Here are a few things I've learned from my own experience with illness when I was a child:
- The aftermath of childhood illness can linger for a lifetime. You think you're over it when, out of nowhere, the sight of blood, or the thought of getting a shot catapults you back in time to a place you'd rather forget. One moment you're a fully functioning adult. The next, you're a sobbing three-year old. Like a stain you can't get out, like a fog that never lifts, it stays with you.
"You can spend a lifetime
trying to forget a few minutes
of your childhood."
~unknown~
- It comes back in snatches. In trivial details. In isolated moments. The sound of a call bell from somewhere down the hall. The Little Golden Books stacked on your night stand. The smell of stale urine.
- Distant memories continue to surface uninvited. Your mother in tears, your father's arm around her waist. The way you cried yourself to sleep at night. The exact moment, years later, when you made up your mind about becoming a doctor. At least, I did.
"Sometimes superheroes reside
in the hearts of small children
fighting big battles."
~unknown~
- The lasting effects of a childhood illness can send you down a path you never intended to follow.
- Illness has the power to transform you into someone you never wanted to be. It can leave you with a permanent limp or an ugly scar. A weak heart or a chronic cough. Fear. Anger. Shame.
- If you were sick as a child, or if you have a child who is ill, or if you care for sick children, it teaches you how mindful you must be when you care for them. You may not discover until it is too late that something you said, or something you did, or that something you failed to say or do, had a lasting impact on your young patient...a sometimes devastating impact.
"Caregiving often calls us to lean
into love we didn't know was possible."
~Tia Walker~
If you were sick as a child, what did you learn from the experience? Will you share it with us? Will you tell us your story?
jan
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