It’s been a long last 10 to 12 days. Cody has been battling his asthma, an upper respiratory infection and his AI has really been getting him down. A trip to see his regular doctor and 2 visits to Children’s Mercy Hospital he is back to normal. He’s missed, I think, 6 days of school. I am not sure I’ve kind of lost track. At any rate we are glad he is feeling better and ready to go back to school.
Cody's last day at school was almost a week ago. We’ve talked to him and he’s ready to try and do school again. He thinks he can handle it. Unfortunately, we got news today that one of his favorite teachers suddenly passed away. Since he wants to go to school we have to break the news that one of his teachers passed away. I didn't want to given we just today got him back to normal after our last visit to Children's Mercy Hospital. We were both worried about if he could handle the news and if there is a chance this news could be too much for him to handle.
How do you tell a child of 13 that one of his teachers died let alone a child with a disease that doesn't allow him to control his emotions? We sat him down to talk to him. We know that if we don’t say anything that tomorrow while at school there is going to be talk about the death of a great person. Since this teacher was teaching one of his favorite classes we knew it was going to be a hard conversation.
We sat him down and told him what happened today. Unfortunately, I could see the color drain from his face. I could see his eyes well up with tears. We talked for a while and he said he was a nice man and he was sad for his family. The love my son has for other people never ceases to amaze me. He spent the better part of the next hour crying off and on. He was very sad about it all. Jaime and Cody snuggled on the couch while he tried to calm down. It was a hard hour for all of us. He was sad that one of his teachers passed away while Jaime and I worried that this one thing was going to send him into crisis again. For a kid with Adrenal Insufficiency this extra stress is something he may not be able to handle and since his body doesn’t make anything to help with this new stress all the work we did to get him healthy today could have all been lost.
While he and Jaime were cuddling on the couch Jaime’s phone rang. It was a number we didn’t recognize but it was late in the evening so she answered it just in case it was someone we knew that needed help or something. As it turned out it as one of Cody’s teachers. She talked to Jaime about how Cody was doing and she asked if we heard the news. Jaime told this teacher we did hear the news and told her we were actually talking to Cody about it when she called. The teacher is one of Cody's amazing teachers and she knew enough about Cody and his disease enough to know that tomorrow was going to be a difficult day for any kid. She recommended that we leave Cody at home because there is going to be a lot of tears and unhappy kids all day. They are going to have counselors there tomorrow for the kids but this teacher knows Cody so well she knows that the stress of this event will be too much for Cody to handle. She told us that Cody’s health was too important and he needed to stay home. She promised us that none of the teachers were worried about Cody missing school and they all know it is more important for his health that he stays home.
This doesn’t mean he won’t have to deal with it but the first day back is going to be focused on this teacher and his death. Whereas a day later he will still be gone but the focus will be on the new teacher and less stressful for Cody. This doesn’t mean it won’t be hard for Cody, but the focus won't be on kids handling the situation.
So even though he’s likely healthy enough to go to school we are now going to keep him home one more day because a day like tomorrow may send him into crisis again. It’s a sad thing because if he was a normal kid he could spend the day with his friends and grieve like a normal person, but he’s not normal and he can’t do what most of us need to move on from terrible things like this in our life.
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