For My Children: I Hope this Apology Will Help You to Heal

 

 

I heard a song by David Meece one time. It was titled Learning to Trust in You. The line that pierced me to the core was this one:

 

There’s a mother in your heart of hearts,

who always played the perfect part,

and never let you hit the ground.

Oh, these are the dreams of children!

And it hurts when they don’t come true.

So, I’m learning to trust in You in everything that I do.

I’m learning to trust in You because, in my heart, I know that You’re true.

 

I let you hit the ground. Please know that it was never intentional! But I let you hit the ground, despite every effort to keep you safe and free from harm. It sounds almost laughably cliché to say I did the best I could, but honestly, I did the best I could. Despite my best intentions, I failed you in many ways as a mother. If I could go back in time, most assuredly, I would do some things differently. If I could have known then what I know now, there is so much I would have done differently.

 

But time travel and the changing of history is not one of my spiritual gifts.

 

The one thing I would not have changed is our decision to homeschool you. What I would have done differently is put you in school three years sooner than I did when I began to get sick. I definitely homeschooled longer than was beneficial to you with my then undiagnosed illness at that time. In my deepest of hearts, I wanted to hold on to every moment I had with the three of you because I genuinely did not believe I would survive the illness.

 

As I became aware that I was growing sicker, I made extra efforts to increase your activities and even create teaching co-ops with our homeschool group. I knew I needed the assistance of other moms to come alongside me. I even called my dad when I found an amazing opportunity for kids at the local junior college that offered College for Kids classes. Laura was able to take piano classes with their music department. Chris took a Lego engineering class and built robots. Josh was too young at the time, but Grampa was also aware I was getting sick, so he paid the tuition for this additional learning opportunity.

 

Education was always my priority. I’ve heard you say you thought it was purely religious indoctrination, but it was always about education. I was even harassed by some friends that my motive was NOT religious reasons. I saw that as a perk, but it was not my motive for homeschooling. I hope that you can see that more sincerely now, as I am nearing the completion of my Ph.D. I have always valued education.

 

I hope you can remember some of the good times during those years. Do you remember the Young Authors Conference where you both earned awards for entering books you wrote when Chris was five and Laura was three years old. Laura could not yet write sentences, so she dictated her book to me, and I wrote it down for her.  I wonder if you remember the field trip to the Krispy Kreme factory where they let y’all make your own donuts. Do you remember delivering valentines each year to the local nursing homes? The residents were always so happy to see you guys each year! Do you remember the Children’s Museum in Fort Worth? We would take trips there with Leslie, Travis, and Allison about twice a month. We watched you guys make flying contraptions and learn about building tension bridges. There really were some good memories there if you can remember them.

 

As my health began to fail further, the pain was affecting me deeply. I was terrified of taking the medication the doctor gave me due to addiction issues in my family history. The decline was quick. I began to lose memory and cognitive function. I would get lost driving to once familiar places. The dizziness became a constant, and of course, with dizziness comes nausea, and with nausea comes vomiting, and that was my life right before diagnosis.

 

Earlier, before I was showing signs of illness, we desperately wanted to have more siblings for y’all. As a family, we went through the joys of learning of new pregnancies and the sorrows of losing each baby that followed. Seven heartbreaks in four years. That fundamentally changed me as a mother. It was my ob-gyn who sent me out for Lyme disease testing due to the cluster of cases in the DFW area at that time. That long medical ordeal over the next four years ultimately led to a confirmed diagnosis of Lyme disease. We never expected that I would be diagnosed with an illness that was fully enveloped in medical controversy or that we would have to travel out of state to a specialist who specialized in Lyme disease—every six weeks for the next three years.  Dad and I did everything we could to make those medical trips look like “vacations” for you three kids. We described them as camping in Louisiana in Dr. Forester’s cabins. We took long drives in the piney woods of Louisiana. I slept a lot. I began to have nerve pain that hurt so bad that when I cried, the tears running down my cheeks felt like someone had taken a razor blade to my cheeks as the tears fell. We tried to minimize the reality I was living in for you kids. 

 

One of our decisions to put you in school when we did was when I was faced with having to get a central pic line directly into my heart for long-term home IV antibiotic infusions. I declined and chose to use oral antibiotics instead because I did not want to scare my children to see me hooked up to machines in my own home. The healing took a lot longer with oral medications, but I was more concerned for you guys. I often torture myself with wondering if it would have been better to do it the quicker way and if prolonging the treatment not to scare you actually did more long-term damage to you due to the long, drawn-out healing process. Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve…. I’d have given anything to be the healthy mom you deserved. You truly deserved a better mom than you got. But I hope you know that you have always been loved more deeply than I can ever find adequate words to express. You are loved still with an everlasting, although deeply imperfect love, and I will spend the rest of days loving you until my dying breath.

 

Oh, how I wish I could change the pain of your childhood that was riddled with my battle of a debilitating illness that affected us all. I resisted Dr. Forester’s advice to have you all tested for a long time. There was no way I could wrap my mind around the concept that my kids might have to fight this illness too. I was in abject denial. It was not until you all shared what looked like the average stomach bug where Chris got it first, bounced back in two days. Then Josh got it, bounced back in two days, then Laura got it. She did not bounce back in three days. On day three, she was in a coma at Cooks Children’s Hospital. It was then that I begged them to do a Lyme test. A simple blood test that our insurance would have covered. They said, “No. We don’t have Lyme in Texas.” The doctors were concerned it may have been meningitis and sent labs to Austin and began treatment preventatively because if it was meningitis, they said Laura would be dead by the time the lab results got back to them.

 

I remember feeling like I failed once again and should have done the testing when Dr. Forester first recommended it. We called him after hours while we were at the hospital. We told him that you were being treated with IV Rocephin, and they refused even to do a Lyme test, knowing that both dad and I had been recently diagnosed with Lyme and co-infections. Dr. Forester assured us that the treatment you were receiving was precisely what he would have prescribed for Lyme treatment. You were out of the coma 12 hours after they started the treatment. Dr. Forester told us to get you to Louisiana as soon as you were discharged, and he would do the tests. Even after a week of IV antibiotic treatment, your Lyme test came back positive, and Dr. Forester began you on a treatment regimen. Then he firmly recommended we get the boys tested do. We immediately complied.  

 

I was absolutely not prepared when he called with the Lab results saying that Josh and Chris’s tests came back positive for Lyme too. Dr. Forester laid out his theory of what occurred with our family medical history. I don’t know if y’all remember the stories about how sick I was in high school that I missed 87 days of school in and out of hospitals for testing, brain scans, etc. Dr. Forester began his theory that I had Lyme back then that was undiagnosed. He showed me medical journal articles on how Lyme can be transmitted from mother to child in eutero. We went through the medical histories of how Chris was sick right after birth but rebounded. Then Laura was severely ill within 8-days of birth and landed in the NICU, where they told us to plan her funeral because she was so severely ill that they did not expect her to survive a 24- hour period. They offered us no hope. When Joshua was born, it was just 24-hours after birth that he became severely ill as well. Same story, next chapter. After doing tests, and none of the treatments responded, they told us to plan a funeral for our newborn child.

 

Dr. Forester explained that he believed I passed undiagnosed Lyme disease on to all three of you kids; it was reactive shortly after birth and went dormant. He stated that that stomach bug you all shared was just the “perfect storm” that may have activated the disease. When we finally tested his theory, all three of you tested positive for Lyme and co-infections too. He also explained he felt that was the reason for all of the pregnancy losses. He further added that were it not for the concerned Ob-Gyn who sent me out for Lyme testing; he fully believed I would have died because my bacterial load had been permeating my brain and cognitive functions. He said unequivocally that he believes that if I had not come to Louisiana for treatment, I would have died because no doctor in Texas would treat me.

 

I live with the guilt of knowing that I passed on such a debilitating disease to each of you. When I see you battle long-term health issues, I often wonder if your Lyme disease may have come out of remission as mine had on several occasions. As a mother, I live knowing that my body killed seven of your siblings. You really deserved more than you got when you got me as your mom. But I do hope you can see forward and challenge yourself not to live in the past. Yes, Lyme devastated my life, I passed it on to you, and I often pray that none of you ever experience a relapse of the illness. Lyme can cause severe mental illness types of symptoms that affect the brain. Lyme is known for causing “Lyme-rage.” I did not understand that at the time when everyone was asking me why I was so mad. I never felt mad. I felt terrified that I was dying and would not see your next birthdays.

 

I’ll never forget when Dr. Forester told me I was in remission because I had been symptom-free six months, and we stopped the medication protocol. It was then time to clean up the mess of the long-term treatment. Brain surgery was no walk in the park. Still, he assured me it would be the best long-term solution to stop vertigo, nausea, vomiting, and increased spinal fluid production caused by the three years of antibiotic therapy. This surgery allowed me to no longer need spinal taps every 6-8 weeks. They were concerned that to keep having them that frequently could cause paralysis or permanent injury. I felt like I could finally see the light at the end of the darkest season of my life.

 

When they took me back for surgery, all I wanted was to see your faces. Part of me was still afraid I would die on the table. We decided to put you in school that day. Actually, I think Laura may have come to the hospital with dad and mema; it’s all a bit fuzzy now. Waking up from surgery started the healing that came with remission. But as I healed, I began to see the damage that was done to the whole family over those years of illness. You truly deserved to have had a healthy mom. I will carry the guilt of a lifetime for the harm I have caused the three of you kids. Heck, it even impacted the health of our marriage. Our family survived a medical crisis. Or did we? Or are we still walking wounded?

 

As much as I would like to change the past and the damage I caused, all I know to do is walk forward and not live in the past. I can’t fix it. I would give anything if I could make the past better for you. I hope you can learn to see me in the light of getting well, not just in the horror of the disease that was. I am not the same mom you had then. I would love to extend to each of you an invitation to have an experience with the mom that exists now. I am a scrappy little fighter for the underdog--- because I remember what that feels like.

 

Much like the tattoo on Laura’s arm, I am living the life of that phoenix that rises from the ashes. Much like the tattoo on Chris’s spine, VERITAS—I have devoted my life to seeking and following the truth of God. I have overcome illness. I have come from severe cognitive decline. I was bedridden for almost ten years, lost memory, got lost in familiar places, went back to school after remission, received my master's degree, and am now near completing my Ph.D. program. I invite you to move forward with me.  I am no longer that mom you once knew that was peer-pressured into believing I sinned against God by pursuing my bachelor's degree rather than be a “full-time mom.” I was shamed into never displaying that degree. I actually put my diploma on my bookshelf, in a folder, between two homeschooling books by an author I now think is toxic in her advice to women! Oh, the irony!  I invite you to come to my business office, where my degrees are on display, so I can assure my clients that I am confidently trained and competent to care for their concerns in mental health. I have no shame or interest in hiding the gifts God has fashioned in me for His purposes. I can now walk confidently in the path God has chosen for me.

 

I sure wish I could change your past childhood experiences of sick and angry mom. You sincerely deserved better. We all did. But I am grateful every day that I did survive. I got to see you grow up into amazing adults. I seek to offer you a relationship with Mom version 2—the healthy years. I want to see the rest of your stories play out. I want to see you grow and have families, have family vacations together when we can, and create new holiday traditions for us all. I just want to love you for the rest of your lives and to see you thrive. I am hoping that this sincere heartfelt apology can be the start of our moving forward.

 

Please forgive me for where I have so profoundly failed and wounded you in the past. I wish I could have been the mom that played the perfect part and never let you hit the ground, but I did let you hit the ground. I hit the ground, and we all came tumbling down. But we are IRONS-STRONG. We will rise. I hope you will forgive me where I failed you. I wish I could say I will never let you down again. My humanity is clearly flawed and established. So, I hope you will be willing to walk forward with mom version 2, and let’s see what joys lay ahead of us, even if we forever walk with a limp because of what was left behind us. I love you…I will forever love you with every fiber of my being. Please forgive me.

Love, Mom