Normal

When you enter the world of special needs parenting, words like "normal" and "typical" take on a whole new, emotionally charged level of meaning.

You find yourself thinking and saying things like, "this is our new normal" and "she's not typically progressing, but she is making progress in her own time." You veer off the path you thought you were on and try to make your way on a less-traveled, perhaps bumpier, certainly less predictable path.

So when doctors tell you things like "your daughter's MRI is normal." You immediately filter it; it's a knee-jerk reaction, part defense mechanism, part acceptance. "You mean 'normal' for her, right?" Normal as compared to the chaos we thought we were gonna see. Surely not normal normal.

But yeah, against all expectations, Ella's MRI is indeed normal normal. No polymicrogyria in the right frontal lobe or anywhere else for that matter, and no other cortical displasia or various abnormalities either. As confirmed by a whole team of child neurologists even.

Normal.

I think I could get used to that.

So now, we are revisiting old metabolic labs and perhaps Dr. B will order additional ones. Because there may still be a cause we have not found yet, a cause we stopped looking for when polymicrogyria became Ella's label.

It's strange, new territory. We knew what we were facing before, and that knowledge had, unbeknownst to us, become somewhat of a safety net. Now that we don't have it, I feel less secure for the moment. If we never find a cause, I'm sure I'll adjust, in time, to this new normal. But for now, I'd rather know the name of the thing that makes my daughter have global delays and seize multiple times a month. And I will keep searching for it as long as it makes sense to do so.

♦