Why I'm Trading In My Comfy Slippers for a Diagnosis and High Heels

For the last two years, I’ve been at peace with not knowing the reason behind my daughter’s hypotonia.

Without a diagnosis, I’d found the comfort of a Saturday afternoon with nowhere to be — a day perfectly designed for lounging on the couch with a good book, a mug of coffee, slippers and sweatpants.

Yes, I’d found a slippers-and-sweatpants kind of comfort.

But I knew that eventually the doorbell would ring or the coffee would get cold, and I would be forced to leave my comfort behind –maybe momentarily and possibly for good — because life, real life, isn’t always about being comfortable.

Last week, my real life began again — in a small exam room.

The neurologist, sitting across from me, casually mentioned a possible diagnosis, but the look on her face was anything but casual, and I was suddenly anything but comfortable.

As she mentioned her game plan — MRIs and an orthopedic referral —  I slipped out of my comfortable place and closed my good book. “Connective tissue,” she said. “Hypermobility,” she uttered. My coffee went cold.

I realized this potential diagnosis meant I’d have to leave the familiarity of my “no diagnosis couch” that I’ve been enjoying for the last two years.

I felt insecure and worried and unsure.

I longed for my sweatpants and slippers but felt as if I was being forced into heels.

I know I can’t stay in my slippers forever, because as much as a diagnosis doesn’t change the important things — like my love for my daughter — it does play an important role in helping us meet her needs.

I have no choice but to move forward off the couch and away from the book and the coffee and the comfort and thrust myself into a new world — a world with a diagnosis.

And while this world with a diagnosis is different and — at times — uncomfortable, I’m ready to give up my sweatpants and my slippers for a little while and try on something new — because I know that while comfort is beautiful, it can also be limiting. And besides, my legs do look pretty darn good in heels.

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