As a wife and mother I know I am lucky to have a dedicated and supportive husband and father for my children. As the parent of a child living with a lifelong chronic illness, I know I am lucky to have a partner. Life is hard. Our life is hard.
There are plenty of times since our journey began that life has been beyond overwhelming and checking out might have seemed like the easier road to take. I am thankful that my partner in life and I are both fighters. We fight for our life together...whatever it may look like. Life as we planned it ended years ago; life as we know it is happening, whether we like it or not. Why not do everything in our power to enjoy it?
We have had many highs and lows in our thirteen years of marriage: we've been financially stable and financially desperate, we've lived overseas for a promotion and we've moved across the country in hopes of finding employment, we've been through fertility treatments and surprise pregnancies, and we've gone from having a healthy baby to a baby that stopped walking and eating because she was in constant pain. We have been through a lot with nothing to indicate when the roller coaster may stop.
Statistics are not encouraging for marriages where a child has special needs. I don't question why people dealing with this level of stress divorce, but how they stay together. All marriage takes work. Add crippling medical bills, juggling work schedules with countless doctors' appointments, exhausting FMLA, sick time and vacation time on a child's surgery or going to conferences to learn more information about your child's illness rather than taking actual vacations, and the pressure builds.
I wish I had the key to share with anyone in a similar position that is struggling. I don't. All I can say is that JC and I have committed to riding this roller coaster together. Does that mean that we don't struggle? Of course not. It means that we push through the clouds for a glimpse at the light on the other side. We never know when we'll be blessed with a rainbow!