My toddler is currently hospitalized, and I can’t even be there with her because I have the flu 😔

Fuck winter sicknesses, seriously. I hate this.

She has a severe crohnic illness (IBD) that was only diagnosed a couple of months ago, so it’s not the typical toddler sicknesses that landed her in the hospital. She was already hospitalized for the entire month of December, when she went into hypovolemic shock with acute respiratory failure, and was in the PICU on a ventilator for a week. We were hopeful that things would get better after that, when she was diagnosed and started proper treatment, but less than 3 weeks later and here we are… back again. They have her on a super strong anti organ rejection drug so if she were to catch the flu from me, it would be deadly. I hate being separated from her. And I really feel like we deserve a break from all of this awfulness. Everyone keeps being like “you’re so strong, I could never” well yeah we didn’t really get a choice. And no, we’re not strong, it feels like the world is collapsing down on top of us. I feel so broken. I hate holding her down for all of the painful pokes and procedures. She screams “mommy make them stop, mommy I don’t want them to hurt me” and all I can do is tell her that I’m sorry and I hate this too. I’m so sorry, baby. I hate that this is our life. I hate that virtually all of her autonomy and consent that I have worked so hard her entire life to instill in her was taken away in an instant. I hate that she has lost trust in me because she doesn’t understand, and in her mind, I am just the person letting other people hurt her. I want to be there with her right now. I want to carry her and run out of the hospital and never come back.