Chronic Illness Paper

Chronic illness is any disorder in child that persists over a long period and affects the physical, emotional, intellectual, and social functioning. Different chronic illnesses bring different concerns and impact on the child and family in different ways. When an illness is diagnosed in early stage, the whole family system is affected due to many reasons. The family needs to adapt their life style according to the child’s needs and support: like restrictive diet, routine medication, and frequent hospitalization to maintain a balanced family functioning. Parents, play different roles during different phases of child’s illness. Children with disabilities and special health care needs have more health care expenses. “Long term planning and resource

“A family’s physical, emotional, and financial resources may be severely taxed as they attempt to cope with the effects and limitations imposed by a child’s long- term condition” (Deiner, 2013, P.361). When one of the parents may not be able to work, and need to stay at home to take of the child every day, it may cause stress due to low income, and the expense of the medical treatment and cost. Mothers seems to have the most stress, they may become overly concerned about the child’s daily activities and managing the rest of the family and may become frustrated and

This child used to go for a treatment every after one month and was given intensive supportive care such as blood transfusion. She was also facing a lot of infectious complication and most of the time, she would be in the cancer centre at the hospital with a pediatric supportive care facility. Her families faced a lot of financial problems and were depressed emotionally as the child gets more severe. After few months of treatment, she died at the age of fifteen in hospital. “Chronic leukemia progresses more slowly, but it is less amenable to cure” (Deiner, 2013, P.368). It it also written in the text that “Cancer is one of the number one disease killer between infancy and age fifteen” (Deiner, 2013, P.368). It was an sad experience for everyone in the school and for their family members. I believe that in this situation it necessary to give counseling for the parents to change their depression in to a positive