Knowing the truth

There are defining moments in your life, these moments draw a line that separates your life to before this moment and after this moment. The before and after look completely different, like marriage, pregnancy, moving to another country, that kind of stuff that can turn your life around.

Well, when Talas pediatrician, our beloved Dr Nasser Gamal, first told me that he suspects something is wrong with Tala and that she has facial features that look abnormal, I was going to storm out of his clinic and never go back.. I felt like "who are you to tell me my daughter is abnormal, she's perfect" but deep down i felt it, i felt something is wrong, my heart felt it but my mind totally refused it.

Anyway we ran the test and we got back the results. You know when someone has a near death experience and they say that they saw their whole life run infront of them like a movie! That's exactly what happened to me, I saw my future run infront of me and it wasn't pretty. for, i don't know how long, i read the lines saying that she has an abnormality and seeing my life full of misery and sadness and loss. Millions of thoughts crowded in my head like an electric shock until i broke down and cried.

I remember this night very well, I cried all night, me and Ali didn't speak a word to each other. we just lied in bed staring at the ceiling and I remember very well that at a point my mind went blank, numb, no thoughts at all, just space. i wanted to get up and pray but I was angry with God for doing this to me, so I didn't. I could swear that this night was the worst night of my life.

With a challenged kid, it's like waves, there are days where you will feel like you got it together and everything is figured out and you're a hero and other days where you hit rock bottom and all the fear creeps up on you and fear doesn't come alone, it brings along its friends "anger and guilt"

More on that later, 

Thank you for reading:)))

As you can see from the title I'm a mother of a challenged kid, her name is tala, hence the name of my blog thetalaeffect.blogspot.com. Anyways i'd like to start off this blog by introducing myself.

My name is Rola, I'm a chemistry teacher in The  British section in Manor House School.

I'm married to Ali Ayache and we have one child, Tala, the love of my life. we live in Egypt and my husband is Lebanese, his family lives in Lebanon.

I created this blog to share my experience with a challenged kid here in Egypt, the aim of this blog is to reach out not only to mothers of challenged kids but the whole society in general. We lack education and knowledge of this area in particular in the middle east.

This makes it really hard for families with challenged kids and the people around them to cope with the situation. it's not only the family but the people around them should also educate themselves about challenged kids and understand the emotional roller coaster that parents go through to be able to deal with them day in, day out.

As a mother, since the day i was pregnant with Tala and i started planning how our life will be, I imagined which school she'd go to, how would she look like, when is a good age to start piano lessons and what kind of sport is she going to excel in.. Never ever have I imagined that one day a doctor will tell me your daughter has a genetic problem and we have no idea if she's going to walk or talk or how she will develop.. Never ever have I imagined that my biggest dream is just to see her raise her head and get up..

Having a challenged kid blows away all your future dreams, you live day by day, watching, observing, recording and hoping that tomorrow will be better..

but is there an upside to having a challenged kid? of course there is, and that's what I learnt from Tala and would love to share it with you:)) I want to encourage people to talk about their children, take them out to the world, don't feel ashamed of them, don't hide them, don't drown them in all the therapies all day long and deprive them of their childhood. 

Everyday i find it hard to talk to someone about how i feel, because if you don't have a challenged kid, you will NEVER know what I'm talking about so i started writing my feelings down, and as the years go by, i read everything I wrote and realised how much Tala changed me, how I developed with her, how SHE helped me just as much as I helped her.

Stay tuned for more of my experience with Tala, I hope you find it useful.