When your child is diagnosed with something rare and largely misunderstood you become a member of a special kind of club. It isn't the kind with a waiting list of much prestige at all. Whether you want in or not you are a card carrying member for the moment the words are uttered.
Rhombencephalosynapsis.
That is what is stamped on my card. Simply put it means that my daughters brain did not form in the way it should have. Her cerebellum is fused at the midline and she has other brain malformations to go along with it. The other interesting thing that happens when you start carrying your rare diagnosis card with you, is that you quickly begin to matriculate towards your medical degree. Words like aqueductal stenosis, agenesis of the corpus callosum, ventriculomegalies, hydrocephalus all become a normal part of your repertoire.
You eventually find a point in your life where you can be in the room with ten medical professionals and yet you, yes you, are the expert in the room. You find yourself explaining diagnostics, therapies, outcomes and medical implications to people who have spent years to earn their white coat. They ask you questions. They look to your expertise to take their next step.
Rhombencephalosynapsis.
There are moments when this is terrifying. I have no MD, no DO not even an RN and yet I am supposed to be the thermometer on my child's condition. The other side of this coin is that I also can help use my influence to keep my child moving forward. By earning the reputation of the resident expert in the room on rhombencephalosynapsis so one can tell me that she has reached her full potential. The sky is the limits and that is the freeing part.
Rhombencephalosynapsis.
There was a time when that word made me simultaneously shutter and stop dead in my tracks. Now it is just a word. Twenty-two letters long and light years away from any real answers. But it is just a word.
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