Toronto Star Classroom Connection

Sick daze

Kids are facing a perfect storm of viruses, and the parents are not all right

KATIE DAUBS FEATURE WRITER

Violet is four years old. She has a unicorn backpack and a bento box that her mom fills with cheese sandwiches and cantaloupe for her school lunch every day. At least, that’s the idea. Daphne Schibler moves the phone away from her mouth to muffle her own deep cough as she tallies Violet’s absences. Six days so far this November. Eleven days missed in October. Ten in September. Mostly, it’s upper respiratory viruses, but sometimes there are fevers too.

The children’s pain medication only comes out when the fever goes above 39 C. Partly, she wants her daughter’s body to manage the fever, but she is also rationing her dwindling supply of children’s Tylenol. There’s a nationwide shortage of children’s pain relief medication, but Health Canada says the situation should improve with more than one million bottles due to arrive this week.

It’s bad out there. Pediatric hospitals have sounded the alarm over the crisis, but nothing really changes. Parents become their own compounding pharmacies, swapping conversion charts for adult painkillers and tips about where to get pill cutters and crushers in group chats.

They turn to TikTok for remedies for endless coughing, cutting onions to put by their child’s bedside. The onion is a mainstay of medical mythology. During the bubonic plague, people thought a cut onion would protect them from “noxious air,” the National Onion Association notes.

It didn’t, but the idea persisted through the centuries, and many still swear by the onion in the bedroom for cough relief, although the remedy has “never been proven,” the Colorado-based association states. Experts suggest you talk to a health-care provider rather than relying on the mythical powers of onions, but in November 2022, guess which of those options is more accessible?

“We’re doing absolutely nothing to help parents and little children,” says Sabina Vohra-Miller, cofounder of the Vohra Miller Foundation, which aims to make health care equitable and accessible for all. “Just because they’re non-voting members of our society, it seems that it’s OK to cast their health and wellness aside. And the fact that we’re OK with this is frankly a complete disappointment in terms of what it means to be Canadian and what it means to have health care in Canada.”

The misery of what officials are calling a “perfect storm” of a viral season — with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), the flu and COVID-19 — has been percolating in Facebook parent groups for months.

Fevers that won’t break. Coughing that is so intense that eardrums perforate and bleed. Babies struggling to breathe through tiny airways. Pain medication and in-person health care nearly impossible to access. For the sickest, there is the overwhelmed emergency room, with its 12-hour wait to see a doctor.

Parents are wading through unrelenting viral waves while sick themselves, and the housing situation is so expensive that missing work is not an option many have. It’s a cost of living, supply chain and pediatric health crisis rolled into one, on the heels of an exhausting slog of isolation, sickness and divisive pandemic politics. The parents are not all right. And many of them feel like no one cares.

“When you’re not really in that situation, you don’t understand the gravity of it,” says one Mississauga mother. She can’t give her name because her employer doesn’t know the extent of her struggle to work with a sick toddler underfoot. She doesn’t have family close by. So she pretends she has it all together.

“When is it going to get better?” she asks. “I don’t know.”

Parents know sick children are nothing new. Jennifer Gold started her own law firm in 2008 when her children were in daycare, partly because she was tired of feeling guilty every time they were sick. Her Peel Region family law practice is all women. The virus season has always been something they manage through teamwork, but more people are struggling this year, she says. And the burden usually falls on women, she says.

“To the people in power, our work is less important at the end of the day,” she says. “You know? Just deal with it.”

Daphne Schibler gave up her permanent job as a special needs teaching assistant last year. Violet was in daycare then, and Schibler ran out of sick days and unpaid leave taking care of her when she was ill. She switched to casual, and has been grateful for the flexibility, even though it is a professional and financial hit.

Her daughter was born at 24 weeks. Now four, she runs around at a “million miles an hour” and loves caring for her babies and holding tools with her dad and uncle in the garage of the family’s Brampton home. She gets sick easily, so they’re cautious. But it’s impossible this year.

As a mom of a micro-preemie, Schibler has a good medical support network. She has an oxygen monitor at home, but she worries. Will this next one be the sickness that sends them back to an overwhelmed hospital?

Not everyone is understanding: “You chose to have kids. You’ve got to deal with that honey,” she says. Then there’s that well-meaning but dismissive chestnut, uttered to many a beleaguered parent: “At least your child is building their immune system.”

That incorrect comment has taken on a “life of its own,” says VohraMiller, who has a degree in clinical pharmacology and is pursuing her doctorate of public health. She created the website “Unambiguous Science” to combat misinformation during the pandemic.

“That’s really not how the immune system works. It’s not a muscle. It’s not as though if you don’t use it, it atrophies.”

People seem to think that having these infections early confers some kind of advantage, but you can’t build any “meaningful immunity” against RSV unless you’ve had three infections or more, she says. With other viral infections, immunity is short term, which is why we get infected every year, sometimes twice.

In a young child, RSV and influenza can cause more severe illness because of their narrow airways. When adults get hit with viruses, we can blow our nose, take cold medication, cough on command. Small children can’t. Viruses are more difficult and uncomfortable for them. Being exposed at a young age isn’t a plus. Older children who already had it in preschool can get it again. “Like my son, for instance,” she says. He recently had it, but endured it twice before he was two years old. “Both times were really severe and really bad for us, and I wish we hadn’t had to experience that.”

There is a “bit of a susceptibility gap,” she says, because there are children who haven’t been exposed to RSV and other illnesses because of public health measures. But that shouldn’t be a reason to criticize those measures, Vohra-Miller says. “We should be saying, ‘Hey, we’ve found a way to prevent severe illness. Why don’t we do this every year?’ ”

Of course, that answer is fraught. As they cancel surgeries and deal with ballooning wait times, pediatric hospitals like SickKids called for a return of mask mandates. A recent Forum Research poll for the Star found 77 per cent of respondents already wear masks or were prepared to wear them again.

On Facebook parent groups, the subject is a constant source of debate. Premier Doug Ford said he’d follow the advice of the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, who strongly encouraged people to mask up indoors, but stopped short of a mandate. So on a cold November day, after morning nap, a small group of parents and babies showed up at Queen’s Park to ask for more.

“I don’t feel like this is a government that has any interest in the welfare of my child,” Shannon Blake said as she stood on the snowcovered lawn of the storied old building.

“This is a government that is prioritizing big business and development, but it is not a government that is prioritizing children on a health level, education level or their environmental future.”

Babies were bundled in snowsuits and hats with animal ears. Too young to speak or stand or wear masks, they bounced in their parents’ arms or sat on a blanket. Ten babies were too sick to join — like Blake’s son Callum — so photos of those infants were printed out on computer paper, occasionally catching the wind and blowing away. “Nobody poop,” one woman said as they tried to wrangle the babies for a photo.

“We are asking that during this time of crisis — we understand it’s not ideal — but out of a place of compassion, love and empathy, people start masking again, and that the government is behind that,” said Dr. Sumedha Arya, one of the parents.

The group — a loose collection of people who connected on parental leave, also called on Ford and Moore to fund improved air quality in schools and daycares, encourage vaccination, and provide long-term support for public health. No one came to speak with them except interim Liberal Leader John Fraser and Liberal health critic and MPP Dr. Adil Shamji.

“When your child can’t get their breath, when they’re struggling to breathe, every minute is distress,” Fraser said, blue mask around his wrist as he spoke about his experience years ago when his daughter was ill and struggling to breathe. “This is what is happening to hundreds if not thousands of parents in hospitals and homes across Ontario. The government has no plan. Just saying everything is OK is not right.”

That night, after the protest babies were dozing, Dr. Kieran Moore was at a Toronto Life “Most Influential” party.

Moore, deemed the 12th most influential Torontonian for his handling of the pandemic, was holding a drink, maskless. Premier Ford later defended him, saying masking is a “personal choice.”

Earlier that day, Shannon Blake said it feels like the government downloaded policy to individuals. She wears a mask and tries to keep her nine-month-old son safe, but she can’t do it alone. “It frankly shouldn’t be my job to do it myself,” she said.

She said the pediatric health crisis was created by underfunding. This was obviously going to be a high season of need and the lack of funding and preparation has made the illness load unprecedented, she said.

Violet’s mom Daphne Schibler, who wasn’t at the protest, would like to see mandated sick days and family responsibility days so people can stay home when they’re sick. But that’s perceived as too “communist,” she says. These days, everything is clouded by politics, and parents are left to navigate the mess. Her voice grows quiet: “And they’re stuck.”

To the people in power, our work is less important at the end of the day. You know? Just deal with it.

J E NNIFER GOLD L AWYER

Just because (kids are) non-voting members of our society, it seems that it’s OK to cast their health and wellness aside.

S ABINA VOHRA- MILLER CO- FOUNDER OF VOHRA MILLER FOUNDATION

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2022-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-11-26T08:00:00.0000000Z

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