she did everything right

She did everything right.


We put our house on the market a little over a year ago. It sold remarkably fast. Literally, one open house and several offers later found us moving into my parents' walkout basement apartment. There were several reasons why we decided to sell and move in with my parents. Trevor's persistent seizures and living in a two-story house being a prime one. Years ago they'd outfitted their basement as an apartment. It was supposed to be our landing place when we were home on furloughs. Back when we thought our lives would be spent in Tanzania.


There was no way we could know what a gift this little apartment would one day be.


The move has grown our peace in many ways. One of which is Trevor having a Grams' game hour most days of the week.


He was upstairs for his game hour when the third seizure of the day struck. She had yet to witness one of his "big, scary" seizures. Yesterday, that changed. Bristel and I were downstairs doing all the things it's difficult to do when he's with us. Such as vacuuming. He hates the sounds of the vacuum, so we try and get that done when he's upstairs. Which explains why we didn't hear her shouting for us at first. When it became clear we couldn't hear her, she was able to remain calm and gently lay Trevor on the floor. She was afraid he was going to fall out of the stool he was sitting in. Knowing that he often hears us even while he's seizing, she was able to calmly tell him not to be afraid. She was only shouting loudly because she didn't want to leave him alone and needed mommy to hear. Staying calm in the midst of a seizure crisis is incredibly difficult. He'd already been convulsing for over a minute before we heard her and went racing up.


Once the dust settled, I told my mom how proud I was of her.


She confessed that in the back of her mind she'd been worried about how she would handle a serious seizure. You can prepare, but you don't really know until you know.


And in this bizarre silver-lining world we live in, as an epilepsy family, we all feel a sense of relief.


Because she did everything right.