Tag: ectopia lentis

motherhood

Endings and New Beginnings

WFAM

After a quarter of a century with AT&T, Mad Dog is shifting gears and will be moving his talents to a new company.  To all the family and friends who have remained loyal to the brand throughout his career, we appreciate you.  

Click here to see the announcement:

Welcome to AND Agency, Mad Dog!

We are Florida bound! 

It is hard to feel completely at ease moving during a pandemic, but we are taking the longview knowing in our hearts it is where we are meant to be; close to family, long-time friends and saltwater breezes. 

We have already found our Amelia Island home.  We can’t wait to be so close to the beach!

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Welcome to Siesta D!

When your life has revolved around one company for so many years, it is a lot to digest as the magnitude of leaving it behind settles in.  Mad Dog and I have met some of the most incredible people that we are lucky to call our friends. We are so grateful they will continue to be a part of lives as we move forward.

All this nostalgia got me thinking back to when I first met Mad Dog. Initially, I often wondered if we were compatible.  He was a quiet yet intense go-getter poised to crush the business world.  I was an empathic social worker intent on saving the world one troubled soul at at time.  Mad Dog sensed this divide, too.  At one point I remember him considering a leadership position with the American Cancer Society.  I knew the non-profit sector wasn’t where he belonged, but it made me love him all the more for his thoughtful consideration of this.

As I watched him earn his promotion as the youngest (at the time) GM of a call center, I started to see firsthand the scope of his leadership impact.  He expected excellence on the job, but he also encouraged accountability across all facets of life.  One of my favorite stories regarding this career-defining time of Mad Dog’s life, is how he mentored one of his coaches into becoming the first college graduate ever in her family.  These types of exceptional stories became the norm.

That’s when I knew we were meant for each other.  We both valued making the world better than how we found it.  It may have presented differently for both of us, but the theme of lifting others up was the common thread that ultimately wove our lives together.

For me, the debt of gratitude I feel for AT&T knows no bounds.  Not only in the beautiful life it has afforded us, but because of the outstanding medical benefits provided that allowed both our boys to have top-notch eye care and sight-saving surgeries.  I won’t go into detail, but if you would like to read more about these experiences, click the links below.

Eye Am Thankful

Once Legally Blind, Our Son Now Sees 20/25

The video below (Mad Dog starts speaking around the 3:40 marker), is the full circle culmination of where it all started for Mad Dog as he helped re-launch a high-tech, revitalized Chicago North call center.  This is the moment I am the most proud of in his career. The way he speaks to our experiences with our boys and their vision challenges as well as our gratitude for AT&T says it all.

 

While it is hard to say goodbye, as we look back it reminds us of all that has happened we never imagined would. That is why we can take this leap of faith with confidence.  In this new phase if we encounter even a fraction of the kind of awesome people and experiences we did with AT&T, then we are certain the road ahead will be paved with more wonder than we ever dreamed possible.

Thank you for reading and see you at the beach!

 

motherhood

New Year, New You

WFAM

First of all, don’t go changing on account of the New Year.  You are much too fabulous for that.

Stay you, stay true.

In the midst of our holiday break, which is whizzing by, the boys got new glasses.  This may seem insignificant but it isn’t.  Due to their unique and complex prescriptions, we have sometimes waited up to a year (a year!) to get new glasses made.

These new frames arrived less than a month after we dropped off the prescription. That has never happened in all of our days of taking boys to eye doctors.

Not once.

Keep in mind T.Puzzle started glasses when he was six months old and Full Speed at twenty months:

T.Puzzle
Full Speed

It’s been a long haul.

The one thing that has remained constant is how incredibly handsome my guys are in their glasses.  I didn’t think they could improve on this, but they did.

I am choosing not to comment on how much older they look in these new frames.

Is denial a viable resolution for the New Year?

If so, I am already crushing it.

Take that 2019!

Here are the before and afters:

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Check out Full Speed’s take on the College Football Playoffs:

Championship Chatter

children, gratitude, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

The Goal is LOVE (Happy New Year)

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When I began this blog, I didn’t really have any big goals.  I was still grieving the profound loss of my mom, which does and doesn’t get easier, and coping with raising two rambunctious boys.  I started writesforallmommies on a whim and it became a great coping mechanism for me.  It allowed me to connect with others in a way that my very introverted personality sometimes doesn’t allow.

Through the years, I have had posts that click with a reader, friend or relative.  That is the best feeling in the world.  To know that something I wrote resonated and hopefully made them feel less alone.  Let’s be honest, raising children (or life in general) can be very isolating.  We feel judged as much as we judge.  We question ourselves as much as we question others.  We put on a brave front that we know what we are doing, when in fact, we know very little about how our actions will impact the future.  It is frightening and exhilarating and mystifying and lovely all at once.

I recently received an email from a mom thanking me for my support during her daughter’s recent diagnosis of ectopia lentis. This is the same, genetic eye disorder both of my boys have. It is so rare, that it is difficult to find adequate resources on-line or anywhere at all for that matter. This mom is one of three that has contacted me through writesforallmommies.com concerning this matter.

To be able to help these moms cope with the overwhelming feelings that came with this bizarre sounding disorder has been one of the greatest rewards of writing this blog.  I share this with you because if you are going through a particularly rough patch right now, know that it is preparing you to be of service to someone else.  My boys were undiagnosed for a long, long time and not knowing anyone who had gone through the same experience was gut-wrenching.  I know I didn’t completely prevent the feelings of despair for these women, but I eased the way and gave them hope.  My boys are living proof that vision does not define them.  They are awesome, adaptive and remarkable.  No matter what happens with their vision down the road, they will remain awesome, adaptive and remarkable.

You are all those and more, dear reader.

Happy New Year!

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children, family, gratitude, humor, kids, motherhood, parenting

Eye Am Lucky

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Sometimes as parents we blaze the trail without even realizing it.  I now am in a position to offer my hard-earned kernels of wisdom to Moms facing tantrums or the newborn stage.  I always offer my advice only if asked with the caveat that never, ever ask me about potty training.   That is unless you want your kids to be miserable and really old before being toliet-trained, then I’m your girl.

When I started this blog, I didn’t know that I would reach the tiny percentage of other Moms facing the challenges of raising children diagnosed with ectopia lentis.  My family has come so far since the early days of uncertainty surrounding my boys vision, that sometimes I lose track of the fact that we are ectopia lentis survivors and thrivers.  For those of you who are new to this blog, ectopia lentis is a rare, genetic condition which both my boys have, that compromises the lens of the eye and can severely impair vision.  The road to great vision has been long for my boys and with patience and the help of an outstanding ophthalmologist, we came through the other side of this disorder relatively unscathed.  By virtue of my boys leading ‘normal’ lives, we are helping other Moms know that ectopia lentis is only a small part of who their child is.

I would not change a minute of our experience if it in any way would alter who my kids are.  All those tears I shed, all the nights of worry about their future and each and every eye surgery has been absolutely worth it.   If ectopia lentis means I get to have these two guys as my kids, then honestly, I am the luckiest Mom around.

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children, eyesight, gratitude, happiness, health, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting, self-discovery

Limitless Sky

WFAM

Life hands you challenges sometimes. When you are faced with these, it is often difficult to understand why.

I have two young boys that were born with a rare genetic eye disorder called ectopia lentis.

I don’t know exactly why this happened.

All I do know is that it has put us on a path in life that is beyond anything we expected. We have been connected to amazing people we never would have met otherwise. We have had to test our mettle over and over each time victorious in the knowledge that as a family, we can overcome any obstacle.

So, I may not know exactly why vision challenges came into our lives. At least now I’ve had time and growth to realize some of the amazing lessons that have gone along with it.

If we can do this, we can do anything.

Think about any challenge you have lived through or are living with right now. If you can do that, you can do anything, too.

The sky’s the limit.

This is a pic of the boys being introduced by the director at the Vision is Priceless annual fundraiser. We are very thankful to this organization for all they do. Check out their link in my blog roll.