The Milestones We Never Wanted

Having children is all about milestones. There are milestones for baby...
When Baby rolls over.
When Baby sits up.
When Baby eats solids.
When Baby crawls. 
When Baby stands. 
When Baby walks.

The Milestones continue into the preschool years...
When He can count.
When He can say his ABCs.
When He knows his sounds.
When He learns to read.
When He can write.

There are religious milestones, too, like when He says his prayers, or Receives His First Holy Communion.

There are big-boy milestones, too, like when he gets his drivers license or graduates high school.

Milestones are a huge part of growing up- they really are.

Today is three years since Vince had his first brain surgery.

A few weeks ago, this picture popped into my facebook newsfeed. Apparently it had been one year since Vince had surgery to have his port inserted. A milestone for sure.

He's eating crackers after he has awoken from his port surgery.

With Vince and his brain tumor battle, he has tons of milestones we never asked for. Who ever wants a port and who wants to have one for a whole year (and counting)? 

When Vince was an infant or when I was pregnant with him, my husband and I anticipated his milestones. We wondered when he would walk. We wondered when he would talk. We thought about his future. Would Vince follow in his father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's footsteps and be a Lincoln County farmer? Would he get married and make me a grandmother? Would he become a priest? Never, never, never did we think he would have brain tumor. Never, never, never, did we think he would have all of the milestones that go with it, like a port, chemo, experimental medicine, MRIs, speech, PT and OT to overcome his residual effects. I never even knew what a port was.

These are just a fraction of all of his beads. Each bead represents a different piece of his brain tumor battle, a milestone, for example, when he has his port accessed.

Vince's brain tumor battle has brought many more milestones with it, milestones we never asked for, milestones that were never even on our radar.