Reflections on caring for a sick child....

I have just laid Matilda down for a rest. We have had a bad night, well it is now a couple of bad nights.
She has, over the last three weeks gone through two courses of antibiotics for recurring ear infections, from last night she is now on her third and strongest dose for a chest infection. I have been watching her most of the night as the medication is not bringing her temperature down properly and much of what medicine and fluid she does take she vomits. I fear that she has become somewhat resistant to the antibiotics as well. We took her to the hospital under advice of the GP, last night. They said she should come back in 48 hours if she isn't any better and that until the antibiotics have a chance to work the best place for her is at home. Part of me is relieved, part scared, am I doing everything right? A question that keeps rebounding round my mind.
So it has been a constant stream of tepid baths, mild camomile teas served in her beaker, cool flannels wiped over her body, stories, lullabies, medicine, vitamin pills and lastly an old remedy of egg whites in her socks which we used last night as a last ditch attmept to bring her temperature down from 40 after she had had all the doses of medicine we could give her. Remarkably, and I say this sincerly as I could not understand how such a strange remedy might possibly work it did actually bringt it down to 38.8 within 15 minutes!
I can only thank my husband's mother who, according to my husband is a " one woman natural pharmacuticul company" There have been many old remedies reccomended from her that I have been pursuaded to try ( such as applying salt on minor burns, underlining minor here, serious burns would need more conventional treatments of course) have you ever tried that though? I tell you it works!!! This is just one example of many may I add!

Looking at my Tilly's sweet face, peacfully sleeping here beside me my heart hurts.
There is a strange feeling of emotions stirring within me. One is fear, cold and clear. That primal, instinct that burns like a fever in itself, gnawing deep down. Shuddering both hot and cold. Yet there is also, strangly, a constant and peripheral sense of peace. Hovering over the heaving waters, that stream and break over me as I tend her. Somehow I 'm being shown in ways I don't truly understand that He is watching, He knows, He hears, He is near. I am so grateful for my faith at times like this, it is the most precious gift. It is times like this that it is really brought into clear relief for me to see. That by imersing myself in His Words, His Love, His Counsel even when I have not felt any immediate consolation is all a preperation for the parched times when I really need to drink deep. Somehow all these things store up in a well within, I think. Somehow I have always felt a profound sense of His presence as a comforter whenever there is illness in the children. I find illness in the children very hard to cope with at times, yet it is at these places, I find Him reaching out to me, His hand upon my shoulder, gentle, still, quietening my mind and my heart. I can't explain it other than there is an almost tangible sense of His presence in the room. This was especially true last night, when I lay next to Tilly, my hand stroking her hair, listening to her breath against me. Her lips scarlet, her face pale, her body like a little hot water bottle simmering under the single cotton sheet.
She was asleep, but her eyes opened once in a while, almost as if she were checking that I was still there. "I'm still here sweetie. Mummy's got you" words almost prayed, in the tepid light.
And she smiled. In her sleep she caught me with her and she smiled. And then another emotion swelled up and rolled over me. One of complete gratitude. I was so thankful that I could be priveliged enough to care for her when she needed me most. That I could be there for her, even as she slept. These moments in a way were a gift to me that brought out everything that matters most into the light, even in the darkness of this bedroom surrounded by sticky medicine syringes, tissue paper, wet flannels and beakers of water and chamomile tea.
And then still something more began to sink into the ebb and flow of my thoughts. Something that made me see with a sudden chill of perspective.
I began to think of all the little ones in this world right now who have no one to wipe their brow or lie down beside them as they sleep, or read them stories to distract them from their discomfort, or rock them gently with a lullaby, over and over and over again till their eyelids droop and their shivering bodies surrender into a healing bath of sleep.
Little ones that have no medicine at all to bring them through endless feverish nights.
And then I prayed, not just for my sweet Tilly but for all the children who are sick in the world right now. Tilly will recover from this bought of sickness, yet for some children in other lands, far from the shores of medical centres, hospitals, new treatments and loving arms, there is no recovery, even for the simplest of illnesses.
And that is an ache I cannot heal within me, because it shouldn't be there. I think He puts the ache there to help me remember this. So I pray, because it is the only medicine I have for this ache.

Dear Lord,

Please be the rocking arms,
The gentle hand,
The cool towel, The soft song,
Be the,
Comforter,
For all who suffer,
Both within and without.
The child with the fever,
The mother with the fire of fear in her heart,
The little one whom no one
watches over,
May Yours be the face
That they see
When they open their eyes
in the empty darkness
Of soft sleep
May Yours be the face,
That they see.
The hands that will touch,
That will heal and
restore,
and renew.
In the morning light.

In Jesus's name
Amen.