Oh, Dear Helmy, this may be goodbye....

We feel defeated by our little helmet friend right now. We learned that the issue may not be that it isn't fitting Elijah's head properly, it may just be that his skin is irritated by the material that the helmet is made of. If this is the case, then there are a few concerns: 1) After all that has been shaved off from the inside with the assumption that it was ill fitting, is wearing it going to do any good for his head right now?  2) Concern number one is moot since we don't want to risk Round 4 of serious skin irritation, so we'll either need to ditch it altogether or start the whole process over with a helmet made of a different material. I'm not sure why our orthotist, after all the problems we've been having, never brought skin irritation up as a possibility. A totally different doctor suggested this to us, so when we asked Orthotist about it yesterday, he confirmed that yes indeed, this could definitely be the case.......BUT to try another night with the helmet and to call in the morning to schedule another refitting. Wha...??? No thanks! Is God trying to tell us to set Helmy (and all future unborn helmets) down for good, or is He trying to tell us to persevere and be strong and get through this?? In all honesty, Elijah's head does not look that bad to us right now. Maybe it's just wishful thinking? 


 
On a good note, today I was given a couple good reminders about perspective. I was sorting through my work emails this morning and ran across a note I had sent to my boss the day I found out Elijah's 20-wk ultrasound was abnormal and that there was something wrong with his heart. That day was October 24, 2006--almost one year ago! Shortly after finding that email, I received the below daily passage from a friend. So I will take this as a sign that I should give thanks to God today for the richness we have in our lives.
 
Moving Through Darkness
The Places We Go

In life, most of us want things to go to the places we have envisioned ourselves going. We have plans and visions, some of them divinely inspired, that we want to see through to completion. We want to be happy, successful, and healthy, all of which are perfectly natural and perfectly human. So when life takes us to places we didn't consciously want to go, we often feel as if something has gone wrong, or we must have made a mistake somewhere along the line, or any number of other disheartening possibilities. This is just life's way of taking us to a place we need to go for reasons that go deeper than our own ability to reason. These hard knocks and trials are designed to shed light on our unconscious workings and deepen our experience of reality.

Often it takes something major to wake us up, to shake us loose from our ego's grip as it struggles to maintain an illusion of control. It is loss of control more than anything else that humbles us and enables us to see the big picture. It reminds us that the key to the universe lies in what we do not know, and what we do know is a small fraction of the great mystery in which we live. This awareness softens and lightens us, as we release our resistance to what is. Another gift gleaned from going to these seemingly undesirable places is that, in our response to difficulty, we can see all the patterns and unresolved emotional baggage that stand in the way of our unconditional joyfulness. Joy exists within us independently of whether things go our way or not. And when we don't feel it, we can trust that we will find it if we are willing to surrender to the situation, moving through it as we move through our difficult feelings.

We can take our inspiration from any fairy tale that finds its central character lost in a dark wood, frightened and alone. We know that the journey through the wood provides its own kind of beauty and richness. On the other side, we will emerge transformed, lighter and brighter, braver and more confident for having moved through that darkness.