*Originally published 5/30/14*
My baby is not such a baby! When you become a parent for the first time, you hope that your baby is healthy and that they get a good mix of both the mother and father. With all of my kids, thank god, they got their mother's good looks and brains. The only thing I could hope to give them is maybe confidence and a little toughness . Well, Cassidy got a little something else from me, she is a really funny kid. People have always told us how she is a "Little Vinny." Well, I could only hope to be as funny and tough as she is.
Funny people love to laugh, and love people who can make them laugh. Cassidy makes me laugh sometimes when a parent shouldn't, but I can't help it. She is also the toughest Colbert in our house. When she was about 2 or 3 years old, we had to take her to Georgetown Hospital to get her throat looked. Because her voice was so raspy, the doctor wanted to do a test where they put a tube with a camera up her nose and down her throat to get a good look of what is going on down there.
The doctor told us that 99% of the time, the patient had to get put to sleep for this procedure, but if she could do it awake right there in the office it would be better. So we let him try. He stuffed that light right through her nose and down her throat, and could not believe she could handle it. Throughout her short life, she also had her teeth knocked out by her big brother (she looked like a jack-o-lantern), and has had countless other injuries. Never once, though, did she whine or cry , she just dealt with it like few people can. She just beat it back. She does what I tell my football players when they get hurt: "don't rub it." She just toughs it out.
Well, over the last 2+ years, she has been dealing with another challenge - her Lyme Disease. It is a mother, the frustration of not knowing for a year what was wrong, then transitioning to the sadness of watching a perfectly happy, funny, energetic teen not be able to wake up, move freely, and have to stop playing the sports she loved. The pain is the worst, next to the treatments. Watching your kid take more pills in one day than a normal teen takes in a year, the process she has to go through just to get ready for bed, taking hot salt baths, heating up a stiff neck, putting medicated patches on before bed are all struggles we deal with on a daily basis.
But, like she's done with any other problem in the past, Cassidy doesn't just confront the problem, she beats it. She has turned it into a "mind-over-matter" type of deal; she decided to beat Lyme, and she is beating it, all while helping her fellow Lymies. Lyme does not have a chance if Cass is in the game.
All of our children have made us proud and continue to do so. One of the traits that Lisa and I love about our kids is that they are always willing to help others. But it is really something special to see one of your kids who is suffering with a chronic illness, yet still thinks of others before herself. With this blog she started, all of her Lyme friends are going to beat it together.
She is starting to bounce back a little from her Lyme, but it is a long process. But she will continue to stare it down, every time. Cassidy would not be able to fight Lyme without the best mother in the world. When Lisa said "yes" to me 28 years ago, I hit the motherload. her committment to Cassidy's health is something to see. The amount of phone calls she makes, the constant doctor appointments, helping her with her meds and getting her school straight is like another full-time job. But she does this while being a mother to all of our kids, and she is the best wife I could ask for.
So now I see where Cassidy got her toughness--Lisa is a bad ass also.
I love you Cass, no doubt you'll beat this thing like always.
Stay cute
Daddy
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