I am an older mom and I worry that I will develop more health problems because of my anxiety which increases my blood pressure. The blood pressure medication I take makes me very tired and I need all the energy I can get to homeschool my son and help take care of my dad. I just don't know how to be calm when my son has to deal with so much pain and isolation because of the scoliosis brace and then it is extremely stressful knowing that if the brace doesn't work the doctor will recommend risky surgery. I spent so many hours looking up information about this online and it is very scary. My son knows that there are risks with any surgery and those risks can include death (he asked about this) or worse disability so he is willing to go through the pain, but every day is hard. It makes me so sad that in addition to all the pain he won't be around any other kids at all this summer because he couldn't be out of the brace long enough each day for musical theater rehearsals. He begs me almost daily to find a way for us to move to a place where we would fit in better, like the college town about 40 miles away, but we need to stay here for my dad. I wish I could do something to make life easier for him but people keep telling me he will be stronger because of what he is going through now.
We try to buy him things to keep him busy and hopefully keep his mind off his difficulties. For his 14th birthday he wanted Rosetta Stone Japanese. He has been steadily working on learning Japanese and doing well. He also wanted a midi keyboard so he can use synthesia online. We bought that too. Surprisingly he doesn't play video games all the time even thought he has plenty of those. He still chooses to read a lot and keep up with the latest news even in the summer. He still loves to learn, but I worry that he won't have the opportunity to learn everything he needs to learn.
We tell him that life will be easier for him as an adult. I hope this is true. I hope that my husband and I can stay healthy enough so that I can keep homeschooling my son through high school. I hope we can send him to college. That is all I can think about now.
