One night I was cooking tacos for dinner. I was browning the beef and preparing to add the seasoning for the 10-minute simmer. I went to get the taco season package and the soft taco wraps out the pantry, when I realized I didn’t buy the soft taco wraps! There is nothing worse than realizing in the middle of cooking you don’t have what you need. I was about to turn the stove off when I remembered I have a licensed teenaged driver in the house who can run to the supermarket for me.
At the time Marques was driving my minivan to basketball practice, so why couldn’t he run to the supermarket? My biggest worry at that moment was, ‘can he find the soft taco wraps?’ Marques has never shopped at the supermarket on his own. However, I told him all he had to do is walk straight passed the bakery toward the meat department and they have their own display…easy! Marques left confident he could take care of this for me and I went back to finish the rest of dinner.
About five minutes after Marques left, worry set in. All I could think about was him getting into a car accident on the three miles to the supermarket. Maybe he would get into an accident in the crazy parking lot. My mind started thinking of all the worst-case scenarios. My worries were way past, ‘can he find the soft taco wraps?’
‘Stop!’ I yelled at my imagination. I was conjuring up so many negative thoughts, I was worried that I would think a car accident into existence! 
Instead, I took a breath and told myself to think of him as a father and having kids of his own. Thinking of him happily in the future gave comfort to my current worry. I was praying that my imagination of him in the future would change any negative fate. When I heard the garage door open and he handed me the supermarket bag of soft taco shells, I breathed a huge sigh of relief! (He even used his own money to buy them.)
I think every parent worries about their new teenaged driver getting into a car accident. As a hemo mom though, our thoughts go a little deeper. We think about a bleeding injury, we think about people at the scene of the accident knowing our child has hemophilia, we think when was the last time he had factor, how fast could I get factor to him?
When it was finally time for me to purchase a car for Marques, I Googled “safe vehicles for teens” to see if I could find any car I could afford. When researching the best car to buy, I read the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety review of the vehicles crash worthiness ratings. One of the most important things for me to review was the video of the driver restraints and dummy kinematics. If the test dummy didn’t test well with protection of the head and risk of injuries to the body was high…it was an automatic, NO! There was one car he really liked, I loved the sales price, and we were ready to buy it…until I reviewed the IIHS report that showed the head and neck injury as “poor.”
We put so much energy, work and time into protecting our children when they are young. We squeezed their little fat legs into knee pads when they were learning to crawl, facilitated countless one-on-ones at school to educate teachers about hemophilia, pulled them out of bouncy houses at birthday parties when we felt it was getting too crowded, and I even had Marques wear a helmet his first year of school to protect him from a possible head injury playing at recesses. There is no way I went through all of that, to put him a car with a “poor” safety rating!
He is currently driving a vehicle that has high safety ratings, met my budget, and luckily enough HIS STYLE! (Winning) I’m not going to pretend I don’t want to get him a “hemophiliac on board” window sticker and factor him up before he drives to work or school. But I know I can’t! I can make sure he has a medical alert information in his car and he keeps an ID on him that says he has hemophilia. When I watch him drive off, I still picture him as a father with his own kids to keep my nerves from getting the best of me. I pray he does not get into a car accident, but I am prepared if he does.
Lovee lives in South Carolina with her husband, Charles, and her children, MaRee’, Marques, Laithan and Layla.
*Note: “Infusing Love: A Mom’s View,” is a blog collection of personal opinions and a representation of individuals experiences. While extensive efforts are made to ensure accuracy of the content, the blog entries do not represent HFA or its Board of Directors. The blog is also not intended to be construed as medical advice or the official opinion/position of HFA, its staff, or its Board of Directors. Readers are strongly encouraged to discuss their own medical treatment with their healthcare providers.
