2020 09 21

 2020 09 21. Mom and daughter on Bridge

As I carried Alexs belongings into the parking lot I watched the people before me. We are going into surgery so we have to store our belongings in the car until we know where we are going later tonight after surgery.

Before me a little girl and an adult woman held hands as they walked in the same direction. The girl was about 3ft tall maybe 6 or 7 years old. Her beautiful long blond hair was visible through the bottom and sides of the head stocking. Her little legs and her tiny sneakers skipped on the bridge. Her tiny legs jumped over the shadows created by the skylights above. Her voice was like that of a little angel so I will refer to her as the little angel. The little angel kept speaking. She kept telling the adult something about something. The adult women had the same long blonde hair. The adults long blonde hair was visible through the bottom and sides of her stocking cap.  (The stocking cap is all too familiar to Alex and I. I can recall almost every visit to get and to remove tue stocking cap...we did it here several times, Yale several times, Columbia Presbyterian several times). My mind starts to search for the memories and I have to force myself to stay in this moment and not recall the past events.

The little girl appeared to have the type of eeg that is the short term eeg. These are leads set up and hooked to a backpack that you carry around for 24 to 48 hours. The cap started on her forehead and went all the way to her backpack that is used to support and house the eeg recorder. The stocking cap (brown stocking) is used to cover and support the leads. Getting them put on and having them taken off is a process. It is a stressful process, an ordeal for a child and therefore also an ordeal for the parent to witness the child going through it.  Once on, the leads are uncomfortable. There are probably 30 little metal circles glued and taped to the scalp with wires that run between the metal circles (leads) and the recorder that is housed in the backpack.

The little girl had the leads, the stocking cap that held it all and the backpack to support the recorder. The stocking cap is a long stocking, it is about 5 or 6 feet long and it strectches at the head and is tight between the neck and the backpack. The stocking then runs consistent from head to backpack so that no wires are visible.  As I watched the little girl jump over the shadows she did so while talking. She was calm. She did not seem nervous nor anxious, nor bothered by the fact that these annoying metal circles were glued and taped to her head. I could hear her little voice ask the adult. "Will you keep yours on for 21 days?" The adult answered, "No....I will take mine off when you take yours off...we will do it for the same time..". The voice of the little angel kept talking, I could no longer make out the conversation, nor was it my place to listen...I had heard enough. This adult was the little angels twin, the little angels comforter. Somehow the adult managed to find her way and her strength to get through this with her little one.  These two touched me. I saw the calm, I saw the peace, I saw the attempt to keep it all together, I felt the love, I understood the pain.  These two werent wearing these eeg stockings on thier heads as a fashion statement. With these stockings, we who go through and experience them understand the reason for getting one. The stockings cover the pain that both the child and the parent go through. The stockings cover the technology that is to bring the news...the news that may be good or may be bad. The stockings cover the technology that may bring hope if the technologies assist in finding proper medication for the episodes recorded. 

The stockings are traumitizing to both child and parent so it is only fitting to see both adult and child wear them.  This little angel and her very own angel had matching stocking eeg caps. Both had matching backpacks. Both were going through this together.  Together they both crossed that bridge. Together they held hands, talked, absorbed the daylight from above and beside. Together they worked as a team. The adult angel had a lot of work to do, the adult had to hold herself together and stand tall, strong and present herself as equal so that the little angel could see her adult as if she was looking in a mirror. They matched, they had same cap, same backpack, same hair color, same attitude.

It was a simple walk over the bridge. It was less than a 2 minute passing, yet a lifelong process and lesson to learn from.

Both look the same. Both ease each others anxieties, but neither of them know what the other is truly feeling.

They both ease each others anxieties. The mom wears the cap to express to the little angel that it is ok. You have one...i have one just like it...you go through it....i go through it with you. This all eases a little of the anxieties for both of them but neither expresses the truth in what either of them are feeling mentally, emotionally nor physically.

For the little angel to be going through this cap wearing eeg cover, there must be seizure like activity. If there is seizure like activity this poor little angel is going through "stuff".  If she goes through "stuff", then the parents must be going through the same hell like torture that I too go through.  The little angel can look at her mom...but she will never know what her mom feels when she sees her little angel go through "stuff", nor will mom ever, ever, know exactly how her little angel feels when she goes through her episodes...her "stuff".  As a stranger walks by them, as a stranger sees that they both match, the first thing that comes to mind is "cute...look at them, they match", until you start to think about it. This is a couple....these are two two people going through a hard time, neither know exactly what the other is going through but they both do what they do to ease each others anxieties.