If there is one thing worse than spending Christmas Eve in a hospital, it is spending it in a children's hospital. And that was our lot this Christmas Eve. It is of course amazing how any significance attached to the day went out the window, the minute the doctor told us that they have to keep our son in the hospital and cannot be allowed to leave with his temperature and history.

And it was dismal of course. The fact that a 3-year old was walking around with an iv-line inserted, my 3-year old, was enough to make me cry. But in the end he was discharged a day later - on Christmas day in fact; just in time for a family lunch! But it made my wife and I think - what does happen to a parent when their child is truly ill? How can one recover from that? We spent 24h miserable hours with a 'simple' chest infection... what if? what if??

There is no internal defence I can think of that would protect me from the onslaught of that tidal wave.. none at all.