The short answer: I started a new job and I wasn’t able to provide the same content here, so I needed to pivot.

The long answer: Once I knew that I had to pivot, I became very sick, burned out, was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery.

Do you want the even-longer answer? OK. Let’s give a shot.

I greatly enjoyed creating and manning the helm of WellingtonMom.com. It brought me joy and, I felt, brought much-needed news and information to the Wellington community and our neighbors.

I started this site in 2022 because I needed an outlet. When it launched, I had just left my full-time job to take a stab at freelance work as our family tried to find proper care for our son, who was then 3. We faced the difficult challenge of trying to get him an autism diagnosis. And when I say challenge, I mean it. When a doctor finally diagnosed him with Autism Spectrum Disorder, I cried. Not because I was upset or angry about his diagnosis, but because I was so relieved that we could finally get him the services and support we knew he needed.

Through a sheer act of God, it happened that at about the same time I turned to freelancing, the wonderful editor of the Palm Beach Daily News needed a freelance reporter. She had been my editor for a time at The Palm Beach Post, and she offered me the flexibility to be able to care for my son, Casey, and make a steady paycheck. I picked up additional work from other clients, to whom I am eternally grateful for giving me those opportunities.

After a year of freelancing for at the Daily News, the editor offered me a staff position. It had been about a year and a half of transformation for Casey. He was in preschool in a program for autistic children, and he continued to thrive. I felt confident accepting the role at the Shiny Sheet.

But with that position came the challenge: As an employee for the Palm Beach Daily News and its parent company, what was then Gannett and is now USA Today Co., I could not continue to run this blog. The news and information provided here would be in competition with The Palm Beach Post. I could, however, continue to write here as I documented my own personal journey as a mom, I was told.

I made the difficult decision to press pause on this blog so that I could have time to think. I wrote and published my last post in October of 2023.

Unfortunately, this was right around the time that my health started to nosedive.

I began to struggle with brain fog. I was exhausted almost all of the time. I felt sluggish and off. When I went outside into the sun on a hot day, it felt like instant heat exhaustion.

Throughout this, I continued to work, but this sweet side project of mine fell to the wayside as I tried to focus on my family and my reporting for the Daily News.

It went on for months, and every once in awhile, someone would send me a text or email or comment and say, “Hey, Kristina. Where did you go?” Or, “What’s happening with Wellington Mom?” One person even thought I had taken a paycheck from a developer for some reporting I had done and then high-tailed it into the sunset. I responded quite quickly and firmly to that email. The person was gracious and apologetic, but it did make me realize that I needed to say something in this space.

So I drafted a post. And then another. And another.

Nothing felt right. I didn’t know what to say.

“Sorry! I can’t write here anymore because I got a full-time job.”

“I don’t feel good and I’m working full-time, so this space will be in stasis.”

“Wish I could, but I can’t, so I won’t.”

There were so many false starts. When I finally thought I had the right thing to say, I would second guess myself and get stuck in a spiral of negative thinking and anxiety.

Then, I felt my neck.

It was January of 2025. The left side of my neck had been stiff and sore for months. I’d used a magnesium cream to help loosen it up and was applying more when I felt something … wrong.

I felt around a little bit. Really felt it, for the first time. There was a lump.

Within two hours, I was on an exam table in my primary physician’s urgent care office. Within two weeks, I had an ultrasound and a CT. Soon after that, I met with my endocrinologist. She did another ultrasound and a needle biopsy, and she referred me to a surgeon in Tampa. Because the nodule was solid, large and pressing against my esophagus, it needed to come out, my endocrinologist said. I received the biopsy results as I put gas in my car to drive to my consultation with the surgeon. The lump in my neck was “suspicious,” but the biopsy was not conclusive. My endocrinologist offered me these encouraging words: “We already know we’re going to take it out. That is the right thing to do.”

On March 24, 2025, surgeons removed a 4.7 cm mass of follicular thyroid carcinoma with a tiny spot of papillary thyroid carcinoma from the left side of my neck, in the spot where the left lobe of my thyroid had been. The cancer had consumed it. The next day, the surgeons went in and removed the right side of my thyroid as well. They had hoped to preserve some thyroid tissue, but when the overnight biopsy came back as cancerous, those hopes were … tempered.

It’s been a rough recovery. Healing isn’t linear, and don’t ever let anyone try to tell you that it is. In trying to find the right balance of thyroid hormone to make me feel like a functioning human, I’m reminded of when I was trying to stay pregnant, before we had Casey, when it felt like every little shift in the dosage of several medications was a tiny step closer to the right answer.

I have flare-ups. My body struggles at times to regulate my temperature. But I feel a million times better than I did before the surgery, when the cancer in my neck felt like an angry tick that had burrowed into my neck muscles. It raged there every day. It would swell and pulse and push against my esophagus. I coughed and cleared my throat constantly. The relief I felt at waking up without that sensation is indescribable.

So, that brings us to today.

What is the future of WellingtonMom.com?

I wish I had a solid answer. I plan to write more here about the challenges and joys of parenting an autistic child, and what books I’m reading, both related to parenting and otherwise.

You can continue to follow, and I hope you do. My dream was to create a space for parents in our community to stay connected and informed. I think this can still be that space.

Have any questions? Shoot me an email at kwebbcreative@gmail.com, or drop a comment here.

If you want to read my reporting, check out my staff page at the Palm Beach Daily News.