Mental Shift
When life feels impossibly hard, it’s okay to take a minute.
You do not have to have it all figured out right away, and you can (and should) allow yourself time to experience the feelings, or stages, of grief. This is normal. I needed help, and I needed to stop being afraid to ask for it.
I learned to accept help and lean into community, whether that be family, friends, neighbors, therapists, or a combination of all of those. For me, it was a combination of all of them.
I started talking to my therapist again, I increased the prescription of antidepressants that I was on, and I allowed people to run errands for me, deliver coffee and groceries, and always appreciated the Grubhub gift cards.
Slowly, I began looking for small 'wins' every day. Even if it was as small as brushing my teeth and taking a shower. It was a win. Over time, these 'wins' grew to include running twice a week or doing yoga with Nathan after we put the kids to bed. It didn't matter if I ran for 5 minutes or 35 minutes, or did a long yoga session or one downward dog; it was a win.
I took time to feel and process, and with that time came a mental shift.
There was something in me that transformed from "Why us, why Elliott, why me?" to "I am ready to move forward with the treatments he needs in order to help equip him to live a full and beautiful life."
The shift went from sadness, anger, and fear, to "how can we learn to grow and become stronger from this?"
I transformed my thinking from "he is a child with cerebral palsy" to "he is a child who has symptoms of cerebral palsy."
He is not defined by this diagnosis, and he never will be.
I refuse to live my life in fear and cringe every time he trips because of his cerebral palsy. I refuse to raise my son to believe that this diagnosis has to slow him down or change him in any way.
“It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have”
I know that cerebral palsy is something that Elliott will have to live with forever. That alone can feel crippling and overwhelming. But instead of viewing his diagnosis that way, I choose to view it as a way to never take the simple things for granted. To remember that life is what we make it.
I choose to be extremely grateful for the doctors who have saved his life and the therapists who have gotten him to this point. I choose to see resilience beyond what I even knew possible in his little body. I choose to find joy in the simple, average, everyday things, knowing that tomorrow is not always promised. If I know anything from Elliott's story, it's this. So, I choose to fight on for my boy.
I could not be prouder of him if I tried.
