"Hey! I did it all by myself!!!!" I love it when my people start doing things all by themselves. Getting dressed, for example, even if it means that they are wearing striped leggings with a printed skirt and non-matching shirt/sweater combo. Trying new foods, new accomplishments at the playground, dry nighttime pull-ups. We are making progress.
Progress is a funny word. Progress implies moving forward. We think of it as a good thing. Unless we are talking about a disease. The disease progressing is not good. A few months ago I went with my dad to a doctor's appointment. She described his disease as being on a train that is going a certain direction. In the medical realm there is no way to turn the train around or to make it go in reverse. "The best we can do is to try to slow the train down." Progress here has a totally different meaning.
Last summer my dad struggled a lot with feeling dizzy. His blood pressure would drop way down and sometimes he suddenly would need to stop and hold on to something, or sit down. Then, one day in September my parents went out to breakfast and my dad momentarily passed out. Unfortunately for him, when this happened he had been standing up. Down he went. It was a little bit scary for all involved, but my dad quickly recovered and they were able to leave the restaurant and my mom took him into the doctor for an evaluation. It wasn't immediately clear to them why my dad's blood pressure was dropping but they gave him some tips to try to manage it, and they advised us to have chairs available all over the place so that he could sit down in short order if he needed.
Well, it turns out that if you fall over somewhere and there isn't an immediate explanation as to why you are falling down, the state thinks its probably not a good idea for you to drive. (For the record, I concur with this government regulation.) So not long after this episode my dad was officially asked to turn in his license. No more driving for Grandpa.
Not long after this, my dad had an appointment with a new neurologist. The doctor listened to his symptoms, and looked at his medication list. He advised my dad to wean himself off of one of the medications and see how he did. Within a couple days of being off the medication, he stopped having dizzy spells. He started being able to ride his bike for longer stretches. Overall, he felt a lot better.
Okay, now I want to take a moment to talk about "progress" in terms of medicine. I have 2 people in my very close circle that are in the medical field. Both of them have spent years and years studying how the body works, and then reading really super boring journal articles and studies that have been done with different pharmaceuticals to see how effective they are at treating different diseases. They look at foods, vitamins and minerals and try to understand and see patterns with things that seem to help our bodies fight disease. But our bodies are really complicated and people with seemingly similar symptoms don't always respond in the same way to the same treatments.
I have cringed listening to people talk condescendingly about their healthcare provider not being able to figure out what is wrong with them. I just would like to take this moment to point out that these people have put A TON of time and effort and emotional wherewithal into trying to understand the human body and how to aid in fighting off disease. They deserve some respect for that. I have witnessed first hand people who read the medical journals in their free time, and spend family dinners talking about things that would make many of you want to either cry or throw up. (I have almost done both of these on more than one occasion.) Despite all of their efforts, THEY STILL AREN'T GOD, and it's quite unreasonable for us to have that expectation... of anyone for that matter.
In short, it became clear that the medication that my dad was taking was the cause of his dizzy spells, and that he did better not taking it. There are some people who might benefit from this particular medication, and we don't begrudge the doctor who originally prescribed it.
So, now that I have that out of the way, lets go back to talking about my dad. After he had resumed feeling generally awesome for quite some time, he started making a case for having his license back. Some of us weren't so sure about that idea, but it wasn't really up to us to decide. There were really a lot of hoops to jump through if that is what he wanted. But Grandpa was pretty determined. He had to get a doctor to sign a paper saying that he was medically cleared to be re-evaluated. He got that letter. Then he had to submit it to the DMV and request an appointment to take the driving test. While he waited, my dad found a YouTube video called, "How to pass the driving test." He probably watched it a hundred times. He had two last minute conflicts and had to reschedule that appointment TWICE. But his day came. A couple of weeks ago he took the driving test.
And HE PASSED!!! After a little more than 6 months with no licence, Grandpa is a licensed driver again. We celebrated. I think that in a small way we felt like the train that doesn't go backwards, went backwards anyway and it felt like progress.
