I wish it were me

If I had a dollar for all the times that I heard my parents make the statements "I wish it were me instead of you" or "This hurts me more than it hurts you"  I probably would be able to go and buy that new Honda Pilot that I like!  As kids we thought that these statements were just a crock, that there was no way that my butt being spanked hurt my mom as bad as the sting on my back side.  The older that I get, and now being a parent,  I have to agree that those statements hold some truth.

This past week has been an emotionally and physically draining week.  We spent 5 days in the hospital with our baby Frankie who was diagnosed with a nasty case of pneumonia, double ear infections, and RSV.  It is hard for me to even begin to grasp how this child became so sick so fast.  This was not the first time that he has given us a scare, at three weeks old he was diagnosed with Pertussis (whooping cough) and was hospitalized and came home on a monitor for weeks.  Frankie is now on the mend and we are home, Thank God!  Since things have began to slow down some, and I have got some much needed sleep, my mind is just now beginning to grasp what we went through this week. 

Having a sick child has to be one of the single most difficult things to go through as a parent.  For those of you who have children who have been critically ill or have chronic conditions, I have so much respect for you.  The feeling of helplessness, the feeling of guilt, it just tears away at your heart.

 When we brought Frankie to the Emergency room, I knew that he was sick, but I just didn't realize how bad he really was.  His temperature was almost 105 after being treated around the clock for 24 hours.  His beautiful little eyes were swollen shut, and the color had faded from his sweet little face.  You would think that with a nurse for mommy, and a doctor for daddy, we would not have let our child get that sick, but it happened so fast.  We were trying to rationalize everything from a medical standpoint, and did not listen to our gut instinct as parents.  Watching them stick my baby time after time to start an IV because he desperately needed IV fluids, seeing him being suctioned, having to hold him down literally so that they could do all of these things was awful.  Daddy could not even take it and would have to leave the room.  I knew that all of these things were necessary if my baby was going to get better, I do the same things to my own patients, but this was different.  It was my baby. My son. I was humbled.  When all of this was happening, I kept on thinking about what my parents would say when I was sick.  "I wish it were me instead of you" and now I knew full circle that what they had said all of those times was so true.  I wanted to get in that bed and trade places with Frankie.  I wanted to take all of that away from him, and it broke my heart that I could not do so.  I can remember when I was in labor with Livi and had been in hard labor for about 24 hours and nothing was happening, so the doctor said that it was time for a c-section.  I had never even considered having a c- section because I figured that a big ol' girl like me would be able to birth a baby with no problem, but Olivia had a different plan.  My mom and Bobby were as exhausted as I was and after we decided to have the c-section at 4am, my mom followed the doctor into the hallway.  I could see her from a distance and could hear her.  She said something along the lines of "That is MY baby in that bed, and I want to make sure that you have had enough sleep to do this"  in a Kathy Wilson kinda tone. Then she came back  into the room crying and telling me that she wished that she could trade me places.  At the time I thought that she had just went off of her rocker temporarily and that she needed a nerve pill, but now I know that feeling. An hour later our sweet little girl was born, and we were both fine. 

As parents, we want the best for our children.  We want them to be good, successful people.  We want to see them blossom into the person that we have tried to raise them to be.  When they fail at something or when they have a stumbling block in life, we want to take that away from them.  We want to clear the path and make everything better.  It is our nature, it is what all parents do.  When they are sick, we want to take all of that hurt and pain away.  My mom once told me that "An old cow bawls for her calf".  It is true, in every species mommies want to protect their young, they would kill, and even die themselves for their babies.  It is the way that God made us, it is our job.  As a person of faith it only makes my faith stronger to think of the sacrifice that God made with his own son, for all mankind.  What a heart wrenching decision that must have been.

It is simple, when our kids hurt, no matter how old or young, as a parent,  it hurts us too.  I will say the same thing to Liv and Frankie that my parents said to me, that "I wish it were me" and only when they have a child of their own will they fully understand the meaning of those words.