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I honestly don't think anything can prepare you for that level of tragedy. Preparing for it would probably only bring on depression that would conflict with enjoying your precious time together now. Just my thoughts on it.

So I think there are a few things to your question. First you are reacting to the panic you felt yesterday and you want to protect yourself from feeling like that again. Second you want a concrete set of steps on how to feel or think if something catastrophic happened.

Both of these things are impossible!

But hopefully here is some help. There is no way to not think of worst case scenarios and feel terrified when our children are sick/injured. But it does help to put it into perspective. Do you remember the first time your child got sick? The first time your new baby had a fever and you as a parent couldn't do anything to make the sickness better other than time and snuggles. You felt helpless, like a bad parent, like you were failing your child, you were scared that it was something worse, unsure of when to call the doctor, needing answers but not getting any. But hour by hour you got through it, and 2 weeks later your baby was back to normal.

You just went through life because life doesn't stop. You continued on to the next diaper change, next feeding, next nap, next shower, next day of work. That is what you would do if something catastrophic happened too.

What was the biggest life change you've ever had? Was is bringing home a baby? Everything you did in your life before that day is different. Overnight your life changed - But your body and mind adjusted. Before you could sleep in, eat pizza for a month straight, and be totally spontaneous - after bringing baby home you couldn't do any of those things and you have a huge additional responsibility of keeping a helpless infant alive. But you did it, and you didn't really think about how different it is to buy baby food a long with your groceries, because it actually isn't all that different.

So if your child/you/spouse/family member has something life-altering, your life will alter. But you will handle it like every other life change - with tears, sleeplessness, internet rabbitholes. But you will also still have to continue life through the next shower, meal, workday, doctor appointment - and you will.

It sounds as though you may be having some pretty bad anxiety. If you don't already have someone to talk to, please call your PCP. We are all living through intense times right now, and could use all the help we can get. Perhaps some anxiety medication, or a therapist referral can help you out. If not, HelloBee is here to be a sounding board!

I think we've talked about this before, but I wanted to share again that I used to be someone who would replay possible, future situations in my head a lot (I still do it , but I'm trying hard not to) because I thought that it would prepare me to deal with whatever bad outcome there would be. And then a therapist told me that I was basically traumatizing my brain every time I pictured some horrible scenario. It helped me to reframe my behavior/thoughts from something that I thought was relatively healthy to something that was very unhealthy. I still have some intrusive thoughts and picturing negative outcomes, but I try really hard to manage them and see them for the unhealthy patterns that they are.

@CatchAFallingStar: I have watched other parents go through this with their children having cancer. They do it because they have to, there is no other option. It's messy, it's exhausting, it's terrifying, and it's heartbreaking. I know you didn't say cancer specifically, but with cancer and I imagine other illnesses, their lives are never ever the same even if/when they've survived. Sorry to be a downer. I think family, friends, and faith will get you through, but if we are talking about serious life threatening illnesses, I honestly don't think there are a lot of things worse than a child suffering like that, fighting for their lives every single day.

@CatchAFallingStar: I know you've struggled with things in the past too so I imagine there might be some connections there. I get major anxiety ironically around minor illnesses. I spent all of last winter, before Covid, freaking out about the flu. No idea why, it just plagued me constantly, even though we've all had the flu before and it was all fine. I remember reading a local story about a 16 year old girl who died of the flu unexpectedly (though I now wonder if it was the flu, because it was around mid-late February), and I lost it for days. I couldn't sleep, I wouldn't take my daughter out anywhere, I was a mess. Something that helps me deal personally (though my therapist says this can actually make the anxiety worse but it does help me) is working through a plan in writing. Like for Covid, I wrote out what to pack in a hospital bag, what documents to share, how to set up an isolation room if someone got sick, etc. Preparedness helps me in dealing with some of the less serious stuff. Weirdly I never worried about the big things because it just seems like you can't prepare for any of that, but I tell myself I can somehow control the flu.