Where's my inspiration?

Today he and Levi are taking in a Pioneer Days Festival on Day Three of Adventure Camp here in the mountains.  This week we have been testing our nerves and Zach's limits.  After a host of questions of the camp director and precautions / warnings for him, we turned Zach loose to challenge the world.  He seems to be doing much better than Mom & Dad.

Monday they went off on a gem mining expedition followed by a mountain hike to a picnic lunch and waterfall lake swim.  They disembarked the bus that afternoon the portraits of tired.  Zach had a big band-aid on his knee.  A band-aid that Daddy packed because he has these premonitions.  Reports were that they did super and had a great day.  Zach had slipped in the waters edge while searching for treasured gems scraping his leg.  A Mom along for the trip said he was a trooper about it.  He got his wet shirt off and his band-aid on and forged ahead.  There were also reports that Zach's charm scored him some piggy back transportation during parts of the hiking.

As a side note - When asked if he got a piggyback ride, our literalist child informed us he did not.  We responded with the fact that that was what we had heard.  His rebuttal, "It was not a "piggy back" ride because I rode on Ken's shoulders."  After a few moments of debating semantics and trying to use logical arguments with Zach, we gave in and concurred that these two things were in fact different.

Tuesday was another trip to a mountain lake for kayaking with a naturalist, swimming, and picnicking.  Not as tense as in the past after an uneventful first day, Mom & I awaited the boys' arrival on the bus.  They pulled into the lot and Momma hopped out to greet them.  Levi was the first one off the bus and he informed Momma she needed to go get Zach.  From my vantage point in the car, things got exciting quick.  I saw Levi talk to Mom.  Then I saw Mom sprint to the bus.  So I leaped out to get to Levi who calmly informed me Zach was still asleep on the bus. WHEW!  Imaginations are a powerful thing and I don't like to have mine stimulated like that.  More happened in my mind in sixty seconds than I can recall.  Mom emerged from the bus and carried drowsy Zach to his car seat.  The Camp Mom reported Zach curled up with his backpack and slept the two hour ride home.  Levi on the other hand she compared to a jack-in-the-box as he kept popping up and down in his efforts to avoid napville.  As usual, Levi was successful in evading the sand man.

So all our boundaries are being stretched this week.  We want Zach to forge forward on his own.  This was an opportunity for him to do just that.  We want to keep him safe at all times protecting him from bumps, scrapes, and disappointments.  I know all parents are like this to some degree, but the possibility of these things happening to Zach are a little greater than the average kid.  Luckily we are all enjoying some positive growth through this experience.  I am already looking forward to today's report.

After today, there will be two days of Camp Cullasaja for the kids.  It is physically demanding, but less adventurous than Adventure Camp.  Still planning on giving Zach more freedom and stretching our limits.

Levi has done super.  Oddly enough we were more than willing to turn the 20 month younger brother loose on the world.  He needs to grow without Mom & Dad lingering in the background too.  His reports have been animated and amusing.  The Camp Mom reports Levi is a little hoot with his happy antics.  We are proud of Levi's growth.

Alas, there is another problem.  What do Mom & Dad do when they aren't required to be in the presence of their offspring?  We have played golf.  We have eaten meals where we didn't have to tell anybody to "Eat!" or "Stop That!"  We climbed to the top of the mountain and talked.  There weren't any revelations in our conversation.  There were only realities.

Many people talk about us and other parents being "Super Parents" for the admirable ways we have handled the task of having a child with cancer.  I recently read another parent's reply and it hit home with me.  We are not "Super Parents" but regular parents who have had to rise to the call of duty.  I wish no one had to face the challenges presented by this battle against this horrendous foe.  In Zach's battle, we have been blessed beyond measure by the outcome of many things that could be worse.  We have read about and seen outcomes of children just as deserving as Zach that were a parent's worst nightmare.  That makes us all the more grateful for the "little" blessing that God gives us each time we look at Zach.

With that in mind, conversations like the one we had on the mountain top are hard to have because we have so much to be thankful for in Zach's case.  The reality remains, however, that Zach has challenges beyond what normal kids face.  In the case of regular kids, parents can look back at their childhood for cues on what to expect of their kids or they can compare their kid to the other regular kids.  Neither of these measures can be applied to Zach.  The anecdotal experiences of kids with problems similar to Zach's are poor measures too.  Because of the complexity of factors in the disease and its treatments and the low number of cases, it is nearly impossible to draw direct corelations between cases.

So we know that Zach has challenges that we will have to address.  Unfortunately, most of the future is a great unknown until the stages of growth and development reveal how profoundly Zach's brain tumor and subsequent treatments have affected his young body.

We have ventured this far in great faith, and it seems to be demonstrating a lack of faith to believe that Zach will be less than 100% in the future.  (Sometimes it almost makes you a little guilty for being selfish and wanting more in light of how much you have already received.)  Or one could believe that we have great faith that God will deliver what Zach needs to live his greatest life with the unknown potential that he has now.  So as realists and believers and good parents, we have to prepare for the outcomes ranging from potential reality based on the experiences of other survivors or the possibility of great miracles beyond our expectations.

So being a Super Parent is tough when in your heart you want to encourage your kid to be "King of the World" and in your mind you fear the reality is that his potential to achieve that goal has been diminshed because of circumstances beyond your control.