I blog therefore I am

It's gray and overcast in the city today, the trees bare of leaves, everything leached of color. Last night it snowed, then rained and now the ground is a crust of ice. In our house, my son is quiet and pensive I wonder what he is working out in his mind. I can never quite get used to how unknowable our children can be at certain moments. There are times when they share what feels to me like their whole hearts, and times when they shut me out completely. This is no doubt normal but I don't have to like it.

In other news my niece is on the mend, responding well to treatments. She may well go home from the hospital this week. She has been there since before Thanksgiving. Her mother reports she is coming back to herself. Her mother is weak with relief, finally allowing herself to admit the terror she held at bay as she fought to get her daughter the tests and treatments she needed. There is a whole story there that I am not at liberty to tell fully. But I wonder how many people have been locked away in psychiatric wards when in fact their apparent psychosis was due to an underlying medical condition that might be entirely treatable if caught early enough but that many doctors don't even know to check for.

If you're curious, the book Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan explains more. My niece finally got the tests she needed because a nurse who saw her in the ER the night she was brought in was reading the book. That nurse called her mother at home the next morning to tell her to insist on medical and neuro exams looking into the possibility of an autoimmune encephalitis. That nurse went above and beyond and may well have saved my niece.

Here's a photo I found. It was taken on Thanksgiving a year ago, when everyone could be here. Looks like there was another paparazzi moment happening when I took this picture. We all brandish cameras around here. I adore these children.