Coping Mechanisms, Identity, and Premonitions...

People deal with things in different ways. When faced with bad news, some people get angry, some people make jokes (me), some people get proactive, and some people do a little of it all (me again). I think everyone has their own ways of coping for lots of different reasons. The reasons I make jokes, is because sometimes, I just afraid about facing the real issue and how it has the potential to make me really sad. I think some people get proactive because they want to fix whatever it is that's going wrong. And some people get angry because the feel life is unfair-and sometimes it is. But whatever the coping strategy seems to be for a particular person and situation, I don't think anyone has the right to judge as long at the person coping is facing reality. The angry person, I think as a right to be angry in the sense that sometimes things really suck! Like having to tell your child that climbing a tree today isn't the best thing to do because their knee is so swollen. The joker (again, me) probably feels that with everything else surrounding diagnosis is so heavy and frustrating at times, that they need to lighten the mood a little bit. It has made it easier on me and my husband and a little bit for Siobhan to joke around a little bit. The proactive 'fixer' is on the right track because it's good to have an idea of what you want to do to help the situation. Is this all making sense?

Now where am I going with all this? Well, this morning, I referred to Siobhan as my 'Arthritic Daughter' on facebook (dang you facebook, the bane of my existance). A friend called me out on it (and in retrospect, it was probably well intentioned) and I explained my reasoning (it was all having to do with a spider and Siobhan not being to jump or climb to get the spider because of her swollen knee). The label was in jest but it got me to thinking. I refer to Siobhan as my oldest daughter, my beautiful daughter, my smart daughter, and when the occasion permits it, my disobedient daughter because all of those statements are true. But so is the fact that she is my arthritic daughter. Now, I don't want the JRA thing to be her complete identity but also don't want the fact that she's pretty to be the sum total of who she is or the fact that she's smart to be the only thing she's known for. But it would be unrealistic to not acknowledge that she has arthritis and it helps make her who she is. What she/we end up doing with that part of her identity is going to make it bad thing or a good thing...but I think that is an evolutionary thing anyway. So yeah, when I called her that, I was joking (because that's what I do-see above), but it is true. Just like how she's my left handed daughter, my daughter with loose and missing teeth, and my daughter who loves Parmesan cheese.

Some pictures of my oldest, beautiful, smart, arthritic, left handed, sometimes disobedient, parmesan cheese loving daughter.

In other news, Carson and I have both had some weird drams (premonitions) about the future for Siobhan. Mine was that Siobhan needed a hip replacement due to the arthritis. The funny thing is, as far as we know, Siobhan doesn't have JRA in her hips and while replacements are sometimes necessary, they're pretty unlikely. Carson had a dream where Siobhan was playing competitive soccer and one of the dads was complaining that Siobhan couldn't hack it because she couldn't run very well. So Carson went over and punched the dad in the face. Chronic auto-immune disorders will do weird things to people.