I have had a very taxing year thus far. Things have not gone according to plan; and I am being tested. I wish the light at the end of the tunnel was the not the train but alas it seems I was mistaken… time and again.
When my daughter was 6 months old we had the first incidence of lung illness when she was taken up in hospital with bronchiolitis, since it was caused by RSV which is a virus which is well-known for causing bronchiolitis in infants we were concerned but thought we just drew a short straw on this one. After the first weekend in hospital, we returned home to a week of physiotherapy and running around to find a new more suitable day mother with fewer children. We got lucky and found someone who looked after my daughter alone for a couple of months and then looked after a younger boy, until my daughter was nearly two.
Although my daughter was in this enclosed environment she still suffered from recurring ear infections throughout her first year and we even made a turn at an ENT specialist to have her checked out for grommets. A decision was made to not go this route as her eardrum was not showing any scaring at this point, and a wait and see attitude was taken up.
In my daughter’s second year she never suffered any more ear infections but continued to contract bronchiolitis twice and bronchi-pneumonia once, we made our what I then saw as annual trip to the hospital – the rest of the years was semi-peaceful. I did however have a mayor run in with the day mother’s mother in March and relationships were strained for the rest of the year and I was also all the more sure that it was time for my daughter to move on and go to a more formal daycare centre, where a proper learning plan is in place.
By the middle of October things became unbearable at the day mother, which prompted me to take my daughter out and keep her home for December; this worked fine but I then found out that the schools only open late January which meant that I was going to have my daughter home longer than I thought.
My daughter started at play school and loved it, we had a week of separation anxiety but after that passed we were all ready to go. At the end of February after having what I thought a bit of a runny nose for a couple of weeks, my daughter ended up in hospital with pneumonia, after getting better she went back to school for a couple of days and then ended up with bronchitis, after a week at home she went back to school and then ended up with ear infection once back at school for a couple of days she ended back at the doctor with ear infection – as she was now building up resistance to the oral anti-biotic she had to get IV meds which means she had to have a drip installed, and I had to do daily trips with her to the hospital as outpatient for a week. She was again taken out of school. The last day of the IV the drip was out of the vein and the meds were lodged between her skin and her tissue and her hand and arm looked like the Michelin man’s, she had to get the last of the anti-biotic injected.
Through all this my daughter was a strong bright eyed girl that just trusted her mother with what ever and where ever I took her. I was getting worried winter is around the corner and my daughter was more at home already than at school. Things were bound to get worse once the season change and all the other kids were even more sick.
Another week and this time an unknown virus is diagnosed, trust me mothers with babies and toddlers know all about these, they stay around for two days, causing fever but nothing much else. This week the doctor also decided to see if she maybe has asthma, and tested her for allergies. An x-ray confirmed mild asthma and my daughter was put on meds to deal with this. Blood was taken and by Friday, the result were in – my daughter has no allergies, but she also has no anti-bodies in her mucosa system. This means that her first line of defence in her body, has no immunity, this also means that she contracts the same illness over and over again without becoming immune to them. She has what is termed Selective Immunoglobin A deficiency. It is genetic which means that it is not something she will out grow, but would need to get medication for every cold or flu she gets, as the chances are that she will get much worse without it.
The following week she had upper respiratory track infection, and with the sixth dose of anti-biotic in seven weeks the doctor suggested that we take her out of school for the winter at least and try again in October and November.
So we found an au pair, and I hoped for a return to some normalcy. I was tired as hell, as even if my daughter is ill she is not a quiet child and still climb and play up a storm. The other problem is the emotional strain this puts on a parent, seeing your child ill and not knowing what the cause is, or what you can do to prevent it is hell.
We went to a homoeopath to see if there are other ways to keep her from falling ill, as conventional medication does not offer much in terms of prevention. In the interim she is on more vitamins than the average pregnant lady, I am hoping that this will help. Just to top that off she is also teething which adds insult to injury, and she is waking in the middle of the night insisting on having breakfast. This is always funny the morning after but trust me at 2 in the morning it is a bitch!!!
So we have progressed with months of medication a stool test, more blood tests, all confirmed the situation, and also added that she also has Immunoglobin G4 deficiency, to add insult to injury. She also suffers from severe candida. I did not know which is worse that you have people looking at what goes on in stools or that you pay them more than thousand bucks to do this.
Well the long and the short of it is that she is back in hospital today, she is on anti-biotic, nebuliser and physiotherapy. She has had blood tests, x-rays and suction to extract the mucus from her lungs for tests. I am hoping that the winter goes by fast so we can breathe again and have some semblance of a normalcy.
“I know the lord won’t give me more trouble than I have strength to bear but I did hope he did not have such a great opinion of me.”
September 2024 – Looking back at July 2009, I am still traumatised by these procedures and the amount of trauma our children endure being ill in hospital. I think of all the stress that has been internalised and although she was a busy bee there must still be some remnants of these experiences.
COVID proved no one is immune and any one can be overcome, we got lucky that we were able to isolate so well that none of us contracted it.
Here we have survived another winter and look forward to the summer which can’t come fast enough.
