I was keeping up with everything. The laundry was washed, blog posts were getting written, and the house was clean. Looking at my blog, you might think I vanished into thin air. Those who followed me regularly were left scratching their heads, “what happened in June 2017?” I never forgot about the blog, or all of my readers. In fact, I missed you dearly. It’s time to share what brought me to a place I couldn’t post for a year.

Our son was doing well. All of his medical appointments were three to six month follow ups and keeping up with the house just wasn’t a challenge any longer. We found a daycare about ten minutes away willing to take a child with a feeding tube for four hours three times a week. They reassured us they were comfortable running his tube feeds, they had done it before for other children, and that they were able to give him the attention he needed. We had a plan and it was as solid as such a plan could be. With that, I took a part time job close to home. The arrangement was I would be in the office while my son was in daycare and work from home for the rest. I couldn’t have asked for a more flexible work arrangement.

As often happens with children who haven’t been exposed to illness outside of their home, our son got sick. Each time he recovered we took him back to day care. I’ve never seen a kid catch so many colds. Some of the colds made him sniffle, others made him cough, and all of them gave him a fever. I started working from home a lot. It wasn’t ideal and it was significantly more stressful. I told myself to hang in there. This is normal, I thought, and once he worked his way through being exposed to so many other children he would settle in and enjoy day care.

Just like in early 2014 when this journey began, things did not work out as planned. Frankly, do they ever when kids with medical needs are involved? After six weeks of continuous illness, we took our son to the pediatrician for a variety of tests to make sure he hadn’t contracted something worse than five or six different rounds of the common cold. He hadn’t, and the pediatrician wasn’t certain why he didn’t feel well. A few months later we would receive a full explanation. I’ll spare you the waiting. This bout of illness kicked off an autoimmune reaction to our son’s blood platelets called Ideopathic Thrombocytic Purpora, or ITP for short. You know how people tell you that all those illnesses your children catch when they start school or daycare are just strengthening their immune system and won’t hurt them? The vast majority of the time this is absolutely true! This time we didn’t fall into the vast majority.

I held on for a few months through weekly hematology visits and lab draws. Other things came up also which I’ll cover in future posts. I resigned my job and went back to being a stay at home Mom. I’m glad I made the attempt. I hope to give it another go in the future if the opportunity presents itself. In the meantime, I’m making every effort to keep my feet under me this time around.

Click here to continue on with part two.