Life Notes
By Stacy Hawkins Adams
Theme: Parents With Chronic Illnesses Find Work/Life Balance that Works
Erica Stotler feels the questioning glances before she sees them when she drops her infant daughter off at daycare.
She knows other parents are wondering why she gets curbside service when they have to walk their children into the building.
For Stotler, 30, it’s one of the realities of living with rheumatoid arthritis.
Sometimes the Glen Allen, Va. mother is in too much pain to lift 10-month-old Lotus out of her car seat. Her role as a first time parent has included learning to ask for and accept help.
“I never know what I’m going to wake up to the next day,” said Stotler, a full-time sales and research coordinator for the Richmond Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“If I wake up completely swollen and stiff, I might need help getting dressed that day,” she said. “I just want to be able to go to soccer or ballet recitals and be there with her and not feel like I’m absent in her life.”
Angie Parrish, of Chesterfield County, Va. has learned to accept the tiredness that settles over her when she least desires it.
Her 7-and 9-year-old daughters know that Mommy has multiple sclerosis and has to take frequent breaks.
“The recurring main symptom is fatigue,” said Parrish, 37, who works full time as a compensation consultant for MeadWestvaco. “I call it a fatigue wall, when there’s no way you can do anything. You just need a 10-minute breather.”
Then there’s Midlothian resident Tracey Sloan, who manages a fast-paced career while checking her blood sugar level six to eight times a day.
Her sons, ages 6 and 8, regularly see her take insulin for her Type I diabetes, treat herself to snacks and exercise.
“The hardest thing was realizing that in order to be effective in managing a chronic illness, you have to put yourself first,” said Sloan, 42. She is the chief of staff of Capital One’s information technology department.
“I work out six times a week,” she said. “I try to eat every three or four hours to keep my metabolism going. That gives me energy to nurture my children.”
Sloan and Parrish both educate their children about their conditions.
“When I first got it, I would tell them,” Sloan said. “Now I’ve learned to show them. They know Mommy’s going to (work out) every morning. I give myself three cheat meals a week, but the rest of the time I eat healthy; I drink the water.”
“The important thing for kids is not to hide it from them,” Parrish said. “If you don’t inform them, they are going to make some wrong assumptions that are scarier than reality.”
Kathleen McCue, an Ohio-based certified child life specialist, agrees.
“What we’ve learned in working with children over the last few decades is that they handle challenges in their lives best when they are actively involved in what’s happening in the family,” said McCue, co-author of “How to Help Children Through a Parent’s Serious Illness.”
“A generation ago, the family had the attitude, don’t talk to the children about it,” she said. “Those are the adults in the therapists’ offices now, dealing with issues they never resolved.
“If you give a child the opportunity to acknowledge something challenging in the family and then give them the skills to manage it, they will learn some mechanisms for coping that they wouldn’t have had otherwise, and they will apply them in their adult lives.”
Once parents have accepted their chronic illness, they can possibly teach their children preventative measures and also model hopefulness, McCue said. Indirectly, they are also equipping their children with empathy.
Parrish’s daughters, for example, lie with her in bed sometimes when she’s too tired to move. Sloan’s younger son raised money for diabetes through a birthday party lemonade stand last September.
For each of the local moms, supportive families and employers, plus a positive attitude, keeps them going.
“Friends, faith and family are an absolutely reliable support system,” Sloan said. “If you have a chronic illness, get involved (with a support group) and you will discover you are not alone.”
© Stacy Hawkins Adams
Many health-related support groups provide child-friendly literature for parents to share with their children.
Book: How to Help Children Through a Parent’s Serious Illness by Kathleen McCue and Ron Bonn ( 14.95, St. Martin’s Griffin)
