An introduction
Everyone, meet my heart monitor . . . heart monitor, everyone.
I thought that since we’ll all be together for the next three weeks we should be properly introduced. A few weeks ago I went to visit a big-deal cardiologist, thinking that I should get myself checked out to make sure I didn’t have heart disease. It is the leading killer of women in this country, you know. Sure, I’ve never had high cholesterol or chest pains, but I do have a young child and I thought it would be better to find out whether I’m already suffering from heart disease or if I’m at risk for it.
So, I go and get myself tested for all kinds of horrible stuff. I have an EKG and an echocardiogram and a stress test, and what do they show? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My heart is fantastic. “Beautiful heart, perfect,” as my cardiologist described it. Yeah, so why am I now hooked up to a monitor that is assessing every beat of my heart? I’m not entirely sure.
Turns out that I have very low blood pressure. I always thought that was a pretty good thing, but for the dizziness when I stand up too quickly. That and the freezing fingers and inability to donate blood. But other than that, it’s a good thing. Except for the fact that I’ve fainted a couple of times as a result of my low blood pressure. Not recently or anything, but apparently doctors have some strange sort of loyalty to the DMV and fainting is a big freaking deal. I’m not kidding. I used to think that what went on in the doctor’s office was private (sort of, except for my medical records being available to pretty much everyone). I thought that unless I told a doctor I was going to go and kill someone, what I said was not going anywhere. So. Not. Accurate.
Come to find out that doctors broadly interpret their duty to advise authorities if a patient may harm someone. Like, some may believe that if you have a patient with a “condition” (hard to consider occasional dizziness (not ditziness) a medical condition) where it’s possible that they’ll faint, you have a duty to report that patient to the DMV. Huh? At about this point the doctor went off on some nonsense about how I could possibly drive a car, pass out behind the wheel and kill someone. As a result, she needed to assess whether I should be allowed to drive. I stopped trying to find the logic right when she said something about the DMV probably taking away my license if they knew about my “history”. What? I have low blood pressure, not epilepsy. I have never had a seizure. I’ve never fainted anywhere near a car. The only time I’ve fainted in ages was at home after extreme illness where I was severely dehydrated and needed IVs and I would never have even thought to drive a car while that sick. How does this get us to the possibility that I could faint while driving and therefore should lose my license?
At this point, when my blood pressure was probably managing to creep up to a crazy high of 100/60, she says she thinks it’s unlikely that I pose a danger to anyone. Okay, I’m listening again. She tells me that she does think there is an underlying condition that has caused the episodes in the past (seriously, we’re talking about what people in Victorian times called “swooning”), but she thinks it has something to do with a nerve and she thinks it can be treated with a particular medication. And the benefit is that the medication could help with some of the fatigue that I experience that is likely tied to my blood pressure. And at this point I became actively interested in what she had to say. I used to think I was just lazy and tired a lot. Turns out there was a medical reason for it that no one bothered to mention before. Even better, there are non-debilitating meds that can help.
To rule out an electrical problem, I need to wear a monitor before they’ll give me the medication that might actually make a difference with the annoyances I’ve experienced since becoming an adult. Fine. That’ll take like a day, right? Um, no. Since my “episodes” are intermittent (that’s what you call something when it happens every 3 to 5 years or longer), I’ll need to wear a monitor that constantly assesses me for 21 days. That means I’m hooked up to this thingy that has electrodes stuck to my chest and ribs performing a constant EKG.
If you’ve read this blog for a while you know that I work in an industry where things like medical issues are considered personal weaknesses. Failures. Moreover, I work for a firm that is risk averse at best. You can imagine how this is going over. One partner walked into my office and saw the monitor’s base unit (the part that talks to my monitor and sends messages to the doctor and the provider by phone) hooked up to the phone jack (I simply could not hide it without moving furniture). He recognized it because it’s made by one of our clients and so I had to tell him what was going on. First thing out of his mouth was “don’t tell anyone – make sure you wear baggy clothes to hide it and if you have to carry that (the base unit) hide it in a file folder”. Second was “if they find out you’ll have to go on disability – the firm could be sued if you hit someone while driving” (explaining when I looked at him blankly). Implicit in this was what would happen to my chances for partnership if this gets out and certainly how perilous it would be if I had to take disability. Third was to ask me who in our tech support group hooked the monitor up to the phone system so he could go do damage control in case they knew what it was. By now I feel like I’m in some sort of alternate universe. Like I’ve committed some sort of crime and we’re covering it up.
Okay, what’s the moral to this story? First, think seriously about going to a doctor for “preventative” reasons. I’m only half joking here. None of this would be happening but for the fact that I wanted to prevent heart disease instead of treat it later. Clearly, I’m happier knowing I’m not suffering from heart disease, but . . . really??? Second, if you’ve ever fainted, think twice before disclosing this to a doctor; know how it could impact you other than by virtue of your health generally. I’m not saying you should hide it – I just wish I had known what I was getting myself into. I had never before thought to lie to my doctor about anything. Mostly because there’s nothing to lie about. I’m quite healthy. Seriously, I am. Ignore the incredibly expensive heart monitor beeping while I type this. But never did I think that telling my doctor something could result in the loss of my driver’s license, an occurrence that would actually very much impact my life. Third, if you work for my firm, trust your gut when you think that physical weakness may be used against you. Fourth, 21 days is a long time to hide a monitor with multiple wires stuck to your chest and hanging around your waist and I still have 20 more days to go.
Disappointment
I could regale you with yet another post of yet another trip to the zoo (and this one included not one, but TWO, beautiful little two-year old girls from Oscar’s orphanage, which made the day extremely special), but I won’t. Instead, I’ll write about what’s been racing through my mind for the past week.
A terribly upsetting news story was recently broadcast on Australian television focusing on adoptions in Ethiopia. Most of you adopting from Ethiopia or who already have done so probably have seen this video. I hesitate to write this for fear of engaging in hyperbole, but I think it’s fair to say it was tragic. The most upsetting aspect of it (to me) was a clip from a waiting child DVD sent to prospective adoptive parents by an agency called “Christian World Adoptions”. In this segment, a woman sat surrounded by children and seemingly some parents and presented the children to the PAPs watching the DVD as being available for adoption. During this process, she said to the people around her something to the effect of “if you don’t want your children to be adopted, please don’t stay.” I am definitely paraphrasing, since I have watched this only twice and do not plan to watch it again. The gist of it was that she was asking parents to relinquish their children for international adoption and the tenor of the piece indicated that this was unsolicited by these parents.
I don’t know how many of you have seen waiting children DVDs. I have to say that, personally, I believe that they are distressing at best. I understand why agencies make them available, but they are extremely tough to watch simply because of their subject matter. Watching video of children available for adoption who are in need of parents should distress us. Watching video of children available for adoption who actually have parents who may be able to care for them should terrify us. I am not saying that the only children who should be adopted are those with no living parents (and please don’t call those kids “true orphans”). I am saying that the only children who should be adopted are those whose first parents or other surviving family members have made their own decision, free from coercion, to make their children available for adoption.
People are rightfully upset as a result of watching this story. We should be. While I think the piece itself was meant to be provocative, probably even shocking, in order to garner attention and ratings, the clip I referenced above was compelling. I do think that there were some glaring inaccuracies in the story that detract from the overall credibility of the piece, but the seed has been planted. How exactly do these kids end up in these orphanages?
As you might imagine, reactions vary greatly online. Families with the agency in question appear to be standing behind them. Families who have already adopted from Ethiopia appear to be saying that this is a result of the influx of new applicants for adoption and this never would have happened back when they adopted. Families in process appear to be confused and a bit afraid. I’m obviously in that last category.
People keep asking what the answer is here. How can this be prevented? I don’t think there is a simple answer.
I don’t think the answer is to shut down international adoption. We can pretend that there is no need for it, but I don’t believe that is the case. We can say that there are alternatives – people or governments can sponsor or otherwise provide for families living in poverty in these regions and that could prevent the need for adoption. A great idea, but it’s not happening on the scale that would be needed, and more importantly, possibly, is that a great many of us do that in different forms, and it does not appear to be eliminating the need for adoptive families.
People also like to say that the UNICEF statistics of the number of orphans is greatly exaggerated. Fine. I’ll agree with the premise. So there aren’t 5,000,000 orphans in Ethiopia who are available for adoption. Are there 500,000? 50,000? Even 5,000 in a year? Because even if 1% of the overblown number is accurate, there are more orphans available for adoption than are going to be adopted in a given year.
I think one thing we can do is engage in much more pointed conversations with our agencies both before and while we’re adopting. So many PAPs appear timid, as if they believe if they ask the hard questions their agency will blackball them. First, if that is the case, perhaps a second look at your agency is in order. Second, I think we want to know the answers to these questions sooner rather than later to prevent being caught unaware when we hear stories like this. The hope, of course, is that this is a complete and total outlier, and that “stories like this” will not occur again, but I do think it’s useful to have whatever information we can gain in this process. Believe me, as an adoptive parent, you’ll be happy to have the answers in the future. We should all better understand the process of how children are relinquished and brought into the care of their respective orphanages. Where are the weaknesses where impropriety could occur? What do our agencies do to prevent these issues?
I think we also have to also stop being so impatient when it comes to referrals. I get the impatience, don’t get me wrong. I just cringe when I see a post on a group where someone talks about getting a referral in X months and there is an immediate response saying “which agency???”. You know people are then moving to that agency expecting a quick referral. And you know that agency is going to be getting calls from those people, frustrated that their referral did not occur in X months. And the question becomes – are some of these agencies going to become a bit more creative in how they manage their average referral time. I think sometimes it might be prudent to remember what a referral actually signifies.
Many other things come to mind, which I’m sure I’ll eventually bore you with, such as conducting independent investigations prior to travel. But for now, I guess I’ll just keep hoping that people will continue to discuss these issues in a thoughtful manner, without resorting to hysteria. I do not think this story taints all adoptions, although it should make us all think a lot more critically about the manner in which we’re choosing to form our families.
Cute x 3
We went to our favorite haunt (yes, the zoo, again) with some friends from Viet Nam. Well, technically, Marin but a couple of them were born in VN, so I think that counts. I think Oscar developed a little bit of a crush on someone. . .
The second shot cracks me up, with Oscar striking a pose and telling the paparazzi to back off. The third just makes me think of an old couple. Doesn’t it look like she’s saying something very important to him? This one also makes me realize how difficult it is to take photos of multiple kids. Getting the third of our trio into the shot did not happen. Ever. It was easier to get a good, clear shot of these guys:
The parent I want to be
Before I adopted Oscar I wondered what kind of parent I was going to be. Given my own life experiences and history, I wondered if I was going to fall into the Alpha Mom trap. I suspected I’d be able to steer clear of that, but suspected I’d land somewhere fairly near the mark. Close enough to annoy my kid, but hopefully far enough away to save him from too much harm.
Now that I actually am a parent, I spend far less time thinking about the type I am, what with the trying to get us both through the day unscathed and all, but sometimes the issue sort of foists itself on me.
Oscar has been going through more developmental “assessments” this past month. I received his results (actual scores) on them yesterday. They were remarkably difficult for me to decipher at first. I was the girl at school usually in the top percentile of all those fun standardized tests we all took. To this day filling in those answer bubbles makes me happy. Might be why I’ve passed the Bar in three different states. I’ve always assumed my kid would excel at testing, too. Maybe we’re not genetically related, but he’s my kid, right?
I sat reading his results last night not understanding what the numbers meant. I saw the words on the page, but the significance of them was lost on me. The social worker and speech therapist asked me if I had any questions about the results. I think I just looked dumbly at them and asked about the percentile notation. Hoping that being in the first percentile was the highest achievent, but knowing from personal experience that that was saved for the 99th percentile. When they confirmed what I feared, they immediately launched into all the caveats. Factors that could lead to higher scores in the future. Oscar is internationally adopted, maybe he still needs time to adjust to hearing English spoken. He was fairly ill last year, it could have taken a toll on both his receptive and expressive language skills and his cognition generally. He may have had off days when tested.
I’m sure I just looked at them blankly when they asked if I had questions. I had no idea what to say. Nothing has prepared me for this. Somehow I can understand medical journal articles about abnormalities of the corpus callossum, but when faced with the prospect my son might have a significant language disorder, I was rendered mute. The only thing I could ask was the one thing I knew they couldn’t answer. What will this mean for him in the long run? Their turn for the blank stares. At least they gave me the answer that enabled me to believe in their credibility going forward.
So, what does this all mean? Oscar has a significant speech language disorder, one that is more problematic than a simple delay, but no one can tell me how it will impact him. It’s apparently not the same thing as when some toddlers just don’t talk (sorry, Dad, but Logan and Giancarlopaolociaobella rarely speaking aren’t the same; they probably understand what people are saying). Is it related to the “Eye Thing” or the “Brain Thing”? I’m going to guess it is, but we’ll have to see his neurologist and neuro-optho to confirm.
There are some bright sides to this. Oscar will be getting home-based therapy three or four times a week now. And, since it’s such very sucky news? Even the bankrupt State of California is going to pay for a good chunk of it. Personally, I’d be happy not needing these services, but I’m not going to pass them up (especially given how difficult it was even getting Oscar into Early Start to begin with – remember the whole “he’s internationally adopted, he’ll grow out of it” headache?).
The biggest bright side? I’m not concerned anymore about being one of those highly competitive moms. Don’t get me wrong, I know my child is extraordinary. Test results like these don’t change that. They just might make me better realize what’s important. And right now if I had to define importance it would have nothing to do with where Oscar ranks among his peers. It’s far more important to me that I do whatever I can to help him fulfill his potential, which I think is immense.
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Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
