There's Always Somebody Else

One morning a couple of weeks ago I woke up feeling fine. I felt more awake than I had in a couple of weeks. I felt better physically than I had the last couple of weeks. But by the time I got to work, I didn't feel fine anymore. I can't explain why. Perhaps I got up too early and it just caught up with me. Or perhaps I was given the news by my well-meaning significant other that we received an email that someone we know just found out their new baby has PKU. Well, my question to myself is, why am I so emotional about it?

I shed more tears that day than I saw clients or got phone calls at work. I don't know why, but the start to that day just put me into emotional overload unsuspectingly. Here I would like to hash out the reason.

I am not crazy about cliches, and I really don't like the one when people say "There is always somebody else out there who has it worse than you do." I HATE that! Well, of course there is! But how is that supposed to make somebody feel better? I feel bad enough, now I have to feel worse for somebody else! I think it means we are supposed to be thankful that our own situation is not as bad as it could be. However, this never makes me feel better. I wouldn't want to look at someone else and think, gee, I'm glad I'm better off than they are! I feel horrible about that. My belief and my experience through my job, seeing people who have all kinds of needs, tells me that every person has problems, and there is no way to compare problems. I get so tired of people comparing their problems to others. Everyone goes through something bad in their lives, and different people all have different ways of feeling and dealing with those issues. I love that I can reach out to others, even through this blog, who may be going through the same things as I am or have been, and we can share and help each other. I make myself feel better by helping others. That is one way that I deal.

But now I have a different perspective on that saying.

We know that every set of parents who carry the PKU genes have a 25% chance of bearing a child with PKU. We already know this. Our friends already know this, because, like our son, their son has PKU. Their son is 4 months younger than Carson. Their daughter, just born, is 6 months younger than Maggie. There were so many similarities and parallels in our families and in our journeys. It just touched my heart to hear of them going through all those same emotions all over again. I remember preparing myself for the possibility before Maggie was born. I knew what to expect, I knew how long it would take us to find out, and I knew what to do. My only child at the time had PKU, so that's all I ever knew. I also knew if Maggie didn't have PKU I would be a new mom all over again and have to learn how to feed her. Thankfully, that is the case. When we got "the call" this time it was good news, that Maggie, unlike her big brother Carson, does NOT have PKU. My friends didn't get that call. They got the same one as before. They found out their little girl does have PKU, just like her big brother. This is where our similar paths now separate and go in different directions. We are both new parents learning how to care for 2 children, our children are nearly the same ages, we each have a boy with PKU, but now we have different paths to follow. They will go down the road raising 2 children with PKU. I know from experience, as a parent, that it is difficult to think about your child having to go through something like this for the rest of his or her life. For them, this feeling is doubled. One positive is that the children will have each other to share experiences with, they will have someone in their own house that understands all the frustrations of a special diet. On my path, Carson is still the only one in his family who is going through this. However, he is not alone. He has a friend, someone close, who will hopefully be close to him for the rest of his life and can understand what he is feeling. A boy, the same age. GOD IS GREAT!!!

Maggie will not know the struggles of PKU. She does, however, have her own struggles right now from being born with a club foot. This brings her a different set of frustrations. But we do not know what the future holds for her. So far her foot is doing well, still easily corrected. It is slightly different in size and shape and appearance than her other foot. This may hold true as she is older, it may get better, or it could get a little worse. I worry that, as a girl, this might cause her to be self-conscious. But that is a long time away. We don't even know what it will be like for sure when she is older. And she might be a tom boy and not even care! As long as she can walk normally and stand and run and do everything anyone else can do, there will likely be no difference. The unknown is the only fear here. And only time will tell.

After having all these thoughts and emotions come out, and on the day before we got the update on Maggie's foot, I began searching the internet for information about club foot, an activity I have tried to avoid since finding out about Maggie's foot before she was born. I knew there were celebrities born with clubbed feet, and that Kristi Yamaguchi was one of them. I thought she could be a great role model for Maggie! A girl who was a Gold Medal-winning Olympic figure skater! How much better could it be! I finally looked up some info to read about her. Both of her feet were clubbed, so they look the same and normal. Maggie only has one foot clubbed, which makes me worry about them matching each other. I was SO surprised to see another name on the list jump out at me. I LOVE football, and Marty and I frequently watch football games together (isn't he a lucky husband? ;) I saw this guy intercept my man Cam Newton in a game last year, and it seemed like he had so many interceptions every time I saw him play in a Green Bay Packers game...and that is Charles Woodson. Little did I know, he was also the last defensive player to win the Heisman trophy, beating out one of my other favorites, Peyton Manning! I did not know that! Most of all, I did not know he also was born with a club foot. There is even a former Auburn kicker who wrote a book called "The Unlikeliest Auburn Tiger". I intend to buy and read this book. There are so many inspiring stories out there! We need some inspiring stories about PKU! I know there are stories out there, but there is just no magnitude in comparison because it is so rare.

The biggest find of the day, for me, was when I happened upon another blog. The post brought up by my search was about abortion. The author had mentioned that some people in this world abort babies with developmental issues, even club foot. This REALLY caught my attention. It made me cry. How horrible!!! I cannot imagine Maggie not being here! There is nothing wrong with this child! Even if there was, every child is given life for a reason and should be allowed to serve out their purpose, not snuffed out. This is something that I can't even bear to discuss. So moving on, this blog I found turned out to be that of a lady who is raising 2 children with special issues also, except these issues are seemingly much larger than ours. She has one child with Down Syndrome and one with Cerebral Palsy. I read her blog...and I read it...and I read it...and I couldn't stop. I loved the way she expressed herself. She is a wonderful writer and her honesty and emotion just spoke to me. My biggest surprise came when she posted a picture of her children, just at random, and one of them was wearing an AUBURN SHIRT. Most likely, this told me she was from Alabama, the same state where I live! What odds! Could this really be happening? There is someone out there, someone who deals with problems that eclipse my own, someone who feels the need to share just like I do, and she lives so close to me, not on the other side of the world or another world away, but here. It just made it more real to me and more meaningful. How amazing is God to orchestrate all these intricate details of the world and our lives on a daily basis? He cares for us, He is looking out for us, and He is speaking to us in ways that sometimes take us by surprise and even take our breath away. I am thankful for Him just letting me know He is there, He hears me from Heaven, and He is letting me know I AM NOT ALONE. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEBODY ELSE out there. There is somebody who loves us, somebody who gets us, somebody who inspires us, and somebody who supports us. We are never alone.