Last week was one to forget. Ben was not himself on Thursday, refusing his afternoon snack and supper. A look of worry and distress was deeply set in his eyes. The flu bug that had knocked him flat on his back a few weeks previous appeared to have resurfaced with a vengeance. It was sudden and violent.

For more than three hours he struggled as wave after wave of pain engulfed his body, forcing him to gag and wretch without success. By 10:30pm, the prolonged stress finally bubbled over into an all-out seizure – something that hadn’t happened in over four years. No matter how many times I witness them, seizures are always scary to watch. And that’s all we could do since we had no meds to calm the convulsions. Those we had used in the past had long since expired. Ironically, only a few weeks ago did we trash our out-of-date supply of valium and, at the time, mused at how long it had been since we had needed them. Plus, we thought, if Ben did have another seizure (very...