Swine Flu Vaccine for L part one

We did it, we got it, he was very very brave and thankfully showed no adverse side effects besides a bit of raspy breathing and extreme tiredness. He's not really looking very well in general right now but we're carrying on as normal and will do the booster shot in 4 weeks time.
Two days before the vaccine I had a horrible reminder of how nights with L used to be, before we cleared the obstruction in his airway and got our lives back.
He took a bad turn during dinner, had a temperature, was so upset after he went to bed and because of the cold he had his breathing was terrible.
In the wee small hours of the morning I lay with my little boy, trying to work out what to do and listening to him labouring to breathe once more. Each breath took such effort and the memory of that movement and noise made me realise it was a year almost to the day since his operation.
I wondered then as I have a few times recently, how any of us managed to cope with all that stress and confusion of knowing that our baby wasn't breathing and we couldn't do anything to help.
It's testament to his strength that he thrived at all for the 6 months that those tonsils and adenoids hid and did their damage. And it's testament to mine that I got through those nights and continued to face all the scary results that we got along the way, until we found the actual cause.
So Sunday 12am, there I stood with a bag packed for us both, really trying to retread those neural pathways of how to be emergency mum, having forgotten when I needed to press the alarm that would take us to hospital.
I finally agreed with hubby that perhaps the safest thing to do was stay here and watch him closely rather than take a trip we weren't sure we needed and expose him to unnecessary hospital germs.
So the next morning after no sleep I was glad to see Louis looking brighter, and proud to see that we'd coped with it at home.
Has it really been such a great year as to not have had to use that skill for so long?
For that, and for every sweet and unobstructed breath he takes, I am forever thankful.