If you are old like me, you remember that song (just click on the link above if you want a trip down memory lane).
Today I wished that the healthy one, S, had a Mic-Key button. This is an enteral feeding device that is basically a piece of tubing that you put into the stomach so that you can put food/medicine directly into the stomach.
F gets all her medicine through hers.
Yesterday S had minor surgery to repair her thumb – the top came off, nail and all, in an accident at school. She has lost the nail and hopefully it will grow back. In about 6 months. I wrote about it here
Her bravery carried her through the poking and prodding of the doctors, the gas to sedate, the local anaesthetic. It lasted until she came home and we tried to take her coat off.
All the fear, terror, and pain came together to overwhelm her.
THEN we tried to give her antibiotics. She is in very deal danger of developing an infection in the blood but of course she doesn’t understand that. She’s little.
And it tastes yucky. She’s scared of it. Transference perhaps? But actually who cares. I need to get the medicine in her.
And in her own words:
Can I have a Mickey like F has?
That would make both of our lives so much easier right now. How do you guys get your kids to take their medicine?
You’d think we’d be masters at this: we do give F medicine every hour that she is a awake (and through the night too). But we have never had to make her drink it. She has a Mickey button so we always use that.
Now the healthy one needs to have medicine and she’s fighting. And it’s tough.
So today I wished she had a Mickey too.
p.s. chocolate is not a great motivator for this little sugar addict – I mean seriously chocolate, how could you let me down like this? Lollipop, you’re up next.
Parents of a child with a chronic illness go through a really fast track of learning to cope with medical emergencies.
They know the drill: we have done this so often, and honestly, we expect it. We know what the likely outcome will be, and are generally badasses at coping with the stress.
Until the “healthy” kid gets sick.
So today, I’m in a bit of a state. My stomach is in knots and I really don’t know what to do with myself.
S, the one withoutBartters syndrome, had an accident today at school and needs surgery on her thumb. It’s serious. And I don’t know how to cope.
And those chocolate cookies have done nothing to help.
I want to be at the hospital. This may seem normal to you, but with F, I’m ok with just J, her dad, being there. Because we have always taken turns, tag teaming hospital duty like olympic athletes.
But with little S, I want to be there. But I can’t. F has spent so much time in hospital and treatment that she actually has PTSD from it and a Phobia of medical treatment. So she is too scared to go.
So I am at home. Letting out my trembles and fears in this post. Cooking a dinner that will most likely churn in my stomach for hours.
“Oh, they’re a picky eater? Well, you’ve just got to be strict with them”
“Don’t spoil them”
“Let them go hungry. They will soon give in”
“When they see other kids eat, they’ll eat”
Some of the wonderful and pointless advice I have received over the years. And if you have a child who has difficulty with eating, then you’ll understand me when I say that there are two camps on the topic of kids and eating.
Camp 1
My kid had no problems and I think that’s because I’m a good parent. Do what I did and you won’t have a problem.
Or
My kid eats but I want them to eat more healthily. They ate the carrots yesterday but today they threw them on the floor. Oh my god, my kid has an eating problem!
We talk about this a lot and give advice to others whenever we can.
Camp 2
It’s nuts. Eating is something that all animals do naturally, without event thinking about it. But my kid has real issues with food and the process of eating. So how the heck do you teach an activity that is instinctive? Yeah, that’s what we are trying to figure out.
We get advice all the time but rarely get listened too.
And ok, there is a third camp. A camp of people who feed their kids, their kids eat, mostly, and they don’t worry about it too much. But they also tend to just get on with it and don’t give meaningless advice to others.
I’ve been in Camp 2 for the last 8 years. It’s been a long road. It’s tested my patience. I’ve questioned my parenting hundreds of times. I’ve let the whole thing go (my daughter had a feeding tube so what the heck) and I’ve worked at it like a demon. I wrote my side of the story on how to actually help your kids to eat in this post 8 ways to get your kids to eat
And in 3 words? Give It Time.
But today’s post is a celebration. A milestone has been achieved in our household.
F, my daughter with the incurable kidney disorder, the one who drank Maggi flavour enhancer, neat(!), for about 4 years, the one who didn’t eat more than crumb size bites until she was 5, the one who projectile vomited at the touch of a banana, the one who had to learn how to move food to the back of her throat so she could swallow it, well she ate a baked potato. With tuna mayonnaise. And a little bit of salt and butter.
A complete meal.
Not bits and bobs. Not a collection of random food stuffs. Not just a single item like tuna or a plain tortilla wrap dipped in ketchup (yes, that really was an acceptable meal for her for a long time).
A complete meal.
AND
She took a complete, normal sized bite. You know, the amount of food you can get on a teaspoon and that any other kid of 8 would eat. You know, where the food actually fills your mouth completely.
AND
She didn’t vomit or gag.
She just ate it. Said it was delicious. Then took another bite. And another bite. And another. Until it was finished.
I cried. I held my tears inside because, well, she would just think her mum was a freak. Can you imagine taking a bite of a baked potato and seeing your mum cry because of it? She’d call a doctor.
But inside I cried with joy.
She ate! a complete! meal!
I want to add exclamation marks everywhere because all the words are so exciting and so important!!!!!!!!!!!!
And you know what else? She loves spicy tuna maki. And eats the whole thing. Not just picking a few grains of rice out and drowning them in soy sauce (because really, that’s how she used to eat them). SHE EATS THE WHOLE THING
I know there are so many other battles still to face. So many other things she needs to learn how to do to look after herself, and I’m not even talking about her medical routine. But she can eat. She can finally do that one thing that so many of us take for granted. She can eat.
Woohoo!
For all of you who are facing this challenge, a child with difficulty eating, I just want to say:
Hang in there. You’re patience is just perfect. You’re impatience is natural and sometimes will give you the push your child needs to be challenged. And take time to celebrate the milestones. Because there are many along the way. The first bite. The first time the food stayed in. The first time they say “can I try that?” Enjoy them all.
Who would have thought that baked potato with tuna mayonnaise would make me cry with joy?
But, you just can’t dump that on people. It’s just not ok to bring them down into this. This is not their life. So I play it down. I tell a white lie.
So what happened at the appointment? We didn’t get the Mickey button changed. Despite all the therapy and preparation, F’s anxiety was just too high.
So we’re going to see if we can do this with laughing gas, to put her under.
The thought of it makes something inside me itch. I don’t want to do things to her when she is “asleep”. That’s also how she feels. She told me she would be cross if we secretly did it, while she was under.
Putting aside my feelings, I was really clear to hear:
it’s not going to be done secretly. We either change the mickey when you are awake or when you are asleep from the gas. If you don’t want to be asleep, then you need to let us do it when you are awake.
But I struggle. I have always wanted her to be able to choose; that her treatment should always be administered with her consent. And not just that she says yes, but I dream that she says yes happily. But she’s frightened out of her mind. She wants to travel forward in time so that she can avoid the procedure entirely. She’s thinking of time traveland this is what she wants to do with it.
So creative.
So scared.
And I need to accept that she isn’t always going to willingly agree. Sometimes, we’re just going to have to do it anyway. We have to make the best choice for her. And she might resent me for it.
Here’s another white lie I tell:
I’m just doing what any parent would do
I tell myself this often. And while this gives credit to all the wonderful parents out there, it’s actually a way for me to minimise what I am actually doing. Parenting a chronically sick child is hard. So hard. It’s not the same as parenting. The stakes are always high. Every day. So actually I’m not just doing what any parent would do. I’m doing what other parents with chronically sick kids do. Parents with chronically sick kids, be proud. You are amazing. And yes, I am including myself.
Here’s a final white lie
that unconditional love comes from our children
That’s what we say right? That our kids will love us unconditionally. But I think that the unconditional love needs to come from us, the parents. It is our job to love them no matter what.
We parents need to love our children enough to do the right things for them, no matter how hard, even if we risk losing them. And when they resent us, stop speaking to us, dislike us, we love them anyway.
Lamb to the slaughter. No matter how much I reason with myself, this is the feeling that I have.
F is the lamb and getting her mickey button changed is the big sharp knife.
its been 4 months since the last change. That awful day when 2 adults, me included, pinned her down while a 3rd pulled out the old mickey and put in a new one.
4 months since she stopped talking to me for 2 days.
We’ve done a lot to help her since then. We needed to. Her fear and anxiety are so high that I can spook her just by walking into her room.
So she’s been learning self hypnosis: designing her own happy place that she can go to when needed. When she needs to be calm enough to have her mickey changed
And she’s loved working with her therapist loves doing the exercises. Even when we forget, she remembers and insists on doing them. What a star.
so she is prepared. We’ve done everything we can.
But on the way in to the hospital she says quietly
“I wish I was someone else”
So I know. For both us this journey is like going to the slaughter house.
I can hear the shouting from here.
its a good job I don’t eat cookies anymore; I’d be the size of a house.
Ever heard that phrase “oh, that’ll be more than my jobs worth”? Well, if you are British you might have. It’s a joke about the types of unhelpful people you can run into in heavily bureaucratic environments.
Oh, I could help you but it’d be more than my jobs worth to do that
That’s the feeling I get when I call the pharmacy to order more medicines for F. Not with everyone at the pharmacy, just the one lady.
You see we have a running repeat prescription that covers the whole year. At the beginning of every year, F’s Nephrologist makes out the prescriptions for all her medicines and sends them to the pharmacy. Every month, we tell them what we need and they deduct it from the year total. Simple, I thought.
Yet this one lady gives us hassle.
Every time we call.
She:
“Do you have a repeat prescription for this?”
Me:
“Yes. We have a prescription to cover the year….. etc….” then in my head “It’s in your SYSTEM!!!”
Every time we go in to collect.
She:
“Do you have a repeat prescription for this?”
Me:
“Yes. We have a prescription to cover the year….. etc….”
Then she grudgingly hands it over.
Now I know she has protocols to follow. I know how strict the rules and regulations in the pharmaceutical industry are (I worked in exports to the Middle East and boy, the hoops you need to go through to get that job done!) But no one else at the pharmacy does this. They all know we have a year prescription.
But our daughter has been getting medicine from their for almost 8 years. And still she interrogates us. We have never not had a prescription.
I don’t think it is personal. Although, when you are standing in front of her steely, suspicious gaze in front of an entire pharmacy full of people, and she starts her interrogation, it sure feels personal.
So what kinds of drugs are we talking about here? With a really high street value? You’d think so, but no.
Sodium chloride (salty water, but special salty water)
Potassium chloride (different kind of salty water)
potassium citrate (I don’t know, but it helps her kidneys from turning to stone)
Nexium (to help with acid reflux.)
Indomethacin liquid (used in treating eye infections for normal people but it’s the main magic drug for Bartters peeps)
Vitamin D
So dear lady at the pharmacy, I do’t know why you give me such hassle. I don’t know what you think I am doing with this stuff. I couldn’t administer the lethal injection with the potassium chloride we get (I checked. Say what? Yes I know, it’s freaky. I was curious and wanted to know if we had dangerous quantities in the house and I had some time on my hands).
Dear lady at the pharmacy, please stop. Most days I can shrug it off but we have enough crap to deal with and traumas that we don’t need you to hassle us over something so meaningless.
device that is basically a piece of tubing that you put into the stomach so that you can put food/medicine directly into the stomach.
amber rahim 