Raw Emotion

Have you ever spent hours crying?  Have you ever cried so hard that no matter what you do you can't stop?  I can tell you that before Emma came, I had not.  Things change...  Since that day, I have felt an overwhelming responsibility to keep her safe, happy and healthy.  I feel this responsibility for Madison and Abby too, with Emma there is just more weight.  Madison and Abby are pretty easy to keep safe, happy, and healthy minus the biting and hitting that Em can dish out to them. To keep Emma safe is quite the task some days.  It takes a toll on me to know that she is 4 years old but that she does not think like a 4 year old or she is not strong like a 4 year old.  It takes a toll on me that I have passed a point with Abby where I know she is safe to walk down the stairs, but my Em still has falls.  It takes a toll on me when at times I have no choice but to hold her down with constraint because she will either hurt herself or someone else.  It takes a toll on me when I try to keep her happy.  At times Emma has Autistic overtones that carry over and it can be a ten minute ordeal just to get her to take a spoon.  It takes a toll on me when she knows what she wants but can't tell me and ends up in screaming fits until I figure it out.  It takes a toll on me when I have to completely drop everything I need to do because if I don't give Em my constant attention she will have a meltdown.  It takes a toll on me when I try to keep her healthy because no matter how hard I try to protect her she still gets sick.  It takes a toll on me that she is living with a disease that has devastating complications and no matter how hard I try her blood sugars are still out of control.  It takes a toll on me that with her yeast problems, staph problems, ears, colds, sinuses, or lungs she has some kind of infection to fight off EVERY day.  It takes a toll on me that between keeping her blood sugars stable and making sure she is breathing at night my mind really never rests.  It takes a toll on me that I have to continually put her through some kind of torture to keep her healthy.  Whether it involves needles, medicine, testing, or hospitals.  It really takes a toll on me when I have to be strong and go through with something even though I know she will hate it because I know she needs it.  It takes a toll on me that I am so grateful to be given Emma and cherish her every minute of every day and at the same time have a hard time handling it all.  All of it has taken a toll on me and produces all kinds of feelings and emotion.  Frustration, sadness, anger, fear, elation, gratitude, I could go on and on.  These feelings, this emotion is very raw and if it gets tapped into I'm in big trouble.  Some days it is buried way down there and others it is bubbling at the surface like a volcano waiting to erupt.   I have been feeling it bubble up a little bit lately and yesterday the volcano erupted.  I had an unusual experience in the morning that sort of triggered the cry fest.  Just when I was getting it under control a thought would pop into my head and it would start all over again.  I feel better today(I always do after a good cry) but I wish there was a better way of it coming out.  I could barely close my eyes last night due to swelling and this morning brought on the aftermath headache.........

Lisa