Medical Parenting In Motion

Oh. My gosh.

I’ve been trying—really trying—to have a meeting with the assistant who helps keep this whole Medical Parent Network thing afloat. A simple work call.

Here’s the scene: there are people in my house. People in every room of my house.

In the kitchen, my 22-year-old son and his beloved respite worker are sorting out lunch and making a shopping list for today’s outing. Around the corner, my daughter’s nurse is finally getting a lunch break while my daughter rocks out to music in her room.

My oldest, home from college for a few days, is knitting peacefully on the couch. (Admittedly a soothing visual—until you realize the couch is also the hallway to everything else.)

Then, just as I find a semi-quiet pocket to perch with my laptop, my increasingly unsteady mother-in-law emerges from the hallway and makes a slow, determined move toward her exercise bike.

So I bounce from room to room with my phone, laptop under one arm, trying to focus on this meeting.

Eventually, I wedge myself into the one quiet-ish corner I can find. Just as I get there, I see that someone labeled “Medical or Spam” has called me three times.

On the fourth call, I finally answer, mostly out of curiosity.

It’s the wheelchair company. They finally have the part we’ve been waiting six weeks for. Can we come in so they can fix it?  Tomorrow. Of course.

I jump back into the meeting… and realize my daughter’s pump has beeped for “immediate attention” three times in the last half hour and is still waiting. 

Inside The Rhythm of Medical Parenting

These are the kinds of days no one really sees.

The (not so) quiet chaos. The interruptions that aren’t actually interruptions, because they’re life. The exhaustion that doesn’t look like anything. The joy of knowing everyone is cared for and engaged, even if that means I can’t find a single square foot of quiet to think.

And just as I sit down to jot down these thoughts, the nurse clocks out and brings over her notes for review and signature.

This is the behind-the-scenes stuff. It’s messy. It’s full.

But it makes up our lives, and it matters.

And tomorrow? We get a working wheelchair again. Small miracles.

Now to get her talker working again!