The trauma of a sick sibling

A sick child affects the whole family, writes Helen O’Callaghan

WHEN Susan and Colin Daly’s daughter, Olivia, now 7, was having surgery in a London hospital two years ago, Susan didn’t see her son, Christian, for nine weeks.

“I spoke to him on the phone, but I couldn’t video call him, I’d have been crying. I couldn’t let him see me like that,” says Susan. Her family was “carved down the middle”: She was in London with Olivia and Colin and the then nine-year-old Christian was at home in Carrigaline.