Additional Needs
Age Appropriate
by Jodi Shenal
on 26th April, 2024
Now We Are 40
Recently I posted about approaching my 40th and feeling wrung-out.
I was in a massive funk.
Years of caring has taken a heavy toll, my body is broken from lifting and I have acquired some exciting sounding conditions.
Sometimes you need to voice those feelings; this is a far happier post – I am a larger dress size then I’ve been before, a few grey hairs (an excuse for funky hair?!), pregnancy and gravity have conspired so now certain parts of mine anatomy are heading south.
And I don’t care one jot.
I didn’t expect Motherhood to be like this. Unintentionally, I formed a picture in my mind of who my child might be; happy, intelligent, loving, academic possibly.
I’ll be blunt – when Sam was diagnosed I was terrified that I would be up to the task, grieving and overwhelmed.
You lose the child you thought you had, while still loving the child before you.
It is hard as Hell.
I grieve for what my boy won’t experience. For what his Dad and I won’t experience.
But I wouldn’t swap him for anything; I couldn’t be prouder of this little human. He is the happy, intelligent, loving child I dreamt of.
He’s taught me more about myself than I learnt in the 32 years before he arrived. He is so much more than his diagnosis.
He is a child, first and foremost.
Life continues, alongside the daily medications and seizures it’s easy to miss the joy in everyday mundanity.
There’s magic in reading a bedtime story, painting, or going out for a walk together.
Many friends would do anything to have just one more day with their babies; I’m incredibly lucky to be Mum to this amazing little boy.
Life should be lived; even if making plans only to cancel thanks to epilepsy seems to be par for the course.
So, stuff it.
I intend to grow old as disgracefully as possible, with my little partner in crime by my side chuckling away at his bonkers ol’Mum.
Bring it on 40’s, I’m ready for ya.
