Realization

When I was pregnant with my first child, and suffering from migraine attacks, I worried and cried about what I was possibly handing down to another generation.  I laid in my bed wondering what pain I inflicted on this child by giving her my DNA.  I worried a little less with my second pregnancy.  By my third pregnancy I didn't think too much about it.  What was I going to do anyway?  Having children was my lifelong dream.  Besides, I was so fertile according to my doctor I had dodged many bullets- so the option to NOT have children was not really an option.

My son is now 6 years old.  He gets headaches once in a while.  I have noticed twice him having symptoms of migraines.  When he complains of a headache I listen and believe him.  My oldest hasn't complained of any.  Of course the baby(almost two) seems only capable of causing them at the moment.

Starting yesterday I felt the familiar cycle start to rev up for a week-long headache experience.  Now that I do not seem to have one long continuous headache and can see the start and ending of them, thanks to a daily medication, I am able to notice and pin-point different things I never noticed before.  I am finding a pattern to my headache series.  Yesterday I noticed a trigger and some specific changes.  Today was rough and the pain did indeed come as I suspected it would.

This afternoon I received a call from little mans school nurse.  He was playing rough on the playground and recess and fell and bumped his head pretty bad and broke his glasses.  At the time my head was throbbing, but there is nothing like a little motherly-duty to put pain in the backseat, and I rescued my little man.  He has a horrible goose egg, some nasty scratches, and glasses his daddy was completely able to fix(thank goodness!).  He also had a headache.  Being a normal boy, I know the drill with bumps to the head and watched him and babied him according to need, and then a little more. 

At bedtime my whole family snuggled in my bed and did our reading(which is a wonderful experience I cherish), and when it was time to go to bed my boy started crying.  No body loves me, he said.  Of course this isn't true and I proceeded to tell him everyone in the world who loved him.  Both of his sisters joined in(the baby even started counting on her fingers and telling him names in baby language).

Then I realized he feels how I feel when I am in pain.  Unloved.  Hurt.  Alone.  I realized these feelings of hopelessness and fear are a result of his pain.  My pain too.  I realized through my boy that this is simply one more aspect of the headache that causes pain.  My heart breaks that my boy is hurting.  I would never wish this on anyone and would take it way from my children if I possibly could.  But, it took him to show me that realization.

Realization for me is big- this feels huge to me.  I am not sure why.