets him laughing. The sweetest smile to date was given to his friend from his PICU days, a little gal who's paraplegic ... we parents put them lying side by side for some peer interaction ... they sussed each other out and started smiling at each other. Needless to say, we parents were thrilled to bits and couldn't stop laughing at how they were enjoying each other's company.
Somehow the road isn't so difficult to walk when there are moments like these.
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