Saintly Son

the headache did not get better.

The vomiting didn't go away.

My son is sick he has a temp of 102.5

He has not eaten all day.

I am trying to normalize this sick.

This is a flu.

This is what people go through with their children.

It is always scary when a child is sick.

This child, has been sick a lot.

At six months he could not swallow. The part of the brain that makes you swallow, stopped making him swallow.

It was a very big problem.
A feeding tube was put in.

we were told by a particularly callous doctor, when he was a baby, that he wouldn't live beyond his first birthday.

We were told he had a seizure disorder, that would wreck his brain.

We have spent nine years waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far he is fine, his brain not wrecked, his brain is
Brilliant. Magnificent. Delightful.

like the rest of him.

I used to take him to alternative care providers often.

I racked up a lot of debt.

Our family doctor, a sweet man, with sparse red hair and a gentle touch, told us he would be fine.
He never believed the callous specialist.
We retain the family doctor, he came to the hospital when our second child was born and needed NICICU.
He is full of kindness.
We make mean comments about the specialist.
We still hate him. We talk about how awful he is and we hate him openly, my mother and me. It bonds us. one of the few things.

Maxwell is fine enough.
He vomits & chokes frequently, he reads at a high school level, he flaps his arms when bored, he rocks when he is distracted, he is nearly perfect and we adore him.

We waited nearly six years to have a second child, because we wanted to be fair to him. We were old and tired, we had cared for our most beloved, dear child for so long, by then, that we lost a bit of focus... was it fair to have another? was it fair to leave him on his own, in the event that his old parents were gone?

How the hell, does one know? We chose romance over prudence.

He has a loud, healthy sister, that puzzles all of us, even the dog.

So today he is ill, and his sister is well, and when I went to check on him I smelled vomit.

alarmed!!

"did you throw up again? Why didn't you call me"

"I didn't want to worry you, mommy, I cleaned it all up, brushed my teeth and washed out the sink. I knew you were busy with Freyfrey"

He is my child to the very core.