Lock down no more!!!

Here we go again….back to school. Chaz started his second year of preschool Monday. He has the same teacher as last year but his friends have gone on to kindergarten or moved away and it is pretty much a whole new class. PJ took a little video the first day for me to see. He is smiling as he lines up on the wall. What a difference a year makes. It took him months last year to be able to go in without crying or getting upset. I wasn’t even allowed to drop him off because he would just cry more. Now he’s an old pro! (Fingers crossed this continues!) When I went to register him last year the first thing the one of the teachers said to me was “you know they get sick, right? There are a lot of germs and their first year is always a bad one. We can’t keep them from getting it.” She knew about Cole and I am sure she was just trying to make sure I knew what we were getting into by enrolling him. I knew…it still made my stomach turn. I still struggle with this issue today. Knowing when to protect them and when to just let them live their lives. I knew we couldn’t completely stop living life because of C.F. My gut kept nudging me forward though and telling me this was what we were supposed to do…so we sent him to school. He was sick a lot last year. Luckily, Cole didn’t get everything he brought home and stayed healthy. But, that may be because I pulled Chaz out of school for an entire month.
When H1N1 started showing up in the Quad Cities there were still no vaccines available. I no longer took the boys to the grocery store or mall or restaurants…places where there was a good chance of exposure. Once it got to PJ and Chaz’s school I decided it was too much of a risk. Since PJ had to go to work it was very likely he was going to be exposed. Once the first child in Chaz’s class tested positive, I pulled Chaz out of school. When I thought it was really going to spread around the school, the boys and I moved in with my grandparents so that we would not be exposed to what PJ was bringing home. My grandparents very rarely leave the house so they were safe. It was hard…we were pretty much locked in 24 hours a day for about a week. My gut was just telling me that I needed to do this and it was worth it. By the end of that week the vaccine was available for children with compromised immune systems. I hurried and got an appointment for the boys. Because of Cole's CF the clinic suggested we all get the shot (dead virus) and not the mist (live virus) which made things a little trickier. They would only give Chaz the shot if he had some health issue and I knew I couldn’t send him back to school without the vaccination. So, on the spot that day when the county health department worker said “sorry, I can’t give him the shot unless he has a compromised immune system or asthma” I heard myself say “Yes, he has asthma!” LIE LIE LIE. He does not have asthma. At that point I couldn’t bring myself to say “no, I just lied” so I deceived my way into getting Chaz vaccinated too. Not something I am very proud of needless to say. Also, not the worst thing I’ve ever done.
Needless to say, I was so freaked out over the whole H1N1 thing that I went a bit crazy. The boys had to get 2 shots to be immunized so I kept Chaz out of school until after the second shot had time to get into his system. PJ and Chaz’s school never really had an “outbreak” like I thought it would. There were a dozen or two kids that got it…nothing big and no one got extremely sick or died. I still don’t regret my choice. It was just what I needed to do at the time.
About a week ago I heard on the news that in China and Europe they are seeing a mutated version of the virus that is not responding to their drugs. I started freaking out thinking “here we go again”. It was on my mind and making me a bit crazy for a couple days. The good news is I feel better about where we are this time around. I know that we are heading into another school year full of exposure to germs and who knows what the flu season will bring but I feel more relaxed. I think partly because Cole has been so healthy, partly because he’s older, partly because I have had some more time to learn how I am going to deal with his disease. There has to be a point that I let go of the façade of having control and just give it to God. It doesn’t mean I won’t continue to do what’s within my power to keep them healthy…just that there is a point where I have to let go. I have to allow my family to live and enjoy life. I know that I will struggle with this the rest of our lives and it will change as they grow and the situation changes. I just strive to allow faith ~ not fear ~ to dictate our lives.