Humans have an amazing ability to adapt (if we didn’t our species would be long gone).
When Errol was first diagnosed with his syndrome, we were grief struck. The bad news came on my 38th birthday, and Cary and I cried and cried all day. We were devastated. We felt as if we had lost a child (which was silly, because we hadn’t, he was right there, the same kid he had been the second before the doctor walked in with the diagnosis). Still, we felt bereft. And then the next day, Errol was still Errol, (his diagnosis hadn’t changed him), and we were all fine, especially sweet Errol. He never skipped a beat.
There have been numerous studies on the emotional effects of dramatic changes in people’s lives. People who lose limbs (where did I put that damn arm?), for example, usually return to their pre-amputation levels of happiness and satisfaction, after only a few months (not that you should try it). And it’s the good along with the bad. Lottery winners, too, flush with millions of dollars, return to their baseline levels of happiness (or unhappiness) within a few months, just like the amputees. We humans reset quickly and make due. I guess it’s a survival response to a world of full of surprise and danger.
Nothing is for certain, not even a genetic mutation on the 16th chromosome. Last month, when Errol was undiagnosed as having Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome, we felt like the rug (one that we hadn’t wanted in the first place) had been pulled out from under us. Sometimes the bad is better than the unknown (Celine Dion). The new news stung. We felt like our world (having been turned upside down once before) had been turned upside down, yet again (which despite the laws of physics, didn’t exactly leave us right side up). We were utterly distraught one moment, and then, all of a sudden, we were fine, and still are (Errol never blinked). Because we have to be, and humans adapt, but most of all, because no matter how you label him, Errol is Errol, and he’s the sweetest kid I’ve ever known.
We’re all undiagnosed, in some way, and we all get used to it.
2 comments:
Undiagnosed -- there you have the name for your book -- you know, the one you have to put out with all of these entries in it....perhaps not now, but someday...for all the other Errols out there, and the other mommies and daddies of Errols (of all kinds) who struggle to put into words what you do so beautifully!!
this is beautiful. if you were in my class i would put an alligator sticker on it, like i keenly remember receiving at one time.
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