Brave Enough To Be Bliss

Chapter 4 — The Deepest Pain Chapter Dedication: Chad Nathan Harrell, March 27, 2000-June 12, 2017

“I would do it all over again you know. Be your mom. Raise you and love you and mess up a million times and try to be the best version of myself for you. I would carry you in me and carry you with me always, all over again. I would endure your hurts with you and scream your name from the stands and write you love letters and keep all the tradit ions alive. Being your mom has brought me happiness I couldn’t have imagined. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.” @never_empty_nest Even though I hadn’t planned to remain working there, after seven months I decided to accept a full -time position. While I was working insane hours, I was also having a lot of fun. It was vastly different than what I was accustomed to. I had always worked in places that had a lot of policies, procedures, structure, established boundaries, you know, all the things that made me feel comfortable. But I was beginning to recognize there were some benefits to the looser structure, like being able to make decisions quickly, change course when something wasn’t working, and implement creative solutions. I also didn’t miss all day back -to-back meetings, and I had negotiated a four-day work week. While I was working a minimum of 60 hours a week, being able to have more flexibility was a benefit. Like every job, there were pros and cons, but I was laughing and smiling so much more it seemed like the right thing to do. And after developing a close friendship with John, I knew I would really miss him if I left. There was also the reality that no one else had wanted to hire me in two years, so that thought really sealed the deal. Kylee’s second semester at KU was a rough one. She was enrolled in chemistry and the periodic table did her in. If you haven’t seen one recently, click on the link below , remembering that she is easily overwhelmed visually and struggled with memorization. While she didn’t say too much about it, I knew she was upset when she had to drop the chemistry class and started to question if she was going to make it or had to seriously reconsider her career choice. Even though I had always said the right things about focusing on doing your best and that being enough, I started to realize that wa sn’t what I expect ed of myself, and she seemed to have learned more from what I did myself than what my words were to her. It was too late to change that, so I started trying to think about what else I could possibly do to help her manage the difficulties presented with PCS. I went back and read through an email folder I had with everything related to her concussion. Along with physical therapy and vestibular therapy, she had also had speech therapy and I remembered that was where she had experienced the most improvement. I read back through the neuropsychological consultation report and all of the physician reports, and it seemed like we had done all we could. But then I ran across an email from a Doctor of Optometry Board Certified in Vision Therapy. I remembered she had reached out after seeing Kylee’s media coverage. I remembered being very impressed that she would take the time to reach out, so I thanked her and said I would consider it and appreciated her offer to work with Kylee. Kylee was still doing other therapies at the time, so I thought we’d tackle one thing at a time. I remember asking the neurol ogist about vision therapy and he said there was no research supporting it and it wouldn’t be covered by insurance, but if we wanted to proceed it wouldn’t hurt anything. At the time, I figured if there wasn’t research to support it and considering it wasn’t covered by insurance and I didn’t have a job, I probably shouldn’t spend the money on it. As I started to think about the symptoms that were most troublesome to Kylee, including how completely overwhelming the periodic table had been to her visually, I figured it couldn’t hurt to have her evaluated. We had always had her vision tested annually, but this was something different, it was a visual information processing evaluation. The evaluation took half a day, and I was encouraged to stand or sit where I could watch her during the tests so I could see what she was seeing, or as it turned out, not seeing. With each test, my heart sank lower and lower…and lower. I was stunned to see what she so clearly could not see or do. periodic table - Search Images (bing.com)

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