Untestable Intelligence: Brain Damage and Mom Freakouts

I'm going to try something new here. Lacowland is in the throws of some turmoil and I am going to create this post when, gasp, I don't have a good answer to my own troubles. I usually wait until I have things figured out before I unleash my insecurities out into the world. That may look good on facebook or whatever, but it's not real life. Speaking of facebook.... I will be the first to admit that my facebook page is like most of our pages. A cookie cutter version of my life, full of cropped photos with filters and editing. Honey, that ain't my life. My life is messy, chaotic, real, and full of a lot of love. Lacows are like Goonies: We never say die. 

Okay, so here is what is really going on between visits to pumpkin patches and vacations. Natalia is failing all of her subjects in school. I'm not even kidding. Like, even PE right now is struggling because she has tight calf tendons that make it so her legs hurt all the time. She can't flex her feet when her legs are straight. That issue has been going on, well realistically all her life. It's been the past year and half where she is miserable. She is having surgery to lengthen the tendons next month, but she will be in a wheelchair for six weeks. Yep, six weeks of non-weight bearing, emotional 11 year old who is missing more school. I have to hand it to her. She is going at this with a positive attitude. Like, she's excited to have a wheelchair experience. I can hear your thoughts and I echo those too. It will be exciting for like, a nano second. 

Okay, here is the bigger issue. The school stuff. We have known that something was off with Natalia since about first grade. By third grade she was really behind. At this point Natalia is in sixth grade, but only tests at a third grade level. Are you getting that sinking feeling too? Obviously there is something wrong. Like, really wrong. She's not lazy. Good Lord, she is trying so hard. This only leads to frustration all around. It is scary because all of us in her life know that she is smart. You can talk to her and know that she is firing on all cylinders. She just can't get her knowledge to her hands to write it down. If you ask her questions about what she is learning verbally, she'll tell you. She also can't follow a sequence or correlate pictures right now unless they are exactly alike. She had a map quiz that was open book. She can't see that the pictures are the same because one is in color and the other is in black and white where she is supposed to label the picture. Yeah, I'm freaking out too. Something is really wrong. 

Last spring Natalia fell off some playground equipment twice and hit her head both times. I know. I don't know how she managed that either, but it happened. She suffered a moderate concussion. Moderate means that it was significant. She missed the last month of school while she was recovering. With her traumatic brain injury (that sounds so much worse, doesn't it?) she hasn't been the same. She had a whole summer off, so there was no way for us to see how it impacted her cognitively with new learning. Oh, it's doing some impacting. Like, I think she may have some significant cognitive damage. Brain damage. There, I've said it. That makes me sick to write it down, but it's the truth. As a nurse I know this is true. As a mom I am in shades of denial mixed with panic. What is this going to mean for her in the long run? Is college out for her? How will she function as an adult? Is this fixable? Am I crazy and need to just go take a walk? Probably.

Another possibility that has been placed on the table is high functioning autism. We know Natalia is quirky. We embrace quirky here because all three of us are a little different. She is our only child, so we have nothing to compare her quirks against. Some of her funny quirks are the sounds that people make with their mouths. It drives her crazy. To her it sounds like people walk around smacking their mouths all the time. No one notices it but her. To make matters worse one of my nervous ticks is sucking air between my front teeth or sucking on my inner retainer behind my bottom teeth. Dives. Her. Crazy!

Routine. Natalia needs predictable routine and does not do well with spontaneity. Transitions are really hard for her. We have always just worked around this pretty easily because if you give her a 5 minutes "heads up", or "find a stopping place" cue, she does fine. Do you see why we took her out of the traditional middle school setting? Too much chaos; too many people. She is affectionate and snuggly with Jeremy and I, but she does not like to hug or touch other people. This has been notable since she was a young toddler. Like, she would physically push kids away or guard with her hands if other kids were too close to her. I didn't think too much of it because I don't like people touching me or being in my personal bubble. It physically makes me contract. To me, it seems justifiable.    

These are just a couple of her quirks that are starting to paint a bigger picture. So if she has a form of autism, then what? To be honest and transparent I don't really care about her quirks. Neither do her friends. I'm content that she is polite, empathetic, and makes a few quality friends. My panic button is school. I know her life as an adult won't be based on her 6th grade MAP scores, but the real problem is there is not a cookie cutter way to test her intelligence. I can hear the question "Who cares how she tests if she understands?" To that I answer "The real world does, and it will eat you alive if you don't fall into line." 

Yes, there are some Asperger's genius people out there. My research turned up

Bill Gates and Einstein. Natalia is not Bill Gates, nor is she Einstein. Let's be honest. I'm not insulting her intelligence, but I also know that she is not genius level. The reason this is important to me is because as she goes to college, or gets a job, or finds a career path her intelligence is going to need to be proven. How will she prove what she can't write down? One can take the idealist approach and say that she shouldn't have to prove anything. That is not realistic. I guarantee she WILL have to prove her intelligence because hiring an employee is a financial risk. A company wants to know that their investment will get an appropriate return. I want her to be financially independent because I don't want her at the mercy of someone else's wallet and generosity. I know I come into adulthood with a lot of baggage. Part of that baggage means I am insecure right now that I work very little while I am in school and must rely on someone else for my food, shelter, and transportation. Jeremy is amazing and loves our family. My insecurities are not because of anything he has done. I have a deeply burrowed need for the financial power in our house to be equal. I think this is something Natalia needs to take seriously as she becomes an adult. She needs to be able to support herself and be independent, or she will be wide open for someone to take advantage of her. 

My fears look ugly, don't they? I have narrowed my child down to an intelligence investment in one small paragraph. As a mother I know she is so much more. As an adult I know that society isn't going to care what her mother thinks. She is at risk now for young pregnancy, drug addiction, depression, and low self-esteem. I am at risk for being a crazy mama bear fighting the world off on her behalf. None of this is okay with me. 

Okay, so what do we actually know? I know that Natalia can learn. I know that she actually loves learning and figuring things out. When she gets something in her mind she is all in. Both feet jumping in all at once. You should see the research and creativity she puts into "customizing" her Littl'est Pet Shoppe animals. They are very creative. 

She acts like I would expect a normal 11 year old to behave. She isn't trying to be 16 and she says she enjoys being a kid. Whew. Sometimes at 39 I enjoy being a kid. She is probably the most empathetic and loving child I have ever met. I mean, sometimes it is overwhelming for her because she feels things all the way down to her soul. People like her are often called "highly sensitive persons". Me too. It's why I don't watch the news or read the paper. It's too overwhelming, but being sensitive is a gift. She has a perspective on other lives that is amazing. Like, sometimes I get some of the best advice from her. I hope she is like Maya Angelou and writes all of those thoughts down. We just have to figure out a way to get them out of her head. 

So those are just a few of my fears. I'm a bit single minded when it comes to solving a problem that freaks me out. I obsess. I'm obsessing now. I need to write all this craziness down so I can emerge from my Evil Queen Lair as a functioning mom and wife. Oh, then there is the little task of continuing to work on my Master's degree every day. Dammit, this is hard. 

There you go and here it is. Messy, but honest. As I told one of my friends this week, I liked it better when my biggest accomplishment as a mother was feeding my toddler vegetables for lunch. Every time I look at Powerschool I have a sense of dread. Every failed test she has to take again, and again chips away at our family. It isn't because she disappoints us. It is because we see there is something much bigger going on than just being lazy or not studying. As parents we tell our children they can do anything. Just work hard, try harder, and you will be successful. Well, my daughter is working hard, trying harder, and she can't. Period. She cannot. At least not within the current framework. We need a change in strategy. I just don't have that strategy figured out yet. There is the source of my panic. Fear of the unknown. 

On Monday Natalia is going to her psychiatrist's office to set up additional testing. I mean, how can you start fixing something if you don't know were the starting point is located? I am afraid that things are going to turn up much worse than we imagine. Yep, definitely the fear of the unknown is what is freaking me out. On my emails I have my favorite saying "It's like eating an elephant, you just have to take it one bite at a time." I heard someone say that and loved the truth of the saying. I need to follow my own advice.