Babies Get Sick?!

A friend of mine was just telling me about how she had to rush her infant daughter (almost the same age as Amelia) to the hospital this week with a fever. She's okay now but you can imagine their scare.

It's funny - just last night, I realized that some day, at some point, Amelia is going to get sick.

This was a surprise to me once I actually thought about it. Of course I knew that babies got sick but I really hadn't thought about it happening to Amelia. In my mind, we're just going to keep going along happily with exciting new developments around every corner. Crawling, talking, walking ... it's all good times ahead!

I hadn't really thought about how the next thing around the corner could be illness. I can barely handle it when Amelia gets her shots or cries for more than 5 minutes (she gets big, fat drippy tears that pour down her face - very sad). I knew that teething was ahead and with it, some night waking and increased fussiness, but the thought of frantically driving to the hospital is almost more than I can bear. I just imagine that my heart would be in my throat the whole time. I think back now to illnesses I had as a child that I used to be proud of because they weren't very common (whooping cough, scarlet fever, shingles) and am starting to realize what my parents must have gone through.

And that's just normal illness. What about families whose kids get really sick? It sunk into me today that Sick Kids is an entire hospital of sick children. There is an entire branch of medicine that deals with kids who have cancer and doctors who specialize in operating on babies.

I can't think about it anymore or I'll start to cry (or donate my life savings to Sick Kids). Really, I just never got it before.