• Decreased energy levels
• Decreased appetite
• Excessive hours spent sleeping
• A constant foggy feeling, often resulting in irritability or crankiness
• Difficulty in concentrating and remaining focused
• Frequent visits to urgent care, ER, your pediatrician, and to specialists
• Multiple sick days resulting in absences from school. This carries the additional fear of falling behind academically which can result in being held back a grade.
• Frequent stops to school nurse for daily medications or
• Multiple medication management left to the child to deal with; this is a massive and often intimidating responsibility for any youngster
• Your child is afraid to eat lunch with classmates, is embarrassed because they are the only one who has to bring lunch from home, and has to question what is in the food at a party due to severe or often anaphylactic allergies
• Being unable to keep up with friends on the playground
• Being unable to participate in school activities and sports
• Days, weeks, perhaps months, spent in the hospital
• Feeling as if he/she is constantly being treated by family and school like “the sick kid”
• Your child’s tendency to be less than honest with you when feeling miserable but he/she doesn’t want to miss out on something or add to our worries.