Dear Amber,
I’m grateful you remember that day and test. I like your version much better. I can laugh at my version now, but at the time not so much.You had interrogated me with your best logical questions and pleas for well over an hour before we arrived at the endocrinologist office. The short version went something like this:
AMBER: I really don’t want to do this.
ME: I know you don’t want to do this, but sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do because it’s the right thing to do.
AMBER: What if the test is like the last one and doesn’t work?
ME: Amber the last one worked because it eliminated hypoglycemia. That’s a blessing.
AMBER: But we still don’t know what’s wrong so it didn’t work.
ME: Yes it DID work because we know that you DON’T have hypoglycemia
And on, and on you relentlessly questioned, “Mom why do I have to do this test? It’s not fair! Why are you making me do this? I don’t want to go. Where is this test? What does the nurse look like? How many times are they going to poke me with the needle? How many people are having this done? Are they my age? Will you be with me the whole time? Can I eat a snack while I’m there? What if I have to go to the bathroom? I don’t feel good; maybe we should do this on another day.” I had to tell myself to breathe. It didn’t work.
I was thankful to get you into that car and walk into that small office full of other patients. I knew in my heart that this doctor (at this time with these tests) was a positive answer to prayer and a blessing, but at the time I wasn’t feeling it. I was praying repeatedly that no one would speak because I was worn out, needed quiet AND because I didn’t want anyone to give validity to your fears.
Then that lady began speaking. Obviously I wasn’t praying hard enough, and my Jedi mind control powers were failing me. My worn out spirit went on high alert. I really didn’t hear most of her words, but I did notice her comforting tone and relaxed a bit on the praying hard for her to hush. I heard her say she drove over 2 hours to this specific endocrinologist because he was the best in his field for miles around.
When she said: “We are so blessed to be sitting here...” I about lost my composure, wanting to burst into tears right there in that little waiting room. She said very eloquently what we both so desperately needed to hear AND she was credible since she, for many years, had lived with this and had suffered like you. Glad my prayers for her to hush were answered with a “NO” that day.
We made it through the test, or I should say you made it through the test. The results came after two long weeks of waiting. I wasn’t sure what Primary Adrenal Insufficiency meant; I just knew that I was relieved to have an actual name to call your “condition” but also shell shocked to hear that you were “cortisol dependent” for the rest of your life.
Amber, I’m really glad you remember that day and those two weeks differently than I do. It’s given you strength to this day. I never heard that lady in the waiting room describe freedom, I just heard her words about blessing.
Maybe they are the same thing.
I am laughing through my tears.
Love,
Mom
In Response to The DiagnosisLabels: Letters from Mom