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My daughter is still sick. I've been sitting with her as she recovers all week, but it's been very difficult. I'm taking her in tomorrow to follow up because she's not perking up much and I've been terrified. She does walk well, and her temperature is good. Her paleness is abating. She makes demands if something in the room isn't to her liking. If I speak, she tells me to be silent. If her little light lamp changes color, she fixes it to the color she wants. If I turn off the fan, she demands I turn it on. But she refuses to eat more than a little toast at a time. And giving her medicine has been a nightmare.

Which is why I am writing this. I feel ARFID is not spotlighted enough as a huge challenge when raising a child that has it. The meltdowns, texts from the school, refusal to do non-preferred things are nothing compared to the abject helplessness of spending 30 minutes per dose trying to convince one's child that they are in literal danger if they don't take their meds. She holds the medicine in her mouth, pretending to swallow in the hopes that she can sneak off and spit it out. And there is no logic I can tell her to convince her. No tricks. I often get super obvious advice about this. Like... put the medicine in the fridge, sneak it in applesauce or juice or milk. Use tablets. The only thing that had worked in the past was to get her to get an injectable form of the medicine. But we are in a shortage of shots now and that option isn't accessible even at the best of times.

So I think part of my terror is knowing that I can't help her and she doesn't have the cognitive ability right now to connect my words to the reality that there is nothing more important in her life right now than to take the medicine. I worry I'm not equipped to raise my own daughter. Like I would need to be a medical professional to keep her safe through all that may come. I used to confide in my friends about this. But I would get assurances that everything is ok, that I could force her to take the meds if needed, as if I haven't tried absolutely everything under the sun. From taking her to a specialist in sensory issues in food, to researching tricks. Nothing works. Sometimes a parent can't fix it, no matter how much they are told that the task is easy.