Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself . . . #DoseOfTruth

Fear. It can a driving force, a motivating force, or something so strong and captivating that we cower under our sheets and blankets and refuse to face the world – or the fear.

Since I have several children, I have several terrifying moments. Like when they thought my two-week old daughter had meningitis and, in ruling it out, had to stick her several times for her lumbar puncture. (It wasn’t meningitis, it was simply one of the first of her many medication reactions. This reaction was to the cream prescribed for a rash. Her sensitive skin couldn’t handle traditional laundry detergent. Live and learn.) That one was an acute, icy “life or death” fear.

Another scary moment was when one of my sons was diagnosed with autism. That was was a different, fearful of the future type of fear. And not for me, but for my baby. As it turns out, he is well adjusted, grounded, secure in his faith and, every day, proves that my initial fear was baseless.

Another son, another scary moment. I almost lost him during pregnancy at 10 weeks, but the doctors at the San Bortolo Hospital in Vicenza, Italy saved his life – and my sanity. That was a different type of fear, too. An indescribable, helplessness that left me feeling like a spectator to a horror movie I didn’t want to watch. My son bucked the odds and despite being born early, now plays violin, surfs, and loves Spongebob.

Last son, but certainly not last scary moment. My youngest son was hospitalized as a toddler for what they thought was leukemia – but turned out to be a severe allergic reaction to something blooming in his birth state of Oklahoma. When the doctor tending him mentioned “life flight to Dallas” from our tiny Oklahoma town, I didn’t know how I’d pick up and carry on. But I did – and it turned out that he only had severe allergies. And I use the word only with extreme sarcasm, because there was nothing only about it.

My scariest moment yet to come . . . in the meantime, enjoy this picture of my fearless husband being “terrified” by a giant rubber spider at the Halloween store!