By Tina Puma
These past few days have been a range of emotions. The everyday struggle that we have to watch Tessa go through, is beyond heartbreaking. To watch her go from what she was to what she is now, it’s so upsetting. She is a warrior and refuses to give up, but to watch her struggle at things she had mastered before she got sick bothers me so much. I absolutely hate watching her try her best and fail at things she was amazing at before. She pushes herself to her absolute max and when I say that, if you could see the way her thigh looks at night after a day of dance or activities, its bruised and blistered, red, and sore so you would know that’s true, but she gets up the next day ready to tackle what is thrown her way. Her attitude and determination about all this is super amazing and I really don’t know where she gets it from. We have been pretty good at hiding all her scars on her body, not because she asked us too, but its just something we did to have one less thing for kids to question her about, but this week she was faced with a situation where all her scars were seen in front of a group of kids, as far as I could tell everyone was good about it, and no one said anything to her but I can’t help but notice how many people stared at her. I asked her several times if she was ok, or if she wanted to cover up and we will figure something else out and she said: “mom I’m fine, if they think I am ugly then they are ugly on the inside”… Just A few weeks ago she had asked if we can put sleeves on her Trio dance costume because she didn’t want her scars to show, but then this week she said she doesn’t care anymore if people see her the way she is because its who she is now, so there is no point in hiding it because we cant change it. For a 7 yr old to have to even worry about this stuff breaks me down, but her mature attitude about it, makes me realize things are harder for me to accept that they are for her. I love this little girl more than words can describe. I am proud to be her mom, days for us are far from easy, but we get through them because of her positivity and that helps more than she’ll ever know.
