It’s not easy to explain how anxious I am tonight. I’m anxious because I haven’t yet received Gavin’s lab results from yesterday. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything good or bad, they just haven’t gotten them back yet.

As a special needs parent, it seems like there’s always something to worry about.

Special needs kids can be so complex and their respective conditions can make life extremely complicated. There’s always something to worry about because there’s literally so many things that can go wrong at any given time. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of waiting for the other shoe to drop but it’s not because I’m negative. It’s because there’s always another shoe to worry about.

I’ve spoken with countless special needs parents over the years and from all over the globe. It doesn’t matter where they live or how much money they make because one of the universal threads that tie us all together is our constant worry about our kids.

That’s something I feel is tough for people to truly grasp because while most parents worry about their kids, Special Needs parents worry about them for different reasons.

While one parent may be worrying about their child’s choice in friends, a special needs parent is often worrying because their child doesn’t have any friends or they’re being bullied.

We worry about things like wandering, medications, interactions with untrained police, life threatening health conditions, figuring out how to communicate, making sure they wear clothes, getting them to eat anything, possible acts of aggression, Meltdowns, self-injury, fucking IEP meetings, societies acceptance, and who will care for their child when we pass (because we won’t live forever). That last one is responsible for many sleepless nights.

Frankly, I don’t know how I even survive at times. I know some of you can relate to that.

There’s so much chronic sleep deprivation, anxiety, immeasurable amounts of stress, lack of self-care, fear, fighting and even financial nightmares, that it takes a serious toll on a person. If you even get sleep, you’ll wake up the next day and do the same thing all over again. Some of us will be doing this for the rest of our natural lives, and there’s a shit load of stress involved in just thinking about that.

With all of these things going on, all I was hoping for was to get Gavin’s lab results back. As terrible as it may sound, I don’t so much care what the results were. I just need to know what they are so I know what I’m dealing with.

It’s no wonder I’ve lost my hair, my beard is white and my nerves are fried.

Do you know what I call all of this shit I’m feeling right now? I call it a Tuesday.