Never underestimate the power of a mother’s intuition is a
saying I have often heard. How we mothers are bonded with our children because
they come through us. How we know when they are hurting and need us before they
even tell us. How we know they should not do something because we know the
outcome will not be good.
Yet there are times when we override that feeling because we
don’t want to stymie them. But sometimes we have to trust our instincts and
know when no has to be the final answer. Without guilt. Without fear. Without
worry.
When that feeling something is not right runs up and down
our spine. Last night I experienced that feeling and ignored it. And my
daughter and I both paid the consequences for doing so. My daughter had spent
the night at a friend’s house over the weekend. She came home with swollen eyes
and as the day progressed her nose started to run and so did her eyes. We
assumed it was an allergy so we gave her allergy medicine and kept her home for
a day to allow her to recuperate.
Yesterday she went back to her camp even though her eyes
still did not look right. But made it through the day and seemed to have lots
of energy. Last night she and I were at our cousin’s house to celebrate several
family member’s birthdays. And she begged me to let her go into the pool because
everyone else was going in. I looked at her eyes and knew she was not quite
right and everything within me was telling me to keep her out of the pool. But
I brushed my apprehensions aside. Not wanting to feel like the party pooper.
Not wanting to stop my daughter from having fun swimming with her cousins.
She came out of the pool 15 minutes later and her body broke
out instantly in welts. Her eyes swelled up. Her skin colour changed from her normal
cappuccino to beet red. She was itchy. My first instinct was to get her in the
shower to wash off the chlorine. So I took her into the shower instructing her
to wash herself thoroughly with no soap. The welts and redness got worse
instead of better. My mind went into
overdrive as I was thinking two steps ahead because of how quickly the reaction
was spreading and how hot her body felt. Her skin becoming scalier by the
minute. And she was panicking.
So I took her to the hospital calling my husband enroute. Telling
him not to come but to stay with our son. We spent the next 4 hours in the hospital
waiting to be seen. Watching her body go through many changes almost as if she
was a chameleon. But as the hours ticked by, she started smiling again and
talking a mile a minute so I knew she was going to be okay. By the time we were
actually seen by a doctor she looked almost like herself. And she never went
into respiratory distress. And I was truly grateful that my daughter came out
of that fine. Recognising it could have been ten times worse.
Whispering a silent prayer of gratitude, I knew I was being reminded
last night that we always know when something is not right. Had I listened to
my instincts in the first place, my daughter would have been spared from the
agony she experienced and so would I have been. But the good thing about our experience
is that we both learnt something. My daughter to listen to her mother
especially when it comes to her wellbeing. And for me to trust my instincts
when it comes to my children because there is nothing more primal and
instinctual than a mother’s love.
No comments:
Post a Comment