My Dark Cloud

We have a lot of sadness in our lives right now.

As most of you know, Hailey has been struggling with dysphasia (which causes an inability to swallow) after a botox treatment to decrease her drooling.  She was hospitalized for six days last month and ultimately came home with an ng tube (a feeding tube in her nose).  When we came home from the hospital, I thought (even though I didn't say it out loud) things can't really get any worse.

Well they did.

Three days after she was discharged from the hospital, my best friend was in a horrific car accident with her two youngest children.  She died on impact.  Her two young children were pulled from the car by a passerby before the car went up in flames.  They were in the hospital for over a week (and thankfully are on the road to recovery).

I keep thinking that if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other that I'll stop crying and stop being so sad.  It's not like the sadness is overtaking me or anything.  I have too much to do to be engulfed in it entirely. But it is there, like a cloud...all the time.  It follows me around.

My daughter is ten years old and although she has a genetic disorder and a multitude of cognitive and physical problems because of the disorder, she has always been medically healthy.  Besides a few ear infections and normal childhood illnesses, she has been the picture of health.  Doctors have all marveled over it.  I have always held onto it.

But now she is not medically healthy.  She cannot swallow or eat.  The speech therapist told me yesterday that she did aspirate (food into her lungs) yesterday during the swallow study so we needed to watch for respiratory distress...Seriously???  She is going to most likely be getting a g tube (a tube directly into her stomach through her belly...not in her nose...YES ladies and gentlemen, surgically placed and permanent for all intensive purposes).

Did I mention that she can't go to school...And she can't take any of her behavioral medications until we determine if this swallowing problem is going to improve or not?  So not only do we have a tube in her nose and she can't eat and she can't go to school, she also has huge fits (bigger than before) that include ripping her clothes off, hitting herself in the head and throwing EVERYTHING!...OH and there are no breaks while she is at school (did I already say that?)...so this is a 24 hour thing for our family (minus the 6 days a month that she is at her daddy's).

Oh and my best friend is DEAD...never to return.  Although I keep thinking that I should just call her.  I mean, I didn't see her dead so it can't really be true right?  I wonder when it sinks in that she's not coming back.  I feel like the children are handling her passing better than I am.  Aubrey is making her pictures to send her in heaven attached to balloons...and I can't even accept that she is not really a phone call away.

So see, there is a lot of sadness around here.  I think that can probably explain my writer's block.  How the only thing that I want to write about is sorrow and sadness but how I feel like if I put it down on paper for everyone to see and read that it makes me weaker.  Like I can't handle it...and I can't in a way but I must handle it.  I don't have a choice.  Falling apart is not really an option.  But how do I keep myself all the way together?