Diagnosis
I’ve joined a group of mums to answer a Monday question. Today’s is:
“Did you feel comfortable with the person who gave you your child’s diagnosis? And with the rest of the professionals you dealt with? What would you have preferred? "
I have written before about the moment we learned Coraline had Down’s syndrome, an hour or so after she was born (https://www.coralineandus.com/blog/2017/10/11/birth).
That post is about what was said, but I think there’s a great power to how a person makes you feel with their very presence. So I’ll write about that here.
The lady, a paediatrician, came to see us in a side room to give us the news. There was another couple the other side of a paper curtain. She came with a colleague who, in my recollection, did not say anything.
I felt: separate. Self conscious, as the other couple were near. Alone in the news (though of course very together with Kevin). Like the bottom had fallen out of anything I ever knew about life. Incomprehension. Lack of connection. Afraid. Overwhelmed. Unequal to the road ahead. A mismatch in time, moments freezing. Absolute incomprehension.
When I have this memory it’s as though I remember it not as myself but I am seeing it play out in the room, and my mind looks in on it.
I met the Consultant Paediatrician Dieudonné the next day I believe. How did he make me feel?
I felt: a smile (my own, and his). Reassured. Still absorbing the news, still tears, but stepping into myself and life again. Seen. Like big things could become small. Supported. As though I was held metaphorically in his energy. That everything was O.K. That me and Kevin were great people. That Coraline was doing great. Centered. Hopeful. A deeper feeling about life. Connected. That Coraline was really cute.
When I have this memory, I am fully in it. I am stood inside myself remembering it like that and I have a good feeling.
I guess we can do a lot with our presence behind our words. We can do a lot with the same information but a different take on it.
To see what other people have answered see #ourEXTRAordinarylife
#nuestravidaEXTRAordinaria
