Waiting for the Adult

Several times this summer, I've had a vague sense of waiting for the Adult to show up and handle it -- the basement flooding after extensive "waterproofing" work; the soaking carpets and mud residue downstairs; the decision to take Silas to the ER or not for blood work; hiring the next company to deal with the flooding, the mosquitoes, the poison ivy at this house;  what next to do for Silas's Lyme disease.

But that vague wise, authoritative Adult doesn't come because I, somehow, am she, right along with my best-guy-friend-from-high-school-turned-lover-and-father-of-my-children, Ben.

It's a strange life stage, these 30's, and stranger now that we are living in the city where we met, moving through the neighborhoods of our childhood.

This week Silas finished his 28-day course of antibiotics.  He feels well but is still missing about 10-15% movement in the left side of his face.  So, wise and knowing Adult, wherever you are, what to do?   Our kid can't scrunch his nose on one side.  The Internet (and neighborhoods, and pool decks and book clubs and coffee shops) are full of frenzied Lyme stories.  Everyone knows someone who's had it, and lots of the stories are bad.  My approach generally (there are exceptions) is to do things pretty well, well enough, so they are all right, completed, cleanish, a little rough around the edges but good and done, but all of the sudden, here we are, dealing with some one's FACE and that approach does not work.

My brother reminded me to pray -- I do believe in healing -- so we've been praying, and reading online about recovery -- go to holistic doctor ($500 for initial visit), fight for 6 weeks of antibiotics, visit a neurologist, begin physical therapy, visit a peds infectious disease doctor, give him cat's claw tea twice a day, move him to a gluten free diet --  and calling doctor's offices, which we may or not be able to get into this month, though his medicine ends in two days.  Having the wellness of some one's sweet face in my hands -- not some one's, but Silas's -- is pushing me (again) into the space of adult and action.  It nixes any stall tactics, any hemming and hawing, any waiting for the Adult -- we are his adult, and so we go.