Category: Uncategorized

Be Careful = Be Fearful

As your child walks out the door, say something besides “Be careful.”

“Have fun. Try something new.  Have an adventure.”

Be careful means be fearful.

You are giving them a spoonful of fear each time they leave.

This is not medicine, it’s poison.

During the times they are crawling along on all fours with real fear,

your spoonful may be the last straw.

Your fear is not a blessing, it’s a burden.

Now that we have rampant racism, a pandemic and a divisive political climate

do they really need your fear of storms, traffic, snakes, water, poison ivy, bees …?

Keep your fear to yourself.

MY FEAR STOPS HERE.

I will NOT pass it along to Rose.

She is going back to college next week. She has masks, hand sanitizer and disinfectants.

She knows pandemic protocol.

When we leave her, I will NOT say “Be careful.”

I will say “Have fun. Try something new. Have an adventure.”

because that is what I truly want her to do.

Seizure Mama/Flower

Fear

Let’s talk about the big F-word.

When I look back on my life of fifty-nine years,

it is the one thing that I have constantly wrestled with.

I know fear very well. It is not my friend. It never was.

Fear has not protected me from anything. It has prevented me from being free.

If you are afraid of lightning, it will still strike you anyway.

Fear changes nothing but you.

If you want to be cautious and avoid being struck during a storm that is different.

If you are scared of death…guess what?

You are still going to die.  We all are.  No point in being afraid of the inevitable.

I have fought fear a million times. I will never let it roll over me lying down.

This past week I have experienced one of the things I have feared most.

I watched my precious father die of cancer.

It will take time to process his passing. He was so loved. It was horribly painful for us.

I quietly waited beside his bed in the mornings.  My sister and mother stayed evenings.

My heart is broken. My soul is shaken. My family is no longer whole.

What good was all that fear?

Fear of his falling. Fear of his cancer. Fear of my failing to help him.

What a waste of energy!

Fear is a foe, not a friend.

Do not welcome it. Do not allow it to stay around.

It will steal your joy. It will hold you back.

Fear won’t change anything but you and your attitude.

Fight the fear.

It gets in the way.

Be free of fear.

Be fierce.

Love,

Flower

 

Now

I have spent the past weeks sitting beside my daddy as cancer wins the war.

Why am I telling you this? For sympathy? To make you even more sad? NO.

I am learning about life as I watch it slip away.

I am no stranger to sitting around in hospital rooms. Neither are you.

This time it is different.

I am totally in the NOW.

I am not worrying about medications. I am not planning a future.

I am not making lists. I am not researching treatments.

I am sitting beside my daddy watching him breathe.

It’s been like hours of meditation.

I am paying attention to every detail like a researcher or reporter.

Totally immersed in the moment.

Coming from nowhere, going to nowhere.

Just here.

Now.

 

Flow

GIRK channel activator can provide potential treatments for brain disorders – EpilepsyU

https://epilepsyu.com/girk-channel-activator-can-provide-potential-treatments-for-brain-disorders/

I know this is full of scientific terms. If all the drugs that have failed you so far affect the sodium (Na) channels, you may want to ask about trying a drug that involves the potassium (K) channels instead.

Dear Mama Bears

My thoughts are always with you.

We have been busy taking care of my dad in the hospital.

Now he is home. My 88-year-old parents do not have internet.

I do not blog from my phone because it is difficult to see.

Rose has been helping with my dad.

She is concerned about getting back to school in the fall.

I have been sewing Covid masks and gardening.

I have not and will not forget you, although I may disappear for a bit.

Do not let epilepsy steal your joy.

Grab every little blessing with both hands and an open heart.

My seizuremama email is not synced with my phone any longer. (No time to figure it out.)

If you need me, email b12alley@yahoo.com or comment on either blog.

floweralley.org

seizuremamaandrose.org

This is NOT a goodbye.

Stay strong Mama Bears.

Remember to take care of yourself, too.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. Pace yourselves and ask for help.

 

Seizure Mama/Flower Roberts

https://a.co/5Mu5va6

https://a.co/5Mu5va6

She called me a Helicopter Yesterday

Rose called me Helicopter yesterday.

I cannot win.

If I give her space, I am avoiding and ignoring her.

If I stay in the same room, she is irritated on my sighing and noisiness.

I have been distracted and busy and frantic with my own tasks lately.

How can I possibly be a helicopter now?

I am not.

That’s my point parents.

They see what they feel. She feels crowded by me.

All those years of my being in charge and doing everything are haunting her.

There are ghosts here.

Seizure ghosts, struggle ghosts, pain ghosts and Helicopter Mom ghosts.

The past lingers. It steps on the heels of present. It shapes it.

I am no longer a helicopter mom,

but she still feels me hovering over her

long after I have landed…

or did I crash?

Flower

The Empty Arms

I absolutely cannot bear to see the mother with empty arms.

Holding her ghost child.

Any mother.

Every mother’s nightmare.

Epilepsy has threatened to take my child from me.

My child’s skin color is not a threat to her safety.

No skin color should be a threat to anyone of any age.

The Time magazine cover will chill you to the bone.

Those empty arms.

Lord help us.

Everybody’s Mama

This Planet Needs a Mother

Do not feel that I have abandoned you. My thoughts are always with you.

Especially through the struggles. I have many.  I am sure you do, too.

There is so very much wrong right now.

We all have the pandemic sneaking around us.

We Americans have dirty politics and ugly racism with rioting.

I have had to turn my consciousness into a Venn diagram.

Circle of concern overlaps circle of influence, stay in the center.

Eat your own elephant. Stay in your lane. Put on some blinders.

Why am I turning myself into an ostrich?

Why am I ignoring my needy environment?

Because I am overwhelmed by it all. If I go down my family goes down.

My body told me to shut off the periphery and focus on me.

I refer to myself as “cracks and glue.”

The stress has opened some cracks.

A nervous tic in my eye, crying randomly, cramps, lack of concentration, constant agitation.

We have not had to deal with seizures or PTSD, so that’s good.

So what is a mother to do? We cannot take time off from motherhood. Especially now.

Keep your eyes on your prize ONLY.

Your prize is your child.

Somebody else is going to have to protest.

You are busy taking care of you and that fragile baby.

This is your team and your game. Stay in your field.

Ignore the created chaos. It is out of your control.

Focus on your goals.

Focus on your health.

Be a mother only.

Your child is your planet.

Don’t you wish this planet had a mother?

Mercy humans!

 

Follow-up to last post…Revelations

I did not want to leave you hanging with the term “Charlie Foxtrot.”

Story 52: Revelations

My sister and I rushed into the Emergency Room to find our parents. We located them in one of the cramped curtained cubicles. My parents’ young neighbor had awaited our arrival. We thanked her as she slipped out. My mom was in the bed, and my dad was in the only chair. We did not share the fact that Rose’s graduation was followed by a seizure in the parking lot. We were all focused on what the doctor was saying about Mama when the ruckus started on the outside of the curtain.
The first sounds were from a woman who was clearly miserable. She was loudly complaining about getting no help for her problems while a female doctor was calmly explaining why help had been delayed. This conversation grew louder until the patient was screaming about pain and needing to pee. I sent up a prayer for this poor soul. Apparently her physician had not authorized the medications needed to calm her suffering. I peeked out of the curtain to see her stumbling to the restroom carrying a specimen cup.
That’s when I saw the policemen, a swarm of blue right outside my mama’s curtain. I knew we were in a big city, but did we need this much security? As I was pondering my question, I heard the saddest sound I have ever heard. It was a long, soulful howl from a person around the corner and out of my view. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. My heart felt heavy in my chest. What was wrong with this person? Then there was a scream and a crash. The blue swarm encircled the source of the sounds.It was a young man in ragged clothes with matted hair. One of the officers was talking calmly to him, almost cooing to him like one calming a scared, wild animal. The other officers’ faces showed concern for the desperate man. They were letting him release his anguish while forming a barrier between him and the rest of the people in the Emergency Room. I stood behind my daddy’s chair with my arms wrapped around him. Only a curtain stood between us and this sad situation. I was fervently praying with tears rolling down my face. I was not afraid. I was not praying for my mama. I was not praying for my Rose. I was praying for this stranger who was at the end of his rope, broken and alone.
Those officers were heroes with heart. They formed a barrier between us and this chaos with compassion. When you are looking for angels in the world, you may not see their halos and wings. Instead, they may be wearing badges and uniforms.
So Seizure Mama’s pity party was abruptly ended by a look at real suffering. Once again, I was shown how lucky I was. I am a slow learner, but I eventually figure it out.

Seizure Mama speaks to parents:

A complete stranger crashed one of my pity parties again. It had happened before in our favorite hospital as I was riding down the elevator with a mother who was taking her child to hospice, while I got to take Rose home. It has happened over and over again, but I keep forgetting these life lessons. That we are blessed with family and friends, insurance, and health care. The biggest blessing of all is that Rose has developed fierceness and strength. She will endure. This I know.