My Boy came home taller. He seemed so grown. He told me he had a great time, but I wasn’t listening as much as I was holding on to him and reconnecting after the longest time he’s ever been away from me.
I asked if many kids had seizures (it was a camp for kids with epilepsy, afterall). He said a few did. There was one girl who had to wear a helmet because she had the kind called Drop Seizures which can lead to injuries from…well…dropping. She had the most (but there was no prize–I have expected this camp to have prizes for most, longest, creativity). The way he talked about them was so "matter-of-fact" and he explained how the counselors reacted by just being near the person and maybe rubbing their back. I wonder if that helped him feel better about the times he’s had them.
Unfortunately with me as his mom he would come out of seizures with a panic stricken lunatic hovering or crying rather than some calm person just lightly rubbing his back like friends did for me back in the day when I’d be hunched over gravel puking up my guts on Mill Ave. I am going to try to take a lesson from this and if (God, I hope it doesn’t really happen) My Boy has a seizure around me I’m going to just sit by him and rub his back and leave the panic stuff in the past. He deserves to come out of seizures without the panic of others making them worse. But I will always hold on to the hope that there will be no other one.
My Boy is looking forward to going back next year. And I am looking forward to it also. Maybe next year I can convince my husband that we can take a trip during that time. He will be ok. We will be ok. We could be ok in Nappa Valley.
