Relentless Demands, Relentless Advocacy

Raising a child with a rare and complex disease is a full-time job… or more. Constant advocacy. Almost every interaction regarding the child requires additional effort to bring people or the system up to speed. And this gets piled on top of the normal activity and chaos of life…work, school, the other kid, loss of a family member.There is help available, but that is just one more task to manage. Applying, interviewing visiting nurses or personal care aids, scheduling, handling unexpected absences, and managing performance. While the extra help is welcomed, it comes at a cost. On top of this, add frequent admissions to the hospital. Each hospitalization completely disrupts the family, interferes with work, and creates new challenges. Time management. Fatigue. Relationship tensions. This burden gets multiplied when dealing with multiple medical systems. These systems do not communicate well with each other. Big Academic Medical Centers may have more capabilities, but often they are too far away to be feasible for emergency care.Brittany opens up and talks about these challenges and how she and her family manage them. More importantly, she talks about the personal toll this all takes.