Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: ShadowWolf_IH on February 19, 2010, 06:58:40 am
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This isn't a spur of the moment post, this is something that has been weighed and decided.
"You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend merely on point of view" --Obi Wan Kenobi, Return of the Jedi
Some of you remember me from back before my four year break, some of you came here while I was gone. While I was gone I got involved , and still am involved, with Special Olympics. I know, this just became a roll your eyes thread to a lot of people. I'm OK with that.
I got involved because of my handicapped daughter, she had a stroke when she was born. She's on anti seizure meds, and other than her right arm being little more than a paper weight when she writes, she's pretty normal. Twice i've been faced with the thought of losing her. In one sitting she twice went flatline on the table, and during a particularly bad day, she flatlined 5 times.
These past few weeks have been extremely trying for her, as she has spent more time at the Children's hospital than she has spent at home. It finally made me sit and think about some things. Things like, why the hell do I need to get upset about problem A, compared to the thought of losing my kid it is really nothing. We get so caught up in how we want things to be we see a crisis or something worthy of a crisis. We fail to really see the big thing which is really much larger.
I'm former special forces, and I have a 12 year old who teaches me what strength truly is. She has what no 12 year old child should have: a firm grasp on what it means to be mortal. Right now she isn't angry that her seizures are going wacky, she's not angry over the thought of death, she's downright pissed off about being in a hospital and not out living her life. The day before yesterday marked the 5th time in just over two weeks that she got rushed to the hospital. She stays a few days, comes home for a day or 2, then goes right back. Her sister is taking it better than I am. lol
I don't know why I wrote this, or decided to tell you guys what was going on in the real world. Except to show you a reason to give pause next time you get angry and ask yourself, is it really that important?
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Here here. Hope everything works out ok buddy.
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Having proper perspective is always important.
I hope your daughter gets through just fine.
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It's good to get these thoughts out. sometimes it just helps.
I make you right ShadowWolf. I've had a fair bit of trauma myself and it really highlights the trivial stuff as well. . . . . Trivial.
I didn't know you were Sierra Foxtrot.
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Even if they don't post, I think I can rightly say that everyone here is pulling for you and your daughter. Hope it works out SW.
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i appreciate the well wishes, even if that wasn't the gist of the post. Tomorrow we need to see the neurosurgeon. Anyway, I really do appreciate the wishes, and I know that someway, it will be handled. I have faith in the hospital she is at. Best care for children for many miles around.
Col, It's not something I broadcast. Those who lived it don't much feel a need to discuss it. It wasn't a good time in my life, so beyond Uniform Delta Tango, I'd really just rather leave it in the past. I only brought that up to let you guys know how personally embarrassing it is to have my child, or any child for that matter, teach me what strength is.
If you think about these kids and how strong they are, and are embarrassed, then much like myself, you probably should be. It's amazing how petty we can be until we are forced to see some REAL problems, and we realize that 90% of what we get so upset about don't really matter. The crap we deal with at work that used to get us so riled up suddenly doesn't matter.
Anyway, thanks for letting me blather on while waxing philosophical.
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Even if they don't post, I think I can rightly say that everyone here is pulling for you and your daughter. Hope it works out SW.
Amen to this.
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Best wishes for you and your daughter.
And I totally agree on the point you're making, albeit for different reasons. Many people tend to make flagpoles out of matchsticks.
Having proper perspective is always important.
:yes:
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In some ways, Obi-Wan Kenobi has a point (which is ridiculous because he's a fictional character). This is something that Palpatine also echoes to Anakin in order to pull him over to the Dark Side.
Think about it this way: if you think that what you should be doing is correct, why should you do it any different? Why should it be any different? People with a different point of view wouldn't see it from the way you do, and they will think that what you're doing is wrong.
My dad passed away last year from stroke, you know. For quite some time, my mother kept suspecting that the doctors and nurses tending to him deliberately pulled the plug on him. Perhaps she was right, but even if she is, there's nothing for me to be angry about. I'm more convinced that my dad decided that his time here was over and gave up the ghost after four days in hospital.
I felt so alienated from everyone else around me during the time my dad was hospitalised and during the three-day wake that came after that. Now that you've brought this up, I think I'm beginning to understand why.
Everyone around me was rooting for my dad to pull through. I was the only one who wasn't doing that. Within the first hour that we learnt of his hospitalisation, I already accepted the circumstances he was in and, somehow, I just knew he wasn't going to make it. There and then, I accepted that I was going to have to live the rest of my life without him.
It's not that I wanted him to die; I'm not so detached from humanity that I could ever seriously think of wanting that. It's just that I realised that there really was no further reason for him to be here. He spent 56 years getting our family out from the poverty cycle and watch my elder sister and I grow into half-adults, while all the time teaching us in his own way. It wasn't the best way of teaching us, but it worked nonetheless.
In the last year of his life, he got every thing that I knew he wanted: to drive a car, to be promoted, to downgrade to a smaller and more manageable house so that he no longer had to shoulder the burden of a home loan from the government. He even bought a new LCD television and had a taste of Blu-Ray technology, all in the comfort of a four-room flat located in a rather peaceful area in Singapore.
He had seen my sister and I grow. He saw my sister enter university. He saw me graduate from secondary school clinching the award for being the top scorer in English. He spent so many decades married to our mum and grew to understand her just as well as she understood him.
He had achieved everything, so there was no longer a reason for him to be here. That's why he left. That, at least, is my perspective of the whole affair - a perspective that I uphold even now, almost a full year later.
I saw no reason to grieve for him. I mean, why should I? He spent so much time trying to get everything he wanted here. He got everything, and enjoyed everything. There is no reason to grieve for him. There is no reason to miss him either: he lives through me through what he taught me.
That's why I saw little reason for me to be present at the wake and the funeral: the coffin before me contained a husk: a mere shell of the person I knew. He is in a place I have no hope of reaching, but that's okay, because I know that he's at peace.
Only my sister had an inkling of my thoughts at that time, and she disapproved of it. In the same way that I fail to see the reason of my presence at the wake and funeral, she has failed completely in acknowledging my perspective of the matter. That is not her fault. However, if we want to get on with life, we need to know that death is a part of life, should be treated as just another part of life, and ergo should not be worth the fuss that it is given now. That, at least, is my take on it. You may see it as wrong, but from how I see it, my perspective of it will make my time here a little more worthwhile.
Why mourn the dead? I mean, we don't live forever. Every moment lost is a moment that can never be recovered, so make good use of as much time as possible.
I wish you and your daughter well, ShadowWolf, and I hope that she will eventually be able to live the life that she seeks.
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Kids are amazingly adapatable, and can be amazingly resillient too. :nod:
I wish you and your daughter the very best.
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I'm curious, is there some sort of genetic condition that caused all of this? It seems odd that an infant would have a stroke at all.
Wish your daughter well.
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Even if they don't post, I think I can rightly say that everyone here is pulling for you and your daughter. Hope it works out SW.
Amen to this.
+2
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I will not wish your daughter well, but I will hope instead that in the near future, she can get a *****in' new robot arm!
robot arms are much cooler than wishes.
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You sound like a very caring father, and I think that's a big part of what she needs right now. Your whole family will get through this. Your priorities are probably right where they need to be.
I hope that means something from some random dude on the internet. :D
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Your daughter is in my prayers, may peace be upon you and your family during this trial. May God watch over you and keep you and see His will be done and do not be mournful at her passing if it comes to that, be thankful you had the blessing of her presence for twelve years.
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Hmmm. I doubt we need to highlight mortality.
Well meant messages are welcomed. But have some tact.
Robot arms are silly turumbar.
Be sensible in this case.
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A child having a stroke is not common, I agree. There is no history of it our families. It's one of those great unknowns in science.
I hope she doesn't get a new robot arm, what father wants his child to beat him in arm wrestling at age 12?
Random internet dudes. Let's look at that. We discuss a wide variety of things, we help each other out, we fight with each other, we poke fun at each other, and at the stupid things that each of us does. I think that the only thing we don't do together is have a beer or two during the superbowl (I don't have a license to use that word, I'm such a rebel). The point being, there is a modicum of friendship here. We may be more like a huge dysfunctional family but let's face it, what family or group of friends isn't?
This thread was aimed at how we change our perspective, and how a crisis stops the slow change of a wheel turning slowly, and instead has a way of highlighting how petty we get in our day to day lives, and the picture suddenly broadens. It's like someone took the blinders off, and we see so much more of who we are and what we've been doing. It's not a conscious effort, it simply is what it is.
My family and I very much appreciate the well wishes and prayers, I can't tell you that enough. She is home and the doctors think it is her meds. Klonopin to be specific. When she had her first in this series of seizures, they were already changing her medication, due to the effects of carbotrol after prolonged use. Anyway, the Klonopin was supposed to keep her calm, along with Lamictal for seizures. The bright side is, her shunt is fine and she doesn't have to go through another brain surgery. She's at home and yelling about not being able to go school, so things are again going back to normal, I hope it lasts this time. I escape at work, her mother stayed in the hospital every time with her, no escape. It's wearing her out, to say the very least.
Anyway, thank God for coffee and B12, or I wouldn't stay awake at work.
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I seriously hope they are able to find the cause of this.
She's at home and yelling about not being able to go school,
When I was her age I was yelling about having to go to school. Interesting how we take such things for granted.
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When it comes to school her sister is a polar opposite. I think it's the Klonopin, the time line is right at least.
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When I was her age I was yelling about having to go to school. Interesting how we take such things for granted.
I used to dislike going to school, having to wake up at 6.15 am in the morning. I didn't yell about it, and I saw the need for school, but I didn't really like it either. It's different now, now that I'm learning stuff relevant to my interests.
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I hope she doesn't get a new robot arm, what father wants his child to beat him in arm wrestling at age 12?
You've got nothing to fear.
1) cybernetic limbs will not be stronger than normal ones
2) it won't happen.
This thread was aimed at how we change our perspective, and how a crisis stops the slow change of a wheel turning slowly, and instead has a way of highlighting how petty we get in our day to day lives, and the picture suddenly broadens. It's like someone took the blinders off, and we see so much more of who we are and what we've been doing. It's not a conscious effort, it simply is what it is.
A life-changing event, you might say.
True, we sometimes get bogged down in mundane, stupid things. We need to appreciate eachother more, and not other people for granted.
I for one have learned my lesson - looking back now, I can't recall any person I have grudges with. I burried the hachets with everyone who ever wronged me. Life is too short to spend it on fighting other people.
My family and I very much appreciate the well wishes and prayers, I can't tell you that enough. She is home and the doctors think it is her meds. Klonopin to be specific. When she had her first in this series of seizures, they were already changing her medication, due to the effects of carbotrol after prolonged use. Anyway, the Klonopin was supposed to keep her calm, along with Lamictal for seizures. The bright side is, her shunt is fine and she doesn't have to go through another brain surgery. She's at home and yelling about not being able to go school, so things are again going back to normal, I hope it lasts this time. I escape at work, her mother stayed in the hospital every time with her, no escape. It's wearing her out, to say the very least.
I undersand your concenrs.
My sisters little daughter also pulled trough several life-threatening situation. Come to think about it, half my family did actually.
It drains one..emotionally.