The fear of falling.

It was a scary couple of weeks after Queen Teen's fall. Her hand remained swollen and bruised, and even though the first set of x-rays showed no fractures, we waited anxiously for the second set to confirm. Sometimes it can take several day or weeks for a fracture to become apparent in an x-ray. Queen Teen wore a big black wrist brace and couldn't use her walker. Instead, Rick or I helped her walk.

But the worst thing was the depression. She became more sullen and moody every day. School was out for Thanksgiving break (a whole frickin week!) so there was nothing to distract her. She was mighty sick of movies after day three, and the distraction of Thanksgiving day only helped a little. By day five she was lying on her bed weeping because she couldn't find the Evil Step-Mother figurine that goes with the Cinderella. Plus, it was raining, which always puts her in a bad mood. I felt so bad for her and tried everything to keep her distracted and entertained, but when you can't even look at a book because your hand hurts too much, there isn't anything that will cheer you up. Happily, the second set of x-rays confirmed no fractures.

We all survived Thanksgiving break (mostly) and she went back to her doctor the first day of school. The doctor pushed and pulled on her wrist and hand to double check for hidden fractures or cracks, but other than a sore thumb and a couple of small bruises, Queen Teen seemed fine. She returned to school with a big grin on her face and we announced to her teachers and classmates that she was fine. She decided to keep wearing the brace though because using her walker hurt her hand without it.

Queen Teen has fallen this hard before. Three years ago she fell in the bathroom, hit her face on the sink, and knocked out a front tooth. Usually she falls about once a day, landing on her butt. Her pale skin is typically mottled with bruises, especially on her legs and feet. We've all become somewhat immune to the fear when she falls. Queen Teen curses her ataxia and gets back up on her own. Sometimes she needs help, like the day she fell into her closet and couldn't find a handhold to pull herself out. When I hear her fall in the next room, I listen closely to see if she's okay, but continue with what I'm doing. If we all didn't adapt to the worry of falling, all three of us would be drinking Vodka before 9:00 am.

But this fall felt different, because this fall scared her. Yes, she was seriously injured, which will rattle anyone, but in the days following the accident, she seemed scared to move. Not just because it hurt her wrist, but because she seemed afraid she might fall again. And I was nervous. The terror I felt when we thought she may have broken her wrist was oppressive. I still can't shake off the fear, the thought that she didn't break anything... this time. What about next time? What if she breaks her leg? She and I clung to each other a lot more than usual, and not just because of the injury or the fact that she needed more help. Our confidence in her ability to always get back up when she fell was shattered.

Queen Teen recovered more quickly than I did. One morning I heard her try to walk to the bathroom on her own, heard her shout "Whoa!" as she began to fall. I jumped out of bed and ran to her side, scolding her to wait for me, to be careful, to not fall down. She let me help, and for a few days I heard her say to herself, "You have to wait for help. You can't do it by yourself."

Shit... have I just made it worse by telling her she can't?

Luckily, Queen Teen isn't a girl who sits and waits for long. She started moving around her room on her own again by holding on to the furniture, and once the second x-rays showed no fractures, I let her. I had to force myself to go back into the other room and let her walk alone. She had to prove to herself she could do it, that she was safe, that she was strong. I had to clamp down on my fear that she would fall again. I had to have faith in her ability to keep getting up.

Today when I took her to school, several of her classmates came out to the car to greet her. They wanted to help. So I brought the walker to her as she got out of the car and allowed two of her girlfriends to guide her into the class. Watching them closely, my heart pounded and I had to force myself not to hover. Queen Teen walked into the class and she was quickly surrounded by a large group of friends who said hi, patted her on the back, touched her hand, asked her if it still hurt, was she okay, could they help. Her aid then entered, looking a little frazzled that she hadn't been there to help Queen Teen inside. This was where QT feel, so the staff and teachers are very nervous about having her walk into the class on her own. I understand, but I have to let her do it. And with that many students surrounding her, supporting her, making her feel safe, I know they won't let her fall.

Queen Teen knows that too. 

A great big, epic gravity check.

Tuesday morning at 7:45 the phone rang. "Hi, this is Queen Teen's teacher. I wanted to let you know that she fell. She seems okay, just embarrassed. We didn't see it happen so I'm not sure how she fell, but the other students told us and when we got to her she was sitting on the floor. It looks like the brakes on her walker stopped working. Can you fix them?"

"She's okay?" I asked.

Her teacher said she looked fine, just shaken up, so I told her I would be there with tools to fix the walker after my hair appointment.

But when I got to school an hour later, Queen Teen was definitely NOT okay. She was sitting at her desk with an ice pack on her right hand and the school nurse by her side. QT's hand was swollen and black and blue. Did she break it? I felt like the worst mom on the planet because I'd chosen to get my hair done rather then rush to my daughter's aid. But they told me she was okay!

I took her to the ER where we sat for three hours, got some x-rays, and were told it was a bad sprain. They wrapped it up and told me to take her to her primary doctor the following day. Really, a bad sprain? Should it be so swollen if it's just a bad sprain?

Her primary doctor wasn't so sure. "Queen Teen may have broken a tiny bone in her wrist. It's hard to tell right now, but this area is very tender." She explained that there's a small bone in the wrist that is prone to breaking when people fall on their hand, which is probably what Queen Teen did. It can be hard to see at first in an x-ray unless you're really looking for it. She told us to get another x-ray next week and come back to see her after Thanksgiving. Then she put a wrist splint on Queen Teen's hand and told her to take it easy.

Take it easy? Easier said than done. This morning at 5 AM I was woken by my daughter yelling, "WHOA!" Leaping out of bed I dashed to her room and found her trying to walk across her room without her walker, in the dark, with only one hand to catch herself. She can't use her walker because she can't put any weight on her wrist, so Queen Teen figures she'll just walk on her own anyway.

Isn't this the same girl who hurt her hand and wrist because she was trying to get her backpack off her wheelchair on her own, but when it got stuck she jerked it and then lost her balance (she finally admitted that was how she fell)? Isn't she the same girl who spent THREE HOURS in the ER yesterday?

Yes, this is the same girl. My stubborn, tenacious, independent daughter who seems to think the laws of gravity do not apply to her.

This is why I have gray hair, bags under my eyes, permanent knots in my shoulders and pain in my stomach.

Maybe it was all those times she fell learning to walk and we'd just call it a "gravity check," which made her laugh and get back up again. When she was three she weighed 25 pounds and the ground was only three feet away from her head. At sixteen she weighs 95 pounds and the ground is five feet from her head. Gravity hurts a lot more now.

Thank goodness for "Sponge Bob" and Starbucks Vanilla Cream Frappuccinos; we might survive the next few days.

Tug of War, and I was the rope

On a gorgeous California spring Saturday, Queen Teen and I took our dog, Bourre, for a walk. With Queen Teen in her traveling throne (aka wheelchair) and the dog on her leash, we set out on our usual route toward the Farmer's Market.

Everything was perfect, until another dog stuck his head out from behind a fence and scared the hell out of Bourre.

We walked past a large bush and suddenly there was another dog standing right next to us, looking about as startled as we were. The dog's yard was on a terrace so the dog was practically my height and the fence posts were so wide apart the dog, big and black, could slip right through.

Bourre, a large, brown, 70 pound boxer, stopped in her tracks and jerked back toward that dog, pulling me with her. The wheelchair, over 100 pounds with Queen Teen in it, kept rolling forward, pulling me with it. I still had one hand on the handle, but that was angling the chair toward the edge of the sidewalk and the street. So there I was, pulled with by my left arm backwards and my right arm forwards. I planted my feet and pulled them both back as hard as I could, yelling at Bourre "heal!"

Luckily, Queen Teen slammed on the wheelchair's brakes. Then she turned around and yelled at Bourre too. "Bourre! You bad dog! Stop!"

Thank god she didn't freak out, panic, freeze, and then roll off the sidewalk.

And thank god both dogs didn't freak out either. They just stood there and stared at each other, wagging their tails. (And thank mom I don't tie that leash on the wheelchair).

The whole event lasted about 5 seconds. Very quickly, everything was under control, but I swear I felt like the rope in a tug-of-war. This time, the rope won.

Once everything was under control, we continued with our walk. My back felt a little tight, but nothing hurt. Whew.

Until the next day. That's when my back seized up and I could hardly walk without pain shooting down my leg. I wonder if tug-of-war ropes have that problem?

One week later, my back is better, just a little tight, but at least I'm not limping anymore. It completely messed up my work out schedule, though. I was finally feeling some results and starting to jog again after one month of gym membership, then WHAM... one week and it's all gone.

At least my butt looks fab from pushing a wheelchair 100's of miles over the last 10 years. You want a tight firm ass? Start pushing a heavy wheelchair all over town.

But try to avoid any games of tug-of-war while you're doing it.

Here's soap in your eye

On a cool, sunny Wednesday, I was sitting in front of the Peete's in West Portal, San Francisco, drinking a latte when my phone rang. It was Rick.

"Queen Teen just squirted liquid soap straight into her eye and I rinsed it out the best I could but she wouldn't hold still or keep her eyes open so I'm not sure if I got the soap out and she's still crying and her eye's all red and I don't know what to do now."

Um, I thought. What am I supposed to do? I'm 2 and a half hours from you guys.

I did my best to be helpful, but he'd already done everything I would have, so I praised his quick action for rinsing the eye and told him give Queen Teen a kiss from me. It was Wednesday, so I'd be home after class, late that night. There was nothing else to do but wait and see.

How the hell did she manage to squirt soap directly into her eye? That girl is talented.

When I got home that night Queen Teen was asleep, but she woke up several times that night complaining that her eye hurt. I sat up with her, wiping it with a cool cloth and assuring her it would be okay. By the morning her eye was bright red and the lids swollen. I gave her a cool cloth to hold against her eye and she stayed home from school that day. She was rubbing it so hard the area around her eye socket was bruised and raw. We couldn't get her to stop, and we didn't want to tie her hands behind her back. After dinner that evening, Rick and I decided to take her to the ER because her eye was looking worse and getting goopy.

The good news was that her eye was fine. Rick had done an excellent job rinsing it, despite Queen Teen's refusal to hold still. The bad was that she was having an allergic reaction to the soap which was why she was rubbing it so much. The doctor prescribed eye drops for the itching and antibiotic drops just in case it was getting infected and sent us home. That was the quickest ER visit I've ever experienced (less than 2 hours. gotta be a world record).

It took five days for the itching and redness to go away and another couple of days for Queen Teen to stop complaining that her eye was "bugging" her.  I felt bad for her and I knew it was genuinely bothering her, but after day four of constant whining I really wanted to tell her to "suck it up." I love my girl dearly, but boy can she be a drama queen!

All is well now. She's back in school and so am I. Her eye looks great with no sign of redness or injury. But I'd still like to know how she managed to squirt liquid hand soap directly into her eye. Did she lift the bottle to look at it with the spout pointed at her face and push the lever? I bet she never does that again.

Gravity Check Number 561

Last night, Queen Teen stood up from the kitchen table and then promptly fell, her knee twisting under her, sending her crashing against the metal garbage can and smacking her foot on the side of the hard, wooden kitchen table. Of course I was on the other side of the kitchen with my back turned, so there was no way I could break her fall. She immediately started to cry, her body shaking so hard her teeth chattered. I dashed to her and started to look for obvious injuries. Did she smack her head? Was there any bleeding? Anything broken? Her knee was still tucked underneath her so I slowly helped her untangle her legs, relieved that her knee seemed fine because there wasn't any pain as she straightened it out. But then I saw her foot, which was bright red and already starting to swell.

Rick got her off the floor and carried her to her bed while I grabbed the ice pack. We got her as comfy as we could, then put the ice pack on her foot, which made Queen Teen shout, "That's cold!"

"I know," Rick said. "It's supposed to be. But you need to keep it on so your foot doesn't get too sore."

She sighed and then looked at me, her lips in a pout and big tears rolling down her face. "He's right, honey."

I sat with her while Rick ran to the drug store for kid strength Ibuprofin (ever notice no one will get hurt UNTIL you run out of it?). Her entire body shook from the cold pack on her foot, so I wrapped her up in the blue blanket Aunt Tama had made and held her close. She was shaking so badly it was like we'd set her entire body on ice. I guess this is her wonky neurology reacting to the presence of cold; it can't differentiate a little ice on one part of her body from a lot of ice on her entire body.

Rick returned with the medicine and we dosed her up, then took a look at her foot. Thankfully, it didn't look broken, just badly bruised.

I let her sleep in this morning to see how she was feeling before sending her to school. Her foot seemed a lot better and she could put weight on it, but her heart was still aching. While eating her breakfast she softly said, "I hate my ataxia." Then she started weeping, big, racking sobs that made me want to burst into tears too.

We sat together quietly, my arms holding her tight, while she cried. Sometimes a girl needs a moment to feel sorry for herself.

When she calmed down I gave her a donut to go with her eggs, but I knew she was really depressed when she only ate half of it. She talked to me about how much she wishes she'd never been born with ataxia, how she wishes she was more like the other kids, how she's the only one who falls down all the time and has to use a walker. "No body else in my class has this."

"You're right, but they all have other things they have to deal with." I told her how some of the kids in her class have trouble learning, trouble controlling themselves, and trouble taking care of themselves. Some of the kids can't run very well or throw a ball or jump rope because their coordination is poor. They may not use a walker, but they struggle with disabilities just like she does.

"Really?" She wiped the snot off her face.

"Yep. And so do I. Remember how I can't see out of this eye very well?" I pointed to my left eye.

"Yes."

"Because I can't see very well, I'm always running into things on this side of my body and getting banged up. It's annoying! And I tend to trip over things more than other people because my vision doesn't work as well as others. I hate it."

She frowned. "Me too."

"Everybody has something they have to deal with, honey. You just have more to deal with than most. I know it's frustrating and depressing and I'm so sorry I can't do something to make it better. But I'm so proud of you for hanging in there and trying so hard. I think some people would just give, but not you."

"I wish somebody could make my ataxia go away!"

"Me too sweety."

She curled up in my arms and cried more. After a while, she pulled herself together and I asked if she was ready to go to school. "Yes," she said.

At school the kids greeted her with cheers. "Queen Teen is here!" Her best friend raced up to her and gave her a big hug. One of the students told her how he fell down two days ago and he got hurt too. When I left, Queen Teen was at her desk, visually wobbly, but smiling again.

Her ataxia becomes more and more of an issue for her, especially now that's she's 14 and intentionally compares herself to others. She cares what people think of her, how she looks, how she's different. No 14 year old girl wants to be "weird."

I have absolutely no idea how to help her with this.