The Crazy

I've always imagined and hoped that I would be able to protect my kids from unnecessary crap (read: abuse) at the hands of other people. I would be super-aware, communicate with my children and listen to them. If anyone did anything questionable, Mama Bear would lash out to protect her young, leaving the person responsible for hurting my child in a quivering heap of jelly.

But life is rarely that cut-and-dried. Sadly. Oh so sadly.

When Mazen was diagnosed with bronchiolitis, we got a prescription to go see a kine (physical therapist) for sessions to help loosen the mucous in his lungs. Tiny babies can't cough effectively, and often end up in the hospital with this illness. It can be quite serious. France is one of the only countries to use this therapy, since apparently the long-term implications end up being the same as NOT doing the therapy (this is according to research I've done since).

So we got the diagnosis on a Saturday, and the doctor told us to start sessions immediately. It was really hard to find a physical therapist who was open on Saturday-- we ended up going to the hospital where Mazen was treated for the UTI. The therapist there was a lovely woman, very kind and gentle. She did the chest compression stuff. It's unpleasant to watch-- they press on the throat of the baby to make him cough. Mazen cried a lot. But she spoke to him gently, soothingly. We saw her twice. Sunday, she told us that as of Monday we'd need to find someone else, since she was just the emergency therapist.

Monday morning I called around our village. The one woman who took care of small babies in our town was on vacation. I was recommended two therapists in Antony. I called them both (we'd already seen one with Geo back in February). The woman we knew was alone; her colleagues were on vacation and she couldn't take on any new patients. So we were left with the guy. Who I'll call Mr. B.

Mr. B. gave me an appointment for the afternoon. Maz and I took the bus, got there early. When Mr. B. escorted us into the room, he took Maz from my arms and told me to sit on the other side of the room. "Stay behind me, where he can't see you. They get angrier when their mothers are nearby," he told me.

He did the same things the woman in the hospital had done. Mazzy cried a lot. When it was over, Mr. B. handed him back to me, limp, exhausted, sweaty. He said, "Your son is a tricky guy. He doesn't want to do what I want him to do. And he's way over-reacting. He's not really scared or in pain, he just doesn't want to cooperate." I should have run away then. Actually, I should have run away when he told me to stay out of the line of sight of the baby. But I didn't. I was worried sick about Mazen, about what would happen if he had to be hospitalized again. C was out of town, barely reachable by phone, a ten-hour flight away. There were no other therapists to be found. So I went back three more times.

It only got worse. At subsequent sessions, the therapist lectured me about letting my baby cry (I got the old chestnut that it's good for their lungs), about not letting the baby manipulate me with his tears. If Mazen didn't want to look at Mr. B., he would hold his head and *make* him make eye contact, saying "I'm the boss here, not you". He told me he had to "force" things a bit to get Mazen to cough out the goop. At the end of the sessions Mazen would collapse in my arms and immediately fall asleep.

The last time I went was a Thursday. The fourth session with Mr. B., the sixth total. At the end of the session, Mr. B. put saline drops in Mazen's nose to clean it out. As you may or may not know, babies can only breathe through their noses at age 3 months. And this guy was squirting the saline up both nostrils at the same time. Mazen was panicking, flailing his arms and legs. I'm sure he thought he was drowning. Mr. B told me, with a straight face, that Mazen wasn't scared, he "just wanted to breathe". He JUST WANTED TO BREATHE. I can't imagine a worse or scarier sensation than "just wanting to breathe".

I took my poor little baby back from the lunatic. We went home. I felt shaken and weak, just like Mazen. That night, I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying scenes from our week with Mr. B. His scary desire to dominate the baby. The way he told me, with disdain, that babies Mazen's age were too used to getting their own ways. That I would see, down the road, Maz would be a troublemaker. I kept thinking about how Mazen "just wanted to breathe" and I felt like my heart would burst. Mr. B. told me Maz would need three or four more sessions. But unlike the woman at the hospital he wasn't listening to Mazen's lungs with a stethoscope or checking blood oxygenation levels. It seemed to me that Mazen was doing much better: he was sleeping soundly, eating well, his chest wasn't rattling when he breathed.

But put a mother's instinct against a medical professional's opinion, no matter how hastily-made or for what motives, and the mother will doubt herself. I didn't sleep, trying to figure out ways to find another therapist. Worrying about the baby's condition. I knew I couldn't take him back to Mr. B. I was actually afraid for Maz-- each session had been worse, the man's craziness clearer. What if he really hurt the baby? We had an appointment at 2pm Friday, that's how long I had to figure out what to do.

Luckily, Friday morning C was free to do an internet chat for the first time since he'd left. I was finally able to fill him in on the details and we agreed I would go to the appointment without Mazen, pay Mr. B. and call the mother of one of Geo's classmates, who is a physical therapist, to get her opinion and advice on what to do. When I reached her, she told me that it was really rare for babies to need six sessions (which is the number we had reached on Thursday-- two at the hospital and four with the crazy man), let alone more. And she confirmed that Mr. B.'s attitude was bizarre, to say the least.

So I went alone to the appointment. I was full of things I wanted to say, from "I hope you never have a dog, let alone a child" to "you will never lay a hand on my baby ever again, and I will tell everyone I know how awful you are". But in the end, all I said was, "We've decided not to continue with you". He knew perfectly well why, I could see it in his face. He didn't ask. I paid him and left, feeling a thousand times better. I got home and put a review of him on every internet site that I could.

I'm still angry at myself for being paralyzed with indecision, for over-analyzing, excusing and justifying his behavior. I feel like I failed Mazen, that I've been failing Mazen since his birth-- he's been so sick twice now. But worst of all, I didn't listen to mt instinct early enough, and my baby suffered needlessly. This is a painful post to write, but it's an important reminder for me to listen to that voice. A reminder that I will recognize The Crazy when I see it, but that I need to trust my ability to do that. A reminder that my children's health and well-being far outstrips my need to be polite. A reminder that my inner vision of myself doesn't always match the outer version as well as I would like. That there's always work to do.