The Good: Every Child Life Specialist has their own "style." I've written about this in weeks past, as I enjoyed the opportunity to shadow other CLS and see their way of doing things. I've spent the last 5 weeks working to gain a new skill set. This week, enough of the pieces clicked into place that I am starting to get that first glimpse, that enticing glimmer, of what my style will be. That tells me that I'm getting skilled enough in the basics of what I'm doing, that I can start to work on how I'm doing it. That's pretty exciting!
For those at home keeping track: this week I was "checked off" on introducing services. That's my second competency I'm cleared to perform on my own without supervision now (the first was Normalization.) My skills in rapport building are growing daily, with big successes this week working with parents, teens, and kids with delays. I performed "Medical Play" for the first time -- the patient gets to be the doctor, and I have a giant doll that we give an exam, complete with real needles. This is a wonderful way to help children become more comfortable in medical settings, and to cope with "needle phobia," which is very normal in kids!
The Bad: This week, though a combination of speaking with other specialists, and observing families first hand, I realized just how prevalent "non-compliance" is. Whether it's parents not giving children their medicine at home, or not bringing them in when they're sick, or kids with diabetes not testing their blood sugar and taking their insulin, or kids with Chrone's not following their diet . . . there are thousands of ways for children and families to fail to follow the medical instructions they are given . . . . and a thousand consequences to that choice. It's one thing when an adult makes an informed choice in disagreement with their doctor's advice . . . it's quite a different matter when kids end up in the hospital, the emergency room, the intensive care unit, because their parents chose for them. Sometimes those choices make the kids really sick. Sometimes, it kills them.
This is a whole different kind of grief then I have ever experienced before. It's grief filled not just with sadness, and loss, but with anger, rage, frustration, and the sick, sick feeling of knowing that it didn't have to be this way. That it shouldn't be this way.
The Insight: Here's what it comes down to. All parents love their children. They may parent their children very differently then I would, they may make different choices for their children . . . they may make very bad choices, ones that hurt or even kill their child . . . but that doesn't mean they love their kids any less than I love Malcolm. For me, loving Malcolm means taking him to the doctor when he's sick, and following their instructions. For other parents, loving their child might mean that they don't take them to the hospital when they know they should, because their child hates being in the hospital and is miserable there. Whether they're making good or bad (or anywhere in between) decisions, they are making them out of love.
Every parent loves their child.
Please keep my oncology patients in your thoughts and prayers . . . some of them are hanging on by the thinnest of threads right now.
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