From the Caregiver's HAErt — Danita LaShelle Jones

I have vague memories of the encounter. I remember sitting on the exam table and asking if I was getting a shot that day in the most authoritative voice I could muster. When the pediatrician confirmed my greatest fear and then left the room, I put my plan into action.

I triumphantly pressed enter and marveled at my epic post on social media. There were no hospital visits, no rushes to the emergency room, and no urgent phone calls to after-hour physicians’ lines. Our second-born, affectionally known as Ladybug, had gone three solid weeks without any medical incidents. What better…

“Oh, I had that,” said the woman on the other end of the phone line. I had to cancel a meeting I had scheduled because my oldest daughter, whom we fondly refer to as Ladybug, was having a flare that would eventually lead to hospitalization. Although I couldn’t see the…

The familiar number flashed across my phone screen, and I audibly groaned. After a particularly arduous morning dealing with late school buses, forgotten lunches, and a few involved errands, I had finally reached a moment where everything settled. Yet the sound of my phone vibrating against the table yanked me…

I stared down at the incoming text message and completely froze. The beeps from her monitor in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) had finally settled into a consistent rhythm. Although our oldest daughter, whom we lovingly refer to as Ladybug, was resting, my adrenaline was still pumping from the…

I haplessly fell backward on my bed, blew a sharp breath out of my mouth, and stared at the ceiling. We had made it to the middle of the week without any incidents with my oldest daughter, nicknamed Ladybug. We hadn’t needed to make a trip to see the pediatrician,…

I sat in my idle car and drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel. Another glance at the clock revealed that it was 10:57 a.m. I had three minutes left before it counted as a full day. Part of me hoped that I wouldn’t be noticed by a security guard…

One of my favorite ways to relax at the end of a stressful day is to play games on my phone. I pick games that require minimal strategy and effort. I’m a happy camper if I have to match pieces of candy or jewels, launch a plane in the air,…

After a losing battle trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, I sat up in bed, maneuvered my laptop around my large, pregnant belly, and started Googling “tips on having twins.” By hour two, I had a wealth of information, mostly from reputable websites about babies and parenting. But my…

By the time my husband and I added a set of twins to our already rambunctious 5- and 2-year-old, family and friends appropriately named our house “the Circus.” Sure, there were families out there with way more kids than we had, but our reality was what mattered. Everything seemed to…

There I was again, speaking with hushed tones into my cellphone as I talked my husband through the tangled wires I knew he was digging into on my side of the bed. “What else do you need, babe?” he asked patiently. I rubbed my forehead as I peeked over at…

In retrospect, I took a lot for granted. My 12-year-old daughter, whom we affectionally refer to as Ladybug, has probably seen more doctors than the average child her age. Although her visits started with the discovery of a rare allergy to spinach, finding out she has hereditary angioedema, or HAE,…