Through the fog of motherhood, into the learnings of a professional...

For the first time in a long time, I feel motivated and capable of achieving great things in my professional working life. My son is now 10 months old (tomorrow) and started nursery last week, he loves it and it's great for us both!

But the struggle on the journey to this point is real. I applaud any mother who simply manages to get dressed in the first few months, and for me this then led to a few months in and out of hospitals with a poorly baby who I had to watch breathe every night for fear he might not... I don't want to be too dramatic, we were very lucky, he always got oxygen (except once, when he didn't quite get enough) and once his weight started to drop, we were admitted for a surgical procedure (investigation under anaesthetic) where we finally found out what was wrong (subglottic haemangioma) and he was successfully medicated (propranalol, it isn't certified for use in babies but it saves them in this case).

In reality, there were a lot of professional learnings in this case. The hospitals were great, and we are eternally grateful to all of them. But every time he was cycled in and out of there (with no resolution) we wondered why in the most precious of cases, we were on our own. At first, they said it was 'laryngomlacia' and sent us home, but this never answered the question of why he was struggling to breathe - and why that was seemingly OK... And in the next seven weeks, we were back in every few days or more (often being admitted overnight or longer). It turned out the steroid that the paramedics/A&E staff would give him was helping so dramatically that this was a clue to the real issue. But many doctors only saw him once he'd been given Dexamethasone, so they would investigate (in a similar way each time, sometimes escalating to additonal tests) and then tell us 'he would grow out of it' in maybe a year or two, and we just looked on in shock that they expected us to survive that long with his breathing and my lack of sleep. We were on a referral path to the specialists, but we nearly slipped through the net as my boy was otherwise very strong, until suddenly he wasn't and it was an urgent admission from the clinic room.

The professional learnings for me, are that the rare cases (subglottic haemangiomas count for only 1% of airway issues in infants, and only 50% survive) must be captured more efficiently in a 'special case' process. Too often, I believe, over-simplification kills opportunity - and almost certainly, it stifles innovation.

I'm sure we had to go through the weeks we did to get to the need for surgery, but for many who do have to handle it longer term (as moderate/severe laryngomalacia isn't so easily treatable), there is only the charitable support groups like www.copingwithlm.org to help them. We were so grateful for the care package we received when we got home from hospital - we still use the homemade knitted blanket every day.

So please consider yourself made aware of airway disorders as congenital issues in babies; but also to recognise that being a stridor survivor makes you stronger, and that being different or rare is an exceptional opportunity to do something brilliant.