Protecting them is my job, and I am damn good at it.
But I failed them, my friends.
I failed in a very big way, and while I forgive myself for my ignorance, I will also carry the burden of that failure around for the rest of my life.
Blythe has a slight obsession with The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl, these days. She thinks about them, and talks about them, and tells her friends about them. Recently I asked her why she likes them so much, and she spouted off a whole list of things. Then she said, “I like Lava Girl because she’s on fire inside. Just like me.”
She has been on fire inside since she was two months old. That’s when the screaming fits began, followed shortly thereafter by “pseudo seizures” where her body acted as though it was seizing, but her brain function remained normal.
She was inconsolable, for hours at a time. Her tiny little body would stiffen, all over, and she would flinch away from my touch. I was so afraid to hold her when she was like that, because I thought I would drop her. So I would put her in her crib and watch her fight against herself. Every muscle in her body would tense up, “seizing”, and then she would fling herself this way and that. And scream. She would scream for hours, even after her body calmed itself.
She was on fire inside, and I couldn’t figure out why.
I can’t even count the number of pediatricians we saw, those first few months, but not a single one of them had answers.
None of them asked if she had ever been exposed to Methamphetamines, even though I now know she was displaying signs of exposure. As she’s gotten older, she’s shown more and more signs, and yet none of the experts assigned to her care – myself included – ever asked the question.
The thought never even crossed our collective minds that meth exposure might have been contributing to the ever-growing list of problems with her Central Nervous System. Even if anyone had asked, I would have told them, with complete confidence, that she had never in her life been exposed to meth.
I know differently, now… and that knowledge changes everything.
As always, my disclaimer:
Please understand that I don’t hate him, I don’t wish him any harm, and I’m not trying to make him look like a monster. He is getting help for his addiction and his behavior, and I hope he’s able to conquer those demons.
But this is my story. My life. This was my reality. I won’t be silent.
