A Precious Gift....

For the first time in a long time today - I found myself in a position where the death of a patient was SO painful that I wept at work..
Children are a precious gift - a universal truth!
..and today I sat with a mother who apologised to her dead son because he "should be running around right now.."
..and he never will again
..because he had an accident at home that was could so easily have been avoided.

Just because the statistical likelihood is that MOST things will not happen to YOU - they always happen to someone.
Parenting is a constant series of calculated risks - how else do children learn about the world if they aren't allowed to experience it...?
But there are some things that represent a much greater risk and should be thought about more carefully.

For example. ..You don't allow a toddler with no road sense to run around on their own on a busy road - the experiential learning outcomes do not warrant the risk.

Today's situation was metaphorically similar

The worst thing about it was that having had a 40 minute 'downtime' pre arrival and further 35 minutes before regaining an output - and still having a pH of 6.8 an hour later, the outcome was inevitable.

And a tragedy...

I am so glad that I am seeing my own children tomorrow
..their precious nature has never been so starkly illustrated