Once a preemie...

Eoin is two years old (he's even two corrected age as well now!). He's been discharged from most of the consultants that he has been seeing regularly since discharge. The child development team discharged him and are delighted with his progress. Sure, he's a little tiny fella but on the whole, he's doing great.

But the experience that we and he went through never quite leaves you. Children are children and regularly get sick. Eoin's big sister has a cold and as long she remembers to cover her mouth when she sneezes and uses a tissue, we barely give it a second thought. With Eoin it's always a little different. He came home from nursery early last week with a temperature. Nothing more, just a temperature. Most kids would shake it off in a couple of days and be back at nursery or school. Eoin returned to normal temperature but instead developed a cough and slightly odd breathing. We decided earlier today to take him to the emergency doctor to be checked out. He wasn't seriously ill or anything, but he, and we as a family are ex-prem. As Mum took him to the doctor, I tried hard to avoid thinking about him ending up in hospital again, and making plans for what I'd need to do. His sister asked me if Eoin was going to have to go to hospital again. He didn't. He's fine. But once a prem, always a prem, and there will always be that nagging thing in the back of your mind.