TdJ: My children's health.....

I am so glad that this topic falls on a day that both girls are relatively healthy.  Hopefully this will limit the kvetch to a tolerable level.

At the moment my daughters are in a weird position.  The older daughter's father has been court-ordered for 15 years to provide health insurance for her.  He started doing this about 18 months ago.  So she actually has health insurance.

My younger daughter has only me, and since my 60-100 hour per week job does not provide health insurance she goes without.  Unfortunately, she is the much more sickly of the two.

My oldest daughter has no allergies, has had two or three stomach bugs and one ear infection in her entire 17 year life.

My younger daughter is only 7, but has had 20+ ear infections, 100s of stomach bugs, and has had to have two teeth pulled, when she had a severe allergic reaction to the anesthesia.  She's also allergic to 2/3 of the antibiotics that have been prescribed to her.

I've done everything I can - short of being able to afford to provide actual health insurance - to ensure their health.  I breastfed the oldest for 2 years, the youngest for over 3 years.  Neither child ever had to drink formula, and neither was started on solid food before 4 to 6 months.  I tried to feed them healthy food, and they did well until others started giving them starches, grease and junk food.  At some point I got too busy to fight all the bad influences, and so their diets aren't the best, but as long as  I am cooking, their diets are at least better than average.  At some point, I realized that genetics must play into it, and since I was fairly healthy as a kid, all their problems are probably the fault of their fathers.

Yeah, I like that theory.

This is something I am concerned about.  Since I am so limited in what I can do for them, I live in fear that they will get sick or hurt and I won't have any way to help them.  I guess this the fear of most parents, but in this household, one severe illness could mean homelessness for us.  We can do less than most people can do to prevent it, so I probably drive my daughters crazy with my herbal/nutritional/energy work/alternative medicine approaches.  They are all I have.

Yes, indeed, my daughters are all I have.