Finding my way to mindfulness meditation practices that resonated

Diagnosed at age 15 with severe IBD, my daughter’s journey with illness was bumpy, but manageable, until the summer after her sophomore year of college. Her colonic health had been on a slow decline for some months, and that’s when cDiff took advantage. Though her health worsened over the summer, she was able to convince her doctor to let her go back to college in the fall. There, cDiff continued to recur and stopped responding to all medications. An oral fecal microbiota transplant finally shut down the cDiff but sent her into her worst flare ever. She was hospitalized on the opposite coast from where we live. I flew out to be with her, thinking it would be for a few days and ended up staying a couple of months until she was stable enough to get her home to California, where she was admitted to a hospital there. Of all the challenges we’ve faced over the course of her illness (she’s now 27), the time we spent on the East Coast, far from all our supports was the most difficult. She was on an adult ward there, and they didn’t seem to understand why I insisted on staying with her.

It was the first time my stoic child became depressed. And I found myself overwhelmed, afraid, and alone.