posting my way through anxiety without mind numbing drugs - bite me, MCADD

Argghh, just a simple little cold/flu, the ubiquitous second week of the school year bug in all its minor chord glory, is here to rattle my cage in my new single mom state. I have decided that Hannah ate enough, is large enough, that the fact that she threw up does not mean we need to race off to the Children's Hospital in the middle of the night, getting a blood draw, IV and having her catheterized to check all relevant levels of stuff that matters in the world of metabolic disorders.

This is one of those places where my late husband was in some ways helpful, in that he didn't get so wound up with worry and count approximate food vs. vomit ratios, and yet, I always knew that if we separated I couldn't count on him to get Hannah to the hospital should she actually need to go, and I could lose her to his lack of worry.  And still I hated having to worry so hard about her since I had to worry for the both of us.  The three times I have taken her in to the hospital with vomiting and illness were all times where her test results showed she was just beginning to experience a metabolic process that could indeed be serious and ultimately fatal should she not get her glucose into a normal range.  I know at those times I did exactly right to take her in, and get a glucose IV that would load her up and keep her going until her appetite returned as the virus ran its course. But what about the times we  just rode it out and treated her like a normal child who has a brief illness? Am I risking her life when I don't take her in?  I know from the patient education we have received that she doesn't always need intervention and the best person to gauge that is her caregiver but I don't really trust myself to get it right, even though history has proven I do. And so anxiety kicks my butt, every single time her little regular virus with a high fever comes calling.  Every. Single. Time.

Last night I kept her in my too large bed, felt the heat waves coming off her body, and gave her sips of flat Sprite, apple juice, and water in between hurling into my stock pot that I kept at the foot of my bed. But it always seemed that every sign showed she was not in distress beyond expected levels for vomiting and fever, and if I could get her to keep high calorie fluids down by morning we could make it through.  And we did.  I imagine she will not go to school tomorrow either, and hope we both get more sleep tonight, and today I have one more example to tell my PTSD addled, anxiety riddled mind that I actually am up to the job of mothering this child. And that may sound more credible tomorrow.