A Great Read.

http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/summer2005_cornfield.html

When Derek was born he spent two weeks in the NICU. It's a dark, very different world in there. I remember he seemed to be pissed off in there, he wanted to just go home. There were issues with a blood infection...where did it come from, what caused it, what was the outcome no one knew. They speculated but no real answers. They told us how the oxygen and the vent all could cause delays, the pneumonia could scar his lungs. I held his tiny elbow the only party I could touch and prayed and cried. They said "Cerebral Palsy" and it circled around my head. I had no idea what it meant not at all. I saw wheel chairs and retardation. At one point I said to God if this isn't going well just take him.
Well he's 9 now and all is well. It seems to me his asthma and being prone to pneumonia might be related but no one agrees with me.

So along came Joe....and well you know that story and you know how that ends... and here I am knee deep in a bent wrist we just can't fix and the therapist says today it just might always be that way and last year I might have kicked that chair but today I shook my head and cried in the car later. I have said before what I have hated most is that I cannot fix it, I cannot control it.
We are at it's mercy.... stupid thing controlling us this way.

I was given a copy of this article about Holland and I crumpled it up and threw it. I didn't like it, I didn't pass it along. You can read it if you want, but this article sums up my feelings pretty well and I think just about anyone would rather be in Italy than Holland. I am sure Holland is very nice but I agree this life isn't always Holland, not always Beirut and certainly not always Holland.