When a mom is powerless...

Sunflower is in a CNA class. This is a wonderful career field for her. She has the personality, she is genuinely caring, has wonderful compassion, loves helping people, and is obsessed with becoming a doctor. The problem? Combine dyslexia with short-term memory problems. When she was 6 weeks old, she ran a fever of 105 - 106 for 5 days. It was 5 days of pacing in a children's hospital watching your newborn get poked and prodded till her feet were black and blue... listening to her scream as they did spinal tap after spinal tap, all in search of the elusive diagnosis of why she has this fever, and why can't we make it go down?? After the fever finally broke, and a day later when she was considered "normal", she was discharged with "fever of unknown origin", which to me, was frustrating as I wanted to know what was wrong. We will never know. However, I'm reminded of this experience daily as Sunflower has deficits in her short term memory, attributed to possible brain damage suffered during the period of high fever. She simply doesn't retain things. In 4th grade, she studied and studied her times tables, knew them by heart... for 5 minutes. She can't follow complicated directions that involve remembering several steps with details. She forgets where she puts things, she forgets what she is supposed to be doing. It is really frustrating for me as a mom. She has developed the habit of writing things down when she needs to remember them, and has worked over the years to develop ways of putting information into her long term memory. Now, enter dyslexia. Writing has always been a problem for her, as has reading. She has struggled her whole life to master those two skills. Her spelling is worse than awful, and her handwriting isn't much better. To her credit, she tries hard and has improved more in the last two years than in the five before. She will push herself to be in mainstream classes rather than stay in a resource class. She may not make A's, but she tries harder to earn a C.

There is SO MUCH terminology and memorization in her CNA class. She will spend hours and hours going over medical terminology, trying to put it in long term memory so that she can take her tests. I will quiz her (or her dad most of the time as he can pronounce those words) and she knows her stuff! The next day, she will have forgotten most of it, so she studies again. After quizzing, she knows what she is talking about and a few hours later at least half of it is gone. BUT... days of this and she can actually retain enough to pass her classes.

She had to take a CPR test. She can't pass the written test. Her teacher, I think, is equally frustrated. She told Heather, "I've seen you do it! You know what you are doing... you just have to pass this part of it." Heather has failed it 4 times. Her final attempt is today. Her teacher is actually going to read the test to her. Heather was crying yesterday when she called to tell me she had failed again. She only misses passing it by 3 questions. If she can't pass today, she can't retake the test. She is doing her clinicals at a local hospital, and if she can't pass, she can't continue to go to the hospital. I understand why, but at the same time, my heart is aching for my daughter. I want so much for her to succeed! She is so good at nursing and would make an excellent nurse. She loves it! She also has to try 10 times harder than the average student to be half as good on paper. As a mom, I want to just shake her and say "PASS THIS TEST!!!! NOW!"

As much as I want to rescue her, I can't. This is something only she can do. I'm sitting here with butterflies in my stomach, knowing at this moment, she is going through the torture of testing AGAIN, and wondering how she is doing. I pray that she can just pass this class and pass the state licensing test to be a CNA. I know that she will be a stronger person for going through this, but she can't see that. She just sees that she is different, and often times she labels herself as a failure or stupid. She isn't stupid, I know her IQ. Does she listen to me when I tell her she is not stupid? No, of course not. My heart aches when she tries so hard, and fails. I hear of other parents who are exicted that their son/daughter is on the honor roll for the 5th straight year. I want to jump up and down when my daughter gets a C+ on her history test. She still can't remember her times tables, but she is an incredible person.

As a mom, I wish I could somehow guarantee the sucess of my children so that I knew they would grow up to be happy, successful people. I am glad though, that I am there to celebrate the successes and I have a shoulder to cry on when things don't go quite as well. We can't, afterall, save them from life.