Fear Of Losing A Child

    I have had far too many times in my life when I have feared losing a child. The fear at times has griped me like hands around my neck and a knife in my stomach. While other mothers joked about how they hated breaks from school when their children were all home, or a friend would say she wished she could adopt Johnny out because he was driving her crazy, I could never say that, even jokingly. I have come too close too many times to losing a child. When faced with losing a child, it makes you look at every child as a miracle, each child as a gift, every day as a day to bask in what you have, look at every day as a day to live life to the fullest and appreciate every little morsel of what you have. 

Stitches, a broken collarbone, strep and an ear infection all at once

    I have already told you about 2 very bad experiences Brett has had to go through. I wish that that was all I had to tell you about what has happened to Brett, but it isn't. From the time Brett got old enough to walk, he loved to run, jump, climb and do everything active. He seemed to be missing the region in his brain which registers fear. He would ride his 4-wheel bike down the steep hill in our back yard and slam full force into the house over and over again. Even if he got hurt he would want to do it again. He was always falling, crashing or slamming into things.

     With this quest to have fun recklessly, came the increased likelihood of him getting hurt. His childhood was plagued with black eyes, stitches, and broken bones. He is still breaking bones. Just last year he broke his collar bone for the fifth time, skiing. https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1103097413903 He hadn't even recovered from this last broken collarbone when he participated in a Guinness World Book of Records event of the largest dodge ball game at BYU-Idaho where he attends college. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vUq243oD6U How crazy is that? That is how Brett lives his life.

He loves all things active and he has no fear

One of many black eyes

Stitches

He fell and fattened his lip and knocked his teeth loose

Another black eye

Because he knocked his front teeth out early he didn't have any front teeth for years and even got to be toothless with his older sister.

Stitches in his knee after a school recess mishap

A few days after having a boulder roll over him on a camping trip. The swelling in his hand has gotten better.

    One time after he fell and got stitches in his forehead, he had a bad experience getting his head sewed up when he hadn't been numbed up enough. It was a horrible experience for him. When I took him back later to get his stitches out he dove under a chair and grabbed onto the legs of it and would not come out for anything. He didn't trust the doctor after the last time. After that I always took his stitches out myself. He trusted me. 

The day of his 2nd collarbone break with his soccer team, his Dad the coach, and his brother Adam, the assistant coach.

At the end of the season they had a party, where they got trophies and played soccer for fun. Adam was trying to get the ball and ran too hard into Brett and broke his collarbone.

He was laid up in a lot of pain

Company while he recovers

He had practiced for weeks for field day at school and was really sad to miss it. He was on the Australian team of this Olympic style event. I went over to the school and asked if I could buy one of the medals and they gave me one, a bronze medal. He is pure gold to me.

Brett's Dad took Brett skiing often but on New Year's Day one year Brett took a bad fall and landed shoulder first into a snowbank and broke his collarbone for a 3rd time. He had to take a painful ride on the toboggan down through the moguls to the first aid station.

Forced to stay put against his will

His 4th broken collarbone came playing soccer only a few months after the previous one, on the opposite side. He also got strep and had a cough during recovery. He sobbed a few times after this one because he had too much at once.

    Another part of Brett getting hurt that deeply touched me came after Brett's worst collarbone break. His bones were broken all the way through and one of the sharp bones felt to Brett like it was going to poke through the skin, the pain was intense for him. It took hours one day for him to see 2 doctors and get x-rays and every time he was moved the pain was so bad that by the end of the day he was ghost white, in tears and throwing up. He had a long hard painful recovery from this break and I was relieved to get him better and back to school. He was told he had to be really careful for a few week while it continued to heal. He went to school in his sling and most of his friends knew he had had a bad collarbone break. Brett came home from his first day back at school and he was white, sick to this stomach and crying because he was in such bad pain. There was a boy at school who had tried to trip him over and over again all day.  Brett had to jerk his body to try to keep from falling, causing him a lot of pain. Anyone who knows me knows that I am missing the anger gene. I just never get mad. This was the first time I had real anger well up in me because of all that Brett had already been through. I wanted this boy's name and to make sure he was punished and talked to about what he'd done. I wanted this boy to realize what pain he had caused Brett. Brett would not give me his name, no matter how hard I begged. I knew if this boy was a bully that day he would be a bully the next day. Brett was the one most hurt by what this boy had done but he looked at me and told me that this boy must be really unhappy to treat people so badly and he didn't want to make his life worse. I didn't understand it but I was moved by his compassion, that he cared more about this other boy than what he himself was going through. I think a lot of what Brett has been through has given him a lot of compassion for people. He has always looked for the kids who didn't have friends and reached out to them. That same year at school the teachers picked 6 students out of his whole school to get special awards for their love and compassion for others. Brett was one of those six. He has been a hero to a lot of people in his life, especially me.

    It wasn't just all of these injuries that scared me for Brett but also the illnesses he had as a child. I have told you about his chicken pox and head surgeries already. I wanted to keep all of my stories about Brett together, just so you would better understand just how hard his life has been. When Brett was born he was diagnosed with a heart murmur and we had to take him to Childrens Hospital for tests. He was also plagued with scary bouts of croup, bronchitis and lung infections. It was the lung infections that scared me the most. Every time he got a cold or any sickness he would get bronchitis and a lung infection. These infections were brutal and very scary. His bronchial tubes would swell almost shut so that he would be gasping for air. His chest would cave in really far with his breaths. I was always scared these infections would kill him. The doctor told me that it was a feeling for Brett like having a pillow held over your face, like you were being suffocated and you were desperate for air. It took so much energy for his little body to gasp for the air he needed that he could not sleep at all and he could not eat anything. He needed all of his energy just to breath. I spent a lot of long nights rocking and singing to him, crying while I watched him struggle to breath and praying hard for him. It is during those long scary nights that my love for this child grew the strongest and also my love for God and his miracles and blessings. God had after all given me the view of just how valuable each one of my children is. I would hold Brett's little hand and look into his sweet face struggling to get air and watching his little body gasping to breath and keep thanking my Heavenly Father that I could have Brett as a child for another day to hold close and to love. I also felt deeply thankful I was a stay at home home, so I could be there always when my children needed me most. It has been worth the sacrifices of less money and no fancy trips to foreign lands just to be with them. I will never take any of my children for granted or wish they were in school and not at home. This experience made me want to soak these children I was given in and love them, play with them and make every day count.

     We have prayed a lot over Brett. Brett was blessed with a good doctor who prescribed us some medicine to give Brett with his lung infections, which contained a steroid to take the swelling out of his bronchial tubes. In the beginning we had to take him into the doctor each time to get the medicine prescribed and then start him on it and wait for the swelling to go down, which all took time and made Brett suffer more. When this doctor saw how frequently Brett got these infections he went against personal and medical rules and gave us a prescription with endless refills. We were able to keep this medicine in the refrigerator and every time Brett would start to talk like he was out of breath, only getting part of a word out without a gasp for air and we knew another one was coming on, we could give him medicine and his infections wouldn't get so bad. That was a blessing. I am happy to report he has outgrown his lung infections with having bigger bronchial tubes and his heart murmur can no longer be heard. But sadly he has not outgrown living dangerously and getting hurt.

Because of his love of sports I made him a birthday cake with a skier skiing down a soccer ball. He broke his bones doing both these things he loves.

He dressed up for Halloween two years in a row as an accident victim. How fitting for Brett. I was thankful these injuries weren't real ones.

I am so thankful I am a Mom. :)