Medical PTSD: When the Fight Doesn’t End After the Hospital

To the NKH Crusaders caregiver reading this,

If you’ve ever felt your heart race at the sound of a monitor beep…

If hospital hallways still live in your body long after discharge…

If joy is often tangled with fear…

This is for you.

Being a medical mama or dad changes you.

When your child is diagnosed with NKH or any long term illness or cancer, your nervous system doesn’t get a choice. You’re thrown into survival mode. Learning medical language overnight, making impossible decisions, watching your child endure things no parent ever imagines. You become strong because you have to be, not because you wanted to be.

And that kind of strength comes at a cost.

What Medical PTSD Really Looks Like

Medical PTSD isn’t always dramatic flashbacks. Sometimes it’s quieter, and lonelier.

It can look like:

• Anxiety before appointments, even “good” ones

• Panic when your child gets sick, even mildly

• Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected

• Trouble sleeping because your brain never shuts off

• Guilt for feeling traumatized when your child is the one who suffered most

• Anger, grief, or jealousy toward families with “normal” milestones

And then there’s the hardest part:

Everyone thinks you should be "okay" now.

But your body remembers.

You’re Not Weak, You’re Wired for Survival

Medical parents are trained, unintentionally, to stay on high alert. Your brain learned that danger could arrive at any second. That’s not a flaw, it’s biology.

So when you:

• Can’t relax

• Struggle to trust good news

• Feel like the other shoe is always about to drop

That’s not failure. That’s trauma.

And trauma doesn’t disappear just because time passes.

The Complicated Identity of a Medical Mama or Dad

You love your child fiercely.

You’re proud of how far they’ve come.

And you may still mourn the life you thought you’d have.

All of those things can exist at once.

You can be grateful and grieving.

Hopeful and exhausted.

Strong and deeply hurt.

NKH parents live in that tension every day.

Healing Doesn’t Mean Forgetting

Healing from medical PTSD doesn’t mean you stop caring or stop being vigilant. It means learning how to breathe again without your nervous system constantly screaming.

It might look like:

• Therapy with someone who understands medical trauma

• Naming your experience instead of minimizing it

• Finding community like NKH Crusaders Rare connections 💙

• Giving yourself permission to rest, not just survive

To Every NKH Mama and Dad Reading This Medical PTSD: When the Fight Doesn’t End After the Hospital

You are not dramatic You are not broken. You are not alone.

You are a parent who walked through something life-altering, and came out still loving, still fighting, still showing up.

That makes you a crusader in every sense of the word.

If this hits you somewhere in your heart , share it with another medical parent who needs to hear it. Sometimes the most healing words are simply:

“Me too.” Medical PTSD: When the Fight Doesn’t End After the Hospital

💙 Kristin Archibald, Mom, Survivor, Founder, and Executive Director of NKH Crusaders

Need a place where you don’t have to explain yourself? NKH Crusaders Rare Connections is a support group created specifically for caregivers walking this road. Come as you are. Share if you want. Listen if that’s all you have the energy for.

💙 You belong here.