I thought, at this moment in time, I would be writing about the adventures and delights we experienced during our time away. But instead, as I sit next to a hospital bed with my nearly two-year-old (It’s his birthday tomorrow!) I am struggling to encourage myself in the fun that was had while abroad. Instead, I pull myself as close as possible to the hospital bed, listening to the rhythmic snores of my darling boy while praying for health and wellness over his little body.

Often travelling brings bugs and illness purely from being confined to a plane with hundreds of other people all carrying their own individual bodily ailments. The body can also react to the unfamiliar environment if you travel somewhere with a differing time zone and foreign food. Often your body can quickly pull itself together with a little sleep or a special pill to keep bodily fluids in. But occasionally, something more serious can take you unawares.

I’m not sure what we could have done differently. Perhaps we should have all worn masks on the flight home, as the plane could have been where the virus met his body and decided to call it home. Travelling through China for 2 weeks we were vigilant in keeping healthy, trying to protect ourselves from any unwanted disease or illness. We drank bottled water, ate only fruit that we could peel –rather than fruit that was potentially washed in tap water, exercised, slept well, tried to not overload with sugar. Ok, the sugar part didn’t go down that well when we went to Disneyland, but we did try to eat healthy when we weren’t popping candy. I blame my birthday boy. We put a birthday badge on him as we were celebrating his 2nd birthday there. When his badge was noticed by a cast member, every 3 minutes or so, they would pull out candy and stickers for him. What could I possibly do?? Yes, I could have taken the badge off, ok, ok, whatever. Back to the keeping healthy topic. We did take as many precautions as possible without being too regimented or controlling.

I am not sure what we could have done differently. I am certain though, now is not the time to beat myself up about it. In fact, no time in the future is either. We went overseas with our children’s health and wellbeing at the forefront of our minds. If we believed the time overseas was going to bring serious health issues and danger to our children we certainly would not have boarded that plane. Sometimes going on vacation doesn’t go to plan. It may go in a direction you would have rather avoided and sometimes decisions are made which seem good at the time but have a disastrous result. Unfortunately, this is life. It is not a movie where awesome music constantly plays in the background, and it certainly isn’t what you see on Instagram or Facebook.

I look at my little guy lying in the hospital bed sleeping blissfully, most likely unaware of everything going on around him. Life is a bit of a rollercoaster. Sometimes there are ups, sometimes there are downs, and sometimes there are loops you were entirely unaware your rollercoaster of life even had. Right now I don’t see up, down, right or left. I just see my little guy, in his Karate, monkey pyjamas and all I feel is love.