Finding the Answers

So the neurologist ordered a routine MRI for Ally. She was very upset about it, having had a round of MRIs a couple of years ago and never wanting to repeat the process. I told her this time it wouldn't be so bad because they weren't looking for anything specific.
So we went into the Dr's office for the results. I was at ease and ready to get it all over with. I knew there was nothing wrong with her brain.
I was wrong.
As he got out her chart and started to talk to me the world began to slow down and stopped spinning for a minute. What I expected to come out of his mouth and what actually came out of his mouth were two different things. Time stood still.
"The MRI was not normal", he said. I must have looked like a fish sitting there with my mouth hanging open.
"She has two spots on her brain", he continued. "We need to do another MRI."
Ally began to fidgit, sitting beside me there.
"What could it be?" I asked him in complete consternation. "We really don't know", he said. "It could have been a stroke inutero. It could be an injury. We will have to have a closer look."

Immediately my mind began racing. Brain damage. All the times I could remember her falling. All the times she fell off her highchair. (she was a climber, that one, and would climb out of her chair, despite the seatbelt, everytime I left the room and I would come back and find her standing on the tray.)
I even remembered how she used to bang her head on the crib. When did this happen? HOW did this happen. Was it my fault? I asked the Dr. if this could be the reason she had been having so much trouble in school and he told me that it definitely could be the reason. This was contrary to what the psychiatrist we had seen last summer had told us. "Ah there's nothing wrong with her, she's just a brat!" He'd said right to her face. We had never been back to that guy.
We left with an appointment to come back in a month for another MRI.
So we came back, much to Ally's dismay, for the second MRI. This time it was one with contrast, meaning she had to have an injection. She bore it well. She did not cry, although I know she hated every single second of it. For those who have had never had an MRI, let me just say that it is LOUD. They give you earplugs and music. And you have to be absolutely perfectly still for as long as it takes, sometimes even an hour or more.
We left, in a hurry, I might add. She couldn't get out of there fast enough, glad to have it finally over. Our appt. for the follow up was in three months.
Meanwhile we continued the medication, and kept in touch with the teachers and administration at her school. They began talking about how well she was doing when I would see them and meet with them. She had taken a TAKs test a few days after starting the meds and had not passed the test. Six weeks later she took it again and scored 200 PTS HIGHER!!!!(unfortunately she still didn't pass. She was only sixty pts off though.) They were astounded. She was staying awake in class for the first time since third grade. She was socializing with the other kids. She was doing her homework ALL ON HER OWN without being told! I myself was amazed. Then we got the final report card for the year. Now this is a child who had not passed a six weeks in math since second grade. She failed third grade math, not just every six weeks but every single math test. In fourth grade she failed every single six weeks, except maybe one, and every single math test and the TAKs. The TAKs is supposed to determine whether you go to the next grade or not, but confusingly enough, they don't have to pass it to go on to fifth from fourth grade, so she passed by the skin of her teeth on that one. In fifth grade she failed math every six weeks, except maybe one. The teacher told me toward the end of the year that she didn't think she would pass the second semester, or the year. I started praying like crazy. I prayed for that child every day while she was in school. I was desperate for her to finally achieve the impossible.
So when I got the final report card I couldn't believe it. She had gone from a FIFTY to an EIGHTY TWO!!! This caused her grade for the semester to rise to a seventy. SHE PASSED THE CLASS!
School ended and there was one final meeting with the school to determine her placement for next year and summer school. There was no beating around the bush, they just came right out with it. They said "She has made such significant improvement in these last few weeks that there is no question of her not going on. We will pass her even if she does not pass the TAKs for the third time (which would be upcoming after the required summer school.)
As a parent it just doesn't get any better than that. Well maybe it does, but that was a pretty good moment.
She went to summer school for two weeks and took the test and STILL she could not pass that darn test. (I haven't told her, what would be the point.)
I found out last week about the test score. I was in a motel in Atlanta and she was with her Grandma. I was awakened from a deep sleep in a comfy bed to the voice of the assistant principal on the phone telling me that unfortunately she had not passed, but how proud she was of me for "being pushy" as she called it and getting the help she needed. She reaffirmed that she would be moving on to the sixth grade. I hung up with a very big smile on my face.
Anyway we went back for the MRI results. Turns out she has only one spot on her brain, right in the front. The other turned out to be nothing. The spot is 5 by 9 mms and they speculate that it could be an old hemmorage, or injury, or even a stroke, like they said. They know it is not a tumor, which is a relief. And you guessed it. There is ANOTHER MRI in our future, six months away this time, just to monitor it.
Looking back, it's been like driving through a dark tunnel. We just needed to see some light at the end of it. The brain damage explains everything. It seems that that part of the brain controls memory and processing and motor movement and even some behaviour issues. She doesn't seem to have a problem with motor movement, or memory, but she has a terrible time with processing. Multiplication she can do, because it's memorization, but adding, subtracting, dividing, etc, anything that requires tracking or processing she just cannot do.
So what's next? I don't know. I just know that God will walk us through it one step at a time. I also know that he uses the experiences we go through to help other people go through their own situations. My sister has a friend on facebook, and even though I have never met her, somehow we became facebook friends. The other day she had a post on there that started like this..."I am so frustrated and we are exhausted. I just can't get my three year old to stay asleep..." So I wrote her a message about what we had been through and encouraged her in finding the right Dr for her son no matter what that entailed and not to give up hope just because nobody was taking her seriously when she said he had a problem. Because, like our situation, her situation is not the norm. My sister had been telling me for a few weeks a little bit about how he was getting up in the middle of the night and eating from the fridge and getting into medication and just generally wearing the family out because nobody is sleeping and how they have tried everything to get him to stay asleep. (This reminded me of all the times I woke up to find Ally eating peanut butter in the kitchen or standing in front of the mirror making faces at herself at two in the morning and the despair I felt knowing that she would spend the following day at school asleep.) After I sent the message it was only a few minutes before she wrote me back and told me that my words had come at exactly the right time, as she had just gotten off of the phone after having another fruitless conversation with the nurse, who told her again, to "just wear him out" or "put him to bed earlier".

I knew God was using our situation to let her know she was not alone. I wrote back and told her a little bit more of what we had been through and then I didn't hear any more. I didn't think anything else about it, I just knew that the right words had come at the right time.
So yesterday I was having a terrible, terrible day. My bank account was plummeting and my weight was skyrocketing, two things which never fail to set me off. Add to that a dirty house and a disrespectful sixteen year old and you get a sobbing mother crying over her keyboard in the middle of the day.
So in the midst of my sorrows my phone rang. It was my sister. She said without preamble, "You've been crying and don't tell me you haven't. You can't fool me. Listen here. My friend told me that she read your email to her husband. They told me that you were a blessing. They said "No wonder you love your sister so much." Of course this led to more tears on both sides of the phone. But these were good tears. I did't feel so worthless. What I read in Proverbs this morning said it all. "Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances." Proverbs 25:11.
God sure knows his stuff, doesn't He. And I'm so glad He does.