Homeschooling with a Sick Child

Many of my readers are aware of the health issues Grace has had recently. Never knowing from one day to the next if she will be having an episode of nausea and vomiting is really putting a damper on homeschooling. How do you plan for the next day of school when you don't know how your child will wake up feeling? Is the episode only going to last through the morning or all day? Can we wait till after lunch to start school which then throws out all the intentions of running errands in the afternoon? What about exercise? If she wakes up feeling bad will it pass so we can still go to the gym (just bought a membership) in the afternoon or evening? And what exactly is actually going on with her? How to plan for big events or outings?

These are questions I try to answer every day. Truly we live day to day at this point. If it is a good day we get lots of school work accomplished and errands or exercise. If it is a bad day only a little or none gets done. Very frustrating. Until we get this thing figured out this is our life. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful for homeschooling. If I was having to go through this and send her off to school each day it would be quite impossible. Homeschooling allows us the freedom to fit in school when we can, schedule doctor's appointments and testing for whenever we want, and just plain relax without needing to adhere to other people's schedules.

Last week was a really good week, of course school was out for Christmas and we didn't do any work. This week every other day she has woken up sick. It is 1:30 and we are just about to get started on some school work. We are not only dealing with actually feeling bad and unable to sit at the table to do work but once she does feel good to sit at the table there is a constant review and catch up process going on. Every time a big project gets started or paper to be written you lose the flow of your thought processes and basically have to start the process over.

Currently we are in a waiting pattern. All her blood work has come back normal, the ultrasound for her gall bladder is normal as well. Now we have an appointment scheduled with a pediatric GI doctor on the 17th of this month. We could be dealing with anything. Food allergies, GERD, gall bladder issues, cyclic vomiting syndrome, anxiety induced and so on. Really we have no idea at this point what is going on with her. I ask you all to keep her in your prayers and hope that we find a solution soon.