Ready For Back To School? I Hope So.

I can’t help but feel mixed emotions with the start of the new school year inching ever closer. I am excited to watch Emily get ready for her first day of middle school, yet saddened at the same time that my baby is old enough to be in middle school. I am excited to see her rejoin her friends, some of which she has been unable to see during the summer break, yet worried at the same time of what that rejoining will bring.

We had a wonderful summer break with sleepovers and a vacation to Kentucky Lake. I’m not ready for it to end. She has stayed relatively well all summer. No major illnesses to deal with other than the occasional asthma attack and one sinus infection. We even got a definitive diagnosis from her immunologist and started a treatment plan. I’m not ready to send her back to the jungle of germs, but I must.

So with school supply list in hand, off for a day of shopping we go. One by one the items are checked off the list. Now we switch to another list, mom’s back to school list: medications refilled, hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes on hand. She is ready for fifth grade, but mom isn’t ready.

The last couple of weeks of summer break will be filled with meetings with the teachers and school administrators. We now have documentation from a doctor explaining her disease and a mound of educational supplies provided by IDF (Immune Deficiency Foundation) to supply each of the teachers that will have her in their class. I just hope that they actually read it. Armed with my tote bag filled with information, I will meet with her teachers, her principle, her guidance counselor and the school nurse. The nurse and I have come to know each other quite well over the last couple of years. We will develop a 504 Health Care Plan and have everything in place to start the new school year. I have even prepared and stocked her school bus with hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, it helps that I am the bus driver. I have done all I can do to prepare Emily and the school, but I’m not prepared. I’m not ready.

Last year, within the first week of school, Emily came down with strep. By the end of September, she had already missed eight days of school. Some of which due to the fact she ended up having to have surgery to have her tonsils removed. Will this year be a repeat of last? I hope not. She is taking the prophylactic antibiotic to help ward off infections. Will it work? I hope so. Will the school actually do everything they said they would do to help keep her healthy? I hope so. Will the year go by with little illness and fewer days missed? I hope so. Have we thought of everything possible that we can think of? I hope so.

Only time will tell if we have prepared properly. All I can do is hope so.

Dona Darr