Caring for a child with a chronic illness can be a challenge of the tallest order. It requires us to stretch ourselves physically, financially, emotionally, and mentally and it is in that stretching that we often discover strengths that we did not know we possessed. The great thing about this discovery is that these strengths become part of our permanent collection of tools or resources that we can access in other situations. We are now stronger by virtue of that stretching.

Sometimes this new...