Brave Enough To Be Bliss

strangest experience I ’ve ever had. The straight edge of the door didn’t just look like it was wavy, but it truly felt like it was wavy, like I had to be touching a different door. I still don’t understand how it was possible for that to happen even though I know she explained it to me; it was a very strange sensation to know something in my brain and yet literally feel something different. The brain is a very complex and hard to understand organ in so many ways.

Dave Constine | This will blow your mind This goes to show you that’s we don’t see reality, we see our interpretation of reality #reality… | Instagram

Kylee spent the summer going to vision therapy twice a week and had required daily home computer vision therapy as well as several games that we had to play. There were other assigned exercises for her to practice, for example, one of them was to identify objects in my purse without looking. The doctor said Kylee wouldn’t be able to do anything else that summer as she would be exhausted with all the therapies, and she was right. It was therapy and rest/sleep that summer, and that was about it. She didn’t ev en feel like walking over to the apartment pool most days, she was too tired. But it had an incredible payoff and was worth every cent of the $4,000, and would have been worth even more than that. She saw more improvement from that than everything else combined. No schoolwork would ever be easy for her, but it was significantly less difficult and that was vital as she entered her sophomore year of coll ege. And it’s worth noting that when she had her next appointment with the neurologist and mentioned the success of the vision therapy, he said there was now research showing the positive impact of vision therapy on PCS patients. While we were disappoint ed it hadn’t been there in 2011, we were glad at least other patients would be able to get help much faster than Kylee did. By this time, Kylee had accepted medical school wasn’t going to be an option and had started considering nursing. After really thinking about it, she determined that it was probably the better fit for her anyway because she truly wanted to provide direct p atient care. I was relieved that she wasn’t more disappointed and hoped she was being fully honest. Completing the prerequisites for nursing school, took her 2.5 years, including online summer classes after her sophomore year. Assuming she got into nursing school, she wouldn’t be able to start until the next August, so she returned to live with me in December 2016. A few months earlier I moved to an apartment to be closer to work and see what it would be like not just working but also living on the north side of the metro. I had lived in the state of Kansas my entire life, so while it was only about 45 minutes north of where Kylee had lived her whole life, it did feel new, exciting and fun living on the Missouri side of the state line. At the surgery practice where I worked, we needed a Certified Nursing Assistant and Kylee had obtained her certification the previous summer, so she applied and was hired. She had volunteered at the health system where I worked as well as at a couple other community organizations and had always received rave reviews, so I had absolutely no concerns and knew she would be a very valuable employee. The only thing was, I hadn’t told her much about John other than I sometimes would hang out with him and our friend. I figured she’d pick up on the telltale JV smile and notice he was in my office a lot and might ask questions. The only hesitation in telling her about him was because I couldn’t say we were dating. The best I could say was we’re like best friends with benefits and that just didn’t feel like somet hing a mother should tell her daughter even if she was 20 years old. It was just so uncomfortable because I didn’t want to lie to her, but I didn’t want her to think badly of me…and I didn’t want to stop seeing him. I took Kylee to the airport on Christmas Day by mid-morning so she could spend a few days with her dad in Chicago where he lived. John had planned to come over that evening after he was done with his family’s Christmas celebration. He called me late that evening and apologized but said he needed to help his mom clean up. He sounded frustrated, but I thought it was really sweet that he wanted to stay and help his mom. I was very pleased the next morning when he contacted me and asked if he could come over.

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