Okay, I admit it. I still cannot believe I am a Voice of the Year award recipient from BlogHer. Seriously I am still in awe and am frequently heard telling David, HOLY CRAP I’m going to New York and getting an award. The same award Wil FREAKING Wheaton is getting. I’m can now play six degrees of separation with Kevin Bacon. I promise I will stop gushing soon. Maybe not today, but I will try to stop by tomorrow.

Anyhow, here is the post BlogHer Voices of the Year chose for an award. Yes, I will be saying I’m an award winner for the next 80 years. Sorry, but you’ve been warned. “Sometimes” was originally published on 09-AUG-2014 when I had a really bad day. It’s not pretty…it’s pretty raw. I’m feeling much better today, I’m an award winner after all.

Some times….I hate this life. I hate that as much as I love Abby I fear those teenage years. I hate that one day she will go through a period of her life where we will not understand one another.

But I accept that.

I will not effing accept is that I HATE in capital and bold letters that doctors will never show concern for Bridget. That she has to have some mysterious swelling that one doctor tells me to call another doctor about who tells me to call yet another specialist about. That when I finally get her into the vascular clinic she is seen by one doctor and fourteen medical students/fellows and I am told that her vasomotor instability is not that big of a deal. “A LOT” of kids have something “like” this phenomenon and not to worry. When asked if I should be worried that it could be happening while she sleeps and is it fatal, I was told no. I told them they would be the first person I called should they be wrong.

No parent (and I am not looking for a poor Kerri thing here) should be told that. That without any testing, with a brief exam that their child is fine. Parents should not be made to feel like we are bothering doctors.

We are the reason they can afford their student loans, vacation homes and alimony bills.

Bridget has SIXTEEN different specialists. Why the freaking hell do I have to call them? They are all at the same flipping hospital. Can they not call one another and chat, is that too much to ask?

And why, dear God why, do they refer to one another and then disagree? Why must I always be the advocate, the voice of reason and the fingers of Google. Why do I have to always be vigilant? The one who e-mails and calls cardiology, genetics, rhuematology, neurology, GI, neuro-urology (yes, there is such a thing), pulmonology? Why do they think that just because it is NOT life threatening it doesn’t impact her life?

Not that she “suffers”. There are children with disease, cancer and deformities that have a life so much more difficult. I completely get how lucky we are and how selfish I am for getting pissy that she has to endure things that really are not that bad in the scheme of things.  Recently she got another quirk, not an ailment or symptom really. But just one more thing to add to her Booness. I said she already had 15 why add one more.

This was not the life I expected.

To constantly be second-guessing myself. And the Harvard Graduates.

To wonder if I push too hard or not enough.

To cry because children are supposed to be beings of joy before they are teenagers.

To be at my wits end because although I love Bridget for who she is I hate the fact that I don’t know why she is the way she is. That we need to know the why so we can give her the best life she deserves to live. Just like her sister.

To have to physically hold my child down for two hours while she screams during a test of her bladder function.

Because as much as I love my child sometimes I resent that she isn’t perfect.  That she isn’t easy. That she, with all her advances, cannot keep up with where life has placed us.

Because I am not capable of being the perfect mom that can handle everything.

Because sometimes I cannot even handle my beautiful, awesome, perfect daughter.

And I am sorry. Because sometimes I effing resent it. I fucking hate that this is our life. A life where we know our beautiful daughter will always struggle. That our lives are scheduled around school, therapies, doctors appointments and not play dates, gymnastics and ballet.

We will struggle with Boo. For freaking ever. This will not end. That although our children are always our children Bridget will forever be our child and not the mother of our grandchildren.

That I look into Boo’s eyes and see how beautiful she is yet think if only….