just a taste

This past week, I got a taste of what it's like to have a sick child. Not just sick, but sick. Where the nurse is agreeing with you 'that those symptoms are strange' and the doctor tells you that he 'doesn't know what's wrong' with your child even after the lab results come in. Where you look in on your child four times a night, touching the top of his blanket to make sure that he is indeed still breathing. Where you find yourself tearing up at what it might be, what's the worst cause scenario; that this might be the moment I recall years later of when 'it started'. Where I begin playing in my head what's the next step, what specialist do I need to call, to see to make sure that my first born child will indeed get better.

It was luckily, just a taste. I never again want to have this bitterness of unknown in my mouth again. My heart aches for those families that don't have this, that actually do have a sick child. It makes me think of the fourth floor of the hospital that I volunteer at. Those child-size hospital beds surrounded by cheery motifs, those incubators that are sectioned off in entire rooms, with only them and rocking chairs. I wish that the 'fourth floor' never existed.

At this time, we think that it's just a milk allergy, an intolerance or something along that lines. Something not so significant in scheme of what-could-be's. Today, he is a happy, running wild child. I hope and pray that he continues to only get a good taste of childhood.