I can't do it alone....

There, I said it.  I've been saying it a lot lately actually.  I have always said it but maybe not out loud as much.   Maybe it is because in the beginning of the spiral of events, I was seen as not coping.  Maybe I wasn't....but I do believe I was coping as best as I could have for the time (but certainly could not have stayed in that frame of mind for long).  My not coping was then viewed as my son's illness not being as serious as it was.   The self doubt, stress and anxiety that brings certainly doesn't encourage coping skills.  

I have since adapted multiple coping skills.  Accepting help is one of them.  Accepting help from outside but inside too.  Little Man was breastfed, formula's had made him very sick.  He depended on me to provide him nourishment and comfort.   I was the one providing his nourishment- whether I was with him or not.  I was the one providing him comfort in the middle of the night when his pain and attacks would disturb his sleep. So much disturbed sleep, the world was becoming a haze of auto-pilot wife/mother/worker. I can't do it alone....

I admitted I needed help, I asked Little Man's daddy to help get up with him.  I had pumped milk in bottles, he could have.  It didn't take many nights for him to ask "what is wrong with him?"....my asking for help helped me to see that it wasn't all in my tired head.  His daddy could tell too that something just wasn't right.  That began to help both of us see his daytime symptoms more clearly.   The more things we tried, the worse he got.   Then, I asked for help again.  Yet again, help I should have asked for sooner...from our pediatrician.   It didn't take long for her too, to say "what is wrong with him?"...and, most importantly (and why I respect her so much)..."I don't know what is wrong but we need help and I will be here through it with you until we figure it out".   Asking for help, again, helped me to see that it is so rare of an occurrences that an experienced pediatrician did not fully know it, then why should I think I could understand it.  I can't do it alone. 

Many of the next steps that followed again crippled me from asking for help.  The next steps of us asking for help brought on more of the self-doubt, stress and anxiety when other doctors and specialists did not know what was wrong with him either and dismissed it as not very serious.   These were some very long months in our family, and we became more and more inclusive as we felt more and more isolated.   Little man's daddy and I leaned on each other.   A trip across the country, food trials and reactions, hospitalizations, trying to raise 3 other boys to be strong, smart, considerate, faith-filled young men.   I can't do it alone....

I've spoke about how the fellow FPIES moms/families have helped me through this, helped support me, helped me find new roads to explore, new foods to try, new doctors to see, new research.  Asking for help in this community has helped to connect many pieces as we share and compare similiarities and differences along the spectrum of this illness.  I've also spoke about friends and family who have helped.  But the one person I haven't talked enough about is the one I can't do this without.  Little Man's daddy. 

Little man's daddy wrote this post about us, about our family: Resolved Hero's.  For a very private man, this was no small feat, a view from the daddy side of this illness, it was a gift- more than money could buy or a dozen roses could convey.   

Often people will ask me, you have 4 kids- and this Little Man requires so much attention...how do you do it all?  I don't do it alone....