Dropping the Ball

Ok. So, I dropped the ball. It happens. Then why do I feel so terrible?

I have no clue. But sometimes I feel like I haven’t done enough and then sometimes I feel like there’s no way I could do more. Raising a child with food allergies, asthma and environmental allergies is not an easy task. There is so much that goes into every event, daily routine, traveling, feeding, visiting, school, field trips, and so on. There is medicine to deal with (making sure prescriptions don’t expire, refills are purchased in time, packing enough for an overnight stay or vacation), reading food labels, training others on how to use an Epipen, getting weekly allergy shots, scheduling vacations based on a specific location, eating out, and so on (Seems those “so on’s” just keep going). It’s quite an effort just to keep your mind OFF it for a small portion of the day.

Now, getting back to me dropping the ball. Yep, I did. Wasn’t even a bad drop on my part I think, but still it was a drop. So, we had to take her back to her allergist (which is a two-hour drive for us) to get her next level serum allergy shot. Once we get the first shot with her, then we are allowed to do the rest with her local pediatrician. She had just finished up with her first batch and was ready for the next level up so I made the appointment with her allergist. I was told by the nurse, that I needed to bring her records from her pediatrician that would show the level of where she ended on the first batch with them. Well, I forgot. Yep! I dropped the ball! We were about an hour into our drive to the appointment when I remembered. One thing I had going for me, her pediatric nurse was a friend of mine and was working that day. I began texting and hoping she could get the records faxed before we got there. Luckily, she did. I called and got the fax number (from a secretary who answered the phone) and they were faxed before we arrived, unfortunately, to the administrative office across campus and not to the clinic itself. Needless to say, we sat 45 minutes to an hour waiting for the mix up to be corrected. I was once again texting her nurse and the allergist was calling her as well. As you can see, the patient and her daddy were waiting patiently (NOT).

They look as if their time was occupied, but I was getting a tongue lashing through all this. I literally felt like I had committed a crime by forgetting one little sheet of paper. In the end, the sheet was faxed, we got the shot, and was on our way in just two short hours (that was suppose to be a “maybe” 45 minute visit). ?. I’d had a lot going on in the past couple of weeks and one little thing got past me. I’d been getting prescriptions up-to-date for school, I’d had surgery to remove Melanoma from my shoulder, I’d gotten action plans and medication forms done for school as well, shopping for school supplies and school clothes, and working 40-50 hours a week, so in my opinion I think I had a reasonable excuse for dropping the ball on this one.

I say all this to make this point:  We are not Superhuman, we are only Human!

We do our best to stay on top of things, but sometimes we drop that ball and we can’t let it get the best of us. We accomplish a lot more than Not and that is what we need to focus on. Our daughter Nat has not had an asthma attack in years and that is a very positive aspect that we concentrate on to know that we do everything we can every day to keep that from happening, from keeping her away from triggers to making sure she takes her medication every day. That is a great deal to monitor along with all your other daily activities. Also, when others offer to lend a hand, we need to gain the confidence to be able to accept it. Doing so much on our own may make us think we are Superhuman, but in the end, we are only Human.

Dropping the ball is going to happen, it’s how we handle it that makes the difference.