We Interrupt Daily Life for This Important Message

• Don't touch your face.
• Stay at least 6 feet away from everyone around you.
• Do not shake hands or hug or touch anyone else.
• If you feel sick, stay home.
• If you believe you've been infected, call the Covid-19 hotline at 800-HOLYSHT.

The past two weeks have been unprecedented in my lifetime. I've never seen such a fearful response to a virus, to the point that we are indeed in a pandemic, complete with panic-buying and supply hoarding.

It started in Wuhan, China, moved to London, then to Washington State. Now it's in 39 of our 50 states.

It's the flu.

It's a respiratory sickness, one that is worse than usual, and people who are immuno-compromised or have respiratory issues in general are at high risk, as are the very old and the very young.

Markets have crashed. Whole industries (cruises, travel, airlines) have been practically shut down. Grocery stores have been emptied.

Local retailers at kiosks closed their businesses at Southdale Mall. National retailers still open but mostly empty. 

Our local Walgreens, all paper products and hand sanitizer are out of stock.

Local grocery store. No onions? I think we can live without onions...

And as of today, Marissa's school is closed for the next THREE weeks. Three — two for quarantine time and one for their regularly scheduled spring break which they can't possibly cancel in case some families still plan to make the trips they had planned previously. Which is not advised, but you can't stop people from going.

No word yet from Lindsey's online high school, which, I suspect, will be business as usual since it's 100% remote anyway. Wayne's company is asking everyone to work remotely starting tomorrow as well.  And I, well, I work for myself part-time out of the house anyway, so there's no change there.

Which means...we're gonna have a full house. Except Wayne volunteered to be the only person physically in the Minneapolis office, to bring in the mail and what-not. He will be there by himself, because, as he told his boss, they would have to "pry my cold, dead hands off my office to get me to work from home." That's how much he was looking forward to attempting to be efficient and work while at home with his family.

I've never seen a societal response of this kind to a flu warning. Don't get me wrong, I'm not downplaying the illness, but the human response to it appears over-the-top. As public health officials say, if we do our jobs in hindsight it will look like over-reaction. If we don't, well then, buckle up, we're all in for a ride.

I mean...why are people just NOW buying hand soap? Don't we all normally have hand soap in our homes? Do people not normally wash their hands often? To make sure a family doesn't run out of hand soap for a three-week period you may need three, four bottles of hand soap tops. So...why are people buying cases of it? Don't get me on the toilet paper hoarding. That seems like such an American response.

One family meant to purchase 48 rolls of toilet paper through Amazon but accidentally ordered 48 cases, so now they've got enough toilet paper for a small village. Or for their family for the next 3 years, however they choose to use it.

I went grocery shopping this past Monday and got everything I needed for the week. I bought toilet paper at the grocery store (which I usually don't do) because Costco was out the last time I was there; I hadn't thought anything of it at the time. By Friday, grocery stores were emptied, their shelves silent witnesses to the scramble of the early morning crowd who had emptied them of their contents, snatching toilet paper and disinfectant wipes from each other's hands in a frenzy.

Here's the most frustrating part for me. We have two beautiful, wonderful, amazing daughters whom I love dearly who both also have mental health issues. Lindsey has thrived in her Normandale College classes. She's back in a traditional classroom, interacting with "real" people and loving the social engagement. She is always more excited to work on those classes homework than her online high school courses because she has to be prepared for the next class discussion. Now, one of her college classes is moving online for the rest of the semester, and there's a strong possibility that her other college class will as well. Her spring break was last week, but classes are suspended this coming week as well due to the coronavirus.

Most college students would be thrilled — YES! No more slogging to class, sitting in classrooms, having to work on group projects and talk to other people. Lindsey, on the other hand, is incredibly disappointed. This was her only social interaction outside of family, her only necessary trip out of the house three times a week. She enjoyed talking with the other students, she loved the debates and discussions. And now they are canceled.

And then there's Marissa, my social butterfly. The thought of not seeing her myriad of friends in person for three weeks is devastating to her. What will she do when she can't joke with her friends between classes, chat at lunch and give hugs? She loves to hug her friends. She is an incredibly genuine, kind-hearted girl who is always thinking of others. She is going to wither under three weeks of distance relationships.

I, in the meantime, continue to work away at my various projects, do housekeeping duties and guide my girls in their daily lives. I can understand why Wayne wouldn't want to be at home when everyone else is home. When he's working, he is 100% focused on work. I rarely call him at the office, he is there to be efficient and get things done so he can get home. He will probably have an amazing two weeks at work with no one else there! Such an introvert.

We'll see how all of this develops. In the meantime, stay healthy, stay away from others, and cough into your elbow, not into your hand.

Writing a "To Done" List

I have started using an app called "Noom" to start tracking my nutrition and exercise, in an attempt to get healthy and lose some weight. "Noom" is all about the psychology of why we eat what we eat, what triggers us to make unhealthy decisions and help us counter those. The goal is to help people make better choices moving forward so users can maintain a healthy weight the rest of our lives.

This week the coaches at Noom had us do an exercise and create a "to-done" list, and I thought it was too good to not share with others.

We all have a "to-do" list, right? Be it a for work, home, family or just you, we've all got a running list of things we need to do. Mine often consists of stuff like: get groceries, make a dinner menu for the week, run kids around to appointments, make various phone calls for house projects, et cetera. That doesn't include client projects or other things that make their way onto that list.

The coach at Noom asked us to make a "to-done" list. List all of the things that you've accomplished this past week or month or whatever, those things that were most important to you. Your "to-done" list could look something like this:

1. Had a successful project launch at work.
2. Finally made it to the dentist which I've been putting off.
3. Spent time with friends at a happy hour.

Review that list, and now ask yourself, "What of these things is important and will be remembered?" 

This became really poignant when one of my group members posted her list, which consisted of many enjoyable activities like gardening, spending time with her grandkids, finally seeing a friend she hadn't seen in decades. She had this to say about her list:

"I've been retired for 13 years, and I've told myself that there is so much I want to do in retirement. I thought I would have less stress, but I still have stress and have more health issues than ever. Making this list have made me focus on the most important things in my life...my health and how much time I have left to enjoy it. Today is a new day with opportunities and I am going to make the best of it."

Wow. All that discovery from a weight-loss app? Yes.

Before reading her post I had made a list of my own. As expected, it consisted of many things that had been on my "to-do" list that were now done: Grocery shopping. Cleaning. Running kids around to appointments.

I made a second list after I read hers, and it read a little differently:

And then I had this epiphany: Those things that are on my "to-done" list need to start by being on my "to-do" list. I need to make room in my life for those things that bring fulfillment and happiness to me and to those around me. My kids probably won't know or care about how much grocery shopping I did, but Marissa will definitely remember going paddleboarding on a beautiful summer day with her mom, and Lindsey will have memories of learning how to drive with me in the passenger seat. (Hopefully not traumatic memories.)

Now I ask you: What things do you need to put on your "to-do" list so they make your "to-done" list?

Is Online School Right for Your Child?

Lindsey's "classroom," efficiently located across from the frig.

I've had so many people reach out to me when they discover that our eldest attends an online high school. They are interested in this option for their child for a variety of reasons, could it work for them?

The answer?

It depends.

Lindsey's initial reason for attending an online school was to reduce her anxiety, which was like a burr under her saddle, getting rubbed every day that she attended a bricks-and-mortar school. All of her energy was going towards just existing at school; anything the teachers taught went in one ear and out the other. When she came home at night she was so exhausted from the emotional drain of it that she couldn't concentrate to complete her homework.

We considered other options and eventually landed on online school. Sure, it didn't do anything to reduce her anxiety, but at least she could still learn in an environment that was healthy for her.

What's that environment look like, you ask?

Well...honestly, it's a teenager's dream.

She sleeps in as late as she wants (within reason, I usually start coming around to bug her at 10). She has to attend each class once per week (once, not daily). She attends classes via a "live lesson," which is a webinar with an active chat session for students to participate in class. She doesn't have to deal with kids kicking her chair, distractions from other students' bad behavior, forgetting homework or other stressers. There is no high school drama. No one is talking behind anyone else's back, no one cares what she wears every day, there's no pressure to "fit in" because all her classmates are virtual.

She turns her work in on her own schedule. The school has recommended due dates for the work so that students don't procrastinate and leave everything until the end, but there are no penalties for turning work in "late;" it's all about whether or not you understood the lesson and not the timeliness of when you understood it or how long it took you to complete.

She takes breaks in the middle of the day as needed. This could entail laying on the couch with our dog, going for a walk, or running an errand with me. Sometimes she works through a ton of lessons in two days in order to give herself the third day off for a special outing.

Basically, she's works for herself with no "boss" to ask her when she's coming in to the office, how many hours she's worked and when the projects she's working on will be done. They'll get done when they're done, on her own schedule, for the boss' evaluation and grading.

It's a freaking dream. Except.

Except.

She has to be incredibly organized. Self-motivated. Avoid procrastination. Figure things out for herself. Be independent, but know when to ask for help (and where and how).



This photo is of her lesson plan she created for herself before our spring break. Her spring break and Marissa's did not coincide this year, but, since Lindsey's education is online, we agreed that if she could do her week's work in advance then she can work through her own spring break and go on vacation when her school was back in session.

She had to have the motivation to work on these lessons every day, even though she did not have the support of teachers to call or lessons to attend to understand the material. And she did it, she got it done.

This happens every day, not just the times she wants to take different time off away from school.

Math is not a strong subject for her, nor is it for me. The other evening she worked on a single geometry problem for an hour. A full hour. She was determined to solve it. When she had exhausted her text book, recordings of live lessons, Khan academy and (last resort) me, she turned to her friends via text. Being the amazing, helpful and smart kids that they are, they helped her so that not only did she solve the problem but she understood the concept. I was in bed at 11:30 and heard her getting ready for bed, making more noise than usual. I thought she was frustrated, turns out she was elated. She was so excited that she finally figured out the problem and was grateful for her friends' help.

Would you child do that? Would your child work on a single frustrating problem without screaming, without throwing a book, without giving up, for an hour until s/he solved it?

Would you child create schedules for him/herself, follow them, and, if s/he got off-track, find ways to make up the work in a shortened timeline?

Would s/he check in on grades on a weekly basis, call or email teachers as needed and negotiate workload with them?

If not, then you may need to find other options for your child.

The other piece of this puzzle that makes online school a good option for Lindsey is that I'm around and available all day long. When she first started she was working at home, by herself, all alone, all day long. She was unmotivated, somewhat depressed and isolated. We realized early on that there was no way a 14-year-old could be left to her own devices all day long with no human interaction and somehow succeed at school. A large piece of why online school works for her is because I'm here and available, both educationally and emotionally. If she's super frustrated, I recommend taking a walk. If she is taking too long of a "break," I gently encourage her to get back to work. I'll get her out of the house, encourage outings with friends, take her to field trips where she can meet her virtual classmates in person, and help her with the non-educational part of her school day.

When she first began online school she was extremely isolated, but now that she's more confident in the classroom she is branching out, keeping in touch with her friends from middle school, making new friends in her online school, holding down a job and doing many other activities that help reduce her anxiety. She's in National Honor Society and as such has to do 50 hours of volunteer work every school year, which is also motivating to get involved in the community.

Online school did not address her anxiety but it did reduce it. That's not the same thing. We reduced her anxiety by taking away something that made her anxious. As anyone familiar with this condition knows, when you do that you actually increase the person's anxiety about that thing.

Now Lindsey is focused on her singular goal of going away to college. She wants the traditional college experience, even though she knows and we assure her that there are other options available to her. That's not what she wants, she wants to prove to herself that she can manage life in whole. We are slowly working on getting her back into classrooms, a driver's ed class this summer and in-person classes through the PSEO program at her high school. She will remain in her online school throughout high school; she's getting a great education and I see no reason to change it as long as she keeps progressing on her mental health in other areas.

Online school has been a blessing to her and to our family. We already know that it is not an option for Marissa, who will be attending a traditional charter school next year, though she is envious of Lindsey's flexible schedule. Marissa does not want the responsibility of having to manage her own schoolwork, she would rather learn directly from teachers and have classmates in person for her to rely on for help and commiseration.

For anyone who is interested in talking about online education, I am always happy to chat! Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone interested in it who would hesitate at picking up the phone or texting me. Thanks for reading!

A Child's Funeral

Last week I attended a funeral for a child.  I hope to never have to do that again.

This child was 13, a classmate of my youngest, and had taken her own life. As if that wasn't devastating enough, no one — no one, not teachers, family, friends — had any idea that she was suicidal. Friends knew she had been depressed recently, but no one had any idea that she was having thoughts of ending her life. She grew up in a large family with many aunties and cousins, a loving mom and grandparents. She was a talented artist, musician and beautiful in so many ways.

It's difficult to guide your children through grief when you yourself need to process as well. There were some things said at the funeral that really touched me, and I wanted to get them down.

One of the minister had the following message (I'm paraphrasing):

After someone takes their own life, the survivors are left with the question "Why?" Many came to the funeral feeling grief, or anger, or confusion, or any combination of these things. Why? The truth is, we may never know why. 

I took comfort in this, in part because I had been through every one of those emotions in processing the idea of a 13-year-old taking her own life. And...I took comfort in letting go of the "why's." They weren't mine to discover or know, I could let go of them.

During the beautiful euology that one of the aunts shared, she talked about Aria's suicide.

Look around this church, see all the people who loved and cherished her. If only she could see this. But she was 13. She didn't understand the finality of her actions. She didn't have the life experiences to know that pain is temporary. Pain ends; it molds you, it can shape you and make you stronger, and it always goes away. She didn't realize that, and she only saw one way out of her pain.

I've been mulling this one over since I heard it. I never thought of pain as temporary, but it is. It will ease with time, with help from others, with treatment. I have great sympathy for people who live with chronic pain, though I suspect even that pain goes away at times, in the same way that it flares.

The last minister said a message that was difficult to hear, which is that suicide is a sin, in that God's commandment of "thou shall not kill" also means you shall not kill yourself. But he said it is a forgivable sin, as this girl was a child of God, baptized in the church and a follower of Jesus. I still find this hard to digest, because I do not believe you need to believe in Jesus to see God, but that's a thread for another day to follow.

He also said, "Aria was not perfect." This was jarring to hear after hearing so many people recount her many wonderful traits. "But I can say the same for everyone in this room, myself included. No one is perfect. We are created in God's image, but we are human and have our flaws. That is why forgiveness exists, to forgive ourselves for our imperfection."

The music was beautiful, the many messages were heartfelt and incredible. During the time of remembrance they played a video that her good friend had made of various classmates giving their final wishes to Aria. The minute it started people around me began to tear up, just to hear these young voices saying good-bye. Marissa was included in the video and had quite a long clip. I could hear her quietly sobbing form where she stood with her friends while it played.

The final recessional song was "Stand by Me," but the twist was that it was a video of Aria playing her ukulele and singing the song. She had such a beautiful voice. Then the video stopped and the song was taken over by the pianist. What a touching way to end the service.

My Mental Health Education: A Tutorial

Since my eldest was diagnosed with severe general anxiety disorder nearly 5 years ago, my family has learned so much about resources available to help those with mental health issues. The good news is that there is more available today than there were then. The bad news is that there still aren't enough resources for everyone who needs help, leading to long wait lists for specialized services, hampered further by insurance companies' unwillingness to pay. Try telling your suicidal teenager to hold off on acting on those feelings until a bed opens up.

Unlike services for physical ailments, the kinds of options available for mental health care are not widely known to people until they need them.

Develop a weird rash? See a dermatologist. Have a strange skipping heartbeat once in a while? See a cardiologist. Develop life-stopping anxiety? See a...psychiatrist? Psychologist? Therapist? All of the above? Do I need cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)? Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)? Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)? Most people have an idea of the kind of specialist to go to for physical ailments; even if they didn't, they could go to a general practitioner who would steer them in the right direction. But for mental health care? Better start educating yourself.

I have recently helped steer a friend through a mental health crisis for her daughter. She is grateful because if she didn't have a friend to lean on, she wouldn't have known where to turn, and the hospital where her daughter is right now is not about educating her, just getting her daughter healthy enough to leave the hospital.

So I thought I'd share some of the education that I've learned for those who may need it. My disclaimers:

1. These are the terms as I've defined them through our family's experience. They're probably not the "right" ones, but they work for my understanding as a parent and advocate trying to get resources for my children.

2. I'm not intentionally ignoring other mental health conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar, manic disorders and others. I just have no experience with them, so I only speak to those resources that treat depression and anxiety/OCD.

Inpatient care is almost 100% reserved for those whose condition has deteriorated to the point that ending their lives is a viable option to them. Both of my kids' primary diagnosis is anxiety, but at that point in their lives their anxiety was so uncontrolled that it caused suicidal thoughts. Just because your kid does not have depression does not mean you won't encounter these programs in the course of his/her treatment. I have learned that depression and suicidal thoughts can be and often are completely unrelated.

First, the basics of who's who:

Psychiatrist/Psychologist/Therapist: The psychiatrist is the only one who can prescribe medications, the other two can't. We honestly have never used psychologists in our daughters' care, only therapists and psychiatrists.

If your child is in an inpatient program, the psychiatrist is the head of the care team. All decisions regarding your child's care will be run by and approved by him/her. Connect with this person daily if possible for updates and discussions on treatment.

For outpatient care, the therapist tends to head up the care for your child and the psychiatrist is one of the members of the care team.

Kinds of treatment programs:

Inpatient: This is when the child is in the hospital 24/7. There are different kinds of inpatient care, though. We've had experience with two.

Acute or Lock Down Units: This is for children and adolescents who are actively suicidal, meaning they have the thoughts, plans and intent to end their lives. These units have extremely limited visitation hours, limited contact with outsiders, restrictions on clothing and other items that can be used for self-harm. If your child is not actively suicidal, this is not the right fit for him/her. For both of our children, if they have been on a lock-down unit it would have made their anxiety so much worse.

Sub-Acute or Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU): This is a step down from a lock-down unit, still has some restrictions on clothing allowed (no draw strings, no shoe strings allowed) but much fewer restrictions in other areas.

Both of these provide the reassurance of 24-hour care to ensure that patients are safe. Parents of kids who have ever been suicidal know the fear of falling asleep at night and hoping that their children don't do anything to themselves while they're sleeping. Ready for bedtime? Not tonight, thank you, I'll sleep after my kid's gotten help.

These programs also provide group therapy, one-on-one therapy, family therapy and psychiatric care on a daily basis.

Outpatient: Outpatient means that they do not stay overnight in a facility. Both of my kids started with outpatient, went to inpatient briefly, then back to outpatient. Some kids start at inpatient because their mental health reaches a crisis point. Either way, they will go back to outpatient care. These are the kinds of outpatient programs we've learned about.

PHP (Partial Hospitalization Program):  This is an outpatient treatment program that lasts 5-8 hours of a person's day, making attending work or school difficult. Most people take a leave of absence while in a PHP. PHPs can sometimes be in a hospital, but many now are in clinics that are fully outpatient based and look nothing like a hospital. PHPs have daily one-on-one therapy, group therapy, time for patients to do whatever "assignments" they need to do for their mental health, and psychiatric care, as well as family therapy as the family is able.

"PHP" is the biggest misnomer of the entire mental health care system. This term has been around for 50 years or more, it needs a new name.

IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program): This is a program that lasts between 2-4 hours per day. It has many of the elements of a PHP but in shorter spurts. Not every element occurs every day; group therapy may occur once or twice a week instead of daily. It's another step back to normalcy, when mental health treatment no longer takes up a significant portion of each day.

Therapy: The last and usually longest step in returning to full mental health. For my daughter who recently completed an IOP program, she went back to her therapist on a 3x/week basis for a short time, then stepped down to 2x/week, hopefully back to 1x/week at some point. There are so many kinds of therapy, I'm just going to point you to a WebMD article that I think does a great job of summarizing all of the different kinds of therapy available. Click away.

Depending on your child's condition, your child may need to go from an inpatient program to a PHP program to an IOP program. And...the inpatient hospital may not always make the best recommendation. We wish we had known what a PHP program and IOP were back when our eldest was in the hospital. (Although there were very few if any IOP programs in the area at the time.) PHP programs existed then; the hospital she was in had one the floor above her! But they never recommended it for her, they said she would be good going back to once-weekly therapy. I believe she would've had a quicker road to recovery had she received intensive help right after hospitalization.

We also learned that lapses in care are extremely detrimental. We've had gaps in therapy for our oldest, once when her therapist left the practice and it took us a few months to find a new one, another time when the second therapist we connected her with was not a good "fit" and we didn't make her go until we found yet another. Like strength training, if you don't do it, you lose what you build. She regressed in both time periods and because anxiety is an invisible illness, we had no idea how badly her mental state had gotten until another crisis occurred. Now we are paranoid about making sure there are no gaps. If her therapist ever has to cancel we find another day within the week to replace the session, and for the holidays we schedule around days off far in advance, especially because her anxiety is highest around the holidays (like it is for many).

For some, maintenance care means therapy on a consistent basis for years. THIS IS TOTALLY OKAY AND DOES NOT MEAN A PERSON IS CRAZY. I see my chiropractor every two weeks if I want to avoid getting migraines. Why would I ever judge someone for seeing a therapist consistently for decades? Do it if it keeps you healthy.

And there you have it, everything I know about mental health resources in a nutshell. Of course, I wouldn't know ANY of this if I hadn't been open with others about what my kids were going through. Once I started telling friends and neighbors about what was happening, I learned that they had gone through similar challenges and I got educated from them. Many people had struggled with advocating for their child's mental health and no one ever knew to help! My point is...we can't solve the problem when we don't talk about the problem. I hope this guide helps even once person navigate the system.

Life's Not Perfect

Graphic from Malavika Suresh blog post 

I was thinking on the tagline I wrote for this blog some 12 years ago. Yes, 12! "Life's not perfect, but it sure is fun."

Not perfect indeed. My goal has always been to write about the ups and downs of life, not just the niceties. There's been one subject I haven't shared so much, because I respect my now 14-year-old's privacy. But her diagnosis of severe anxiety disorder has turned our family upside down, in ways not written about here.

This fall, she began to attend Southwest High School, our local public high school, for her freshman year. The school is two blocks from our home. I always imagined my kids going there, our home becoming a stopping off point for friends after school, a safe place for teens to gather.

Instead, after four days there, her anxiety was at such an all-time high that she could no longer muster the strength to physically leave the house. If you have ever witnessed someone having an all-out panic attack, then you understand when I say she could not physically go. This is not a matter of obstinance, will, or being spoiled. Her brain was functioning in such a way that going to school would have been bad for her health, and unpleasant for everyone around her.

So she stayed home.

Within the week we had found an option of MPS Online, the online education arm of Minneapolis Public Schools. She began taking classes online, staying home all day to work on the lessons.

But her anxiety would rear its ugly head throughout the week, despite having removed the trigger of being in a school. She often did not get a full 5 days of classwork in, which meant that as the weeks went on, she fell further and further behind. This had the added benefit of increasing her anxiety.

There's so much more, but this isn't about Lindsey, this is about our family.

In October, after nearly a month of online high school, Wayne and I began discussing how to best help Lindsey, and he floated the idea of my staying at home.

I surprised myself by not jumping at the idea. I mean, my workplace was not perfect, none are, but I have worked my entire adult life, and I really liked my job. I was given full rein over how I chose to fundraise, I got to write, my teammates are experts in their areas, passionate and driven. Plus, it was incredibly flexible with the demands my family had made on my time. I mean, what more could a fundraiser need in a job?

I had begun working at home Mondays to help Lindsey get her week started, and we discovered that Mondays were always Lindsey's best day. She got up on time, she ate healthy throughout the day, took her supplements, had a productive school day and took decent breaks (meaning walking the dog instead of playing a game on her phone.)

This idea began to grow. My husband the conservative accountant began running the numbers. Is this possible? Miraculously, it was. It was possible.

I wanted to stay at my job through the end of the year. After all, at a nonprofit, that's when all the fun stuff happens! I could not let my team down by leaving them during our busiest time of year. I gave my notice the week after Thanksgiving and gave them a month to become accustomed to the idea that I would not be starting 2018 with them.

And in January my new life began.

I can best describe the change in a single incident.

My youngest child is always ready for school nearly an hour before she needs to leave, so she can have some time to relax. One morning she and I are in the kitchen. My hands are around a mug of coffee and I am listening to her tell me about something that happened at school.

I inexplicably began looking for something to do. Surely it wasn't right that I was just sitting there, listening? There must be some task I should be doing. Then I realized...no. The most important thing I could do at this moment is look her in her beautiful gray-green eyes, give her my full attention, and listen.

So I did. And I realized that it had been days — days! — since I had looked her in the eyes. What a sad statement on the busyness of life.

Yes, life is not perfect. But I am grateful that our family is in the position to make the changes we're making, to make it a little better for everyone in our family.

A Pause for a Health Update

Lindsey behind the lens of my Dad's camera, in Michigan.

So...how's Lindsey?

She's fine.

She went through quite a health spell this past winter/spring, missing 6 weeks of school, missing many more days after she returned, and having a not-great end to her 8th grade year.

What we discovered, through many tests and trials, discussions and theories, is that her anxiety was so high that it was affecting her physical health. It caused such severe stomach cramping and nausea that she lost 5 pounds in four weeks, the girl who doesn't have a pound to spare.

Yes, a mental illness causing a physical illness. A true, real, physical pain that has no expected, typical cause.

We already knew that Lindsey has anxiety, which we thought was under control. We learned a lot of things about nutrition, the digestive system and her anxiety triggers.

Smiling mouth, pained eyes.

We learned that eating small meals four to five times a day seems to work well for her. Sugar in excessive amounts really whacks out her system for a good 24 hours. (No desserts. No pure juices.)
While she does not have celiac disease, gluten really does a number on her system, so gluten is still off limits.

She is under the care of a team of physicians who are working together, between her nutrition and her mental health needs, to get her back on track. And now, at the end of August, I feel like she is finally back to herself.

In the meantime, her dad and I wonder...how much of what's going on is related to her anxiety and how much is related to her being 14? We have no idea, we've never parented a teen before. Poor firstborn, gets to be the first to trial-balloon every parenting technique we have.

We are grateful for all the parents who have shared their journeys with us, who have broken the code of silence to let us know what they've faced behind closed doors.

We are grateful for our friends, for Lindsey's friends, for our family who have supported us through this. And we are grateful to live in a city that has such incredible resources for health care. While it took us a while to navigate the system to figure out who to call or who to talk to, there was always someone there to help, in specialties we never knew existed.

At the end of the day, Lindsey will be stronger. More resilient. Amazing, at anything she chooses to do.

And we will be her loving parents.