"Scan-anxiety"
If you’ve ever faced a medical appointment for your child, you’ll know it’s a unique cocktail of stress, hope, and an overwhelming need for everything to go smoothly. For those of us with little ones who need regular scans, this anxiety can become to familiar. Recently, I experienced a prime example of “scan anxiety” with my two-year-old, a day that perfectly encapsulated the emotional rollercoaster of parenting a child with health challenges. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go as planned. From the moment the date was penciled into the calendar, the countdown began. It wasn’t just a matter of logistics, though there were plenty of those to handle—fasting instructions, packing distractions for the waiting room, and of course, bracing for potential meltdowns. It was also the emotional weight. What would the scan show? Was everything progressing as it should? These questions hovered like storm clouds over the day, accompanied by the usual nerves about whether my two-year-old would co...