Elisabeth's mother with the support of Rita Sharma

As an anaesthetist, the skewed population that I see professionally could lead me to misinterpret symptoms in myself or my family and leap to conclusions about their cause. I find it particularly difficult to decide when to seek medical advice for my daughter.

When she was first unwell we thought it was just another viral illness caught from nursery. Thefrequency (once or twice a month) of her rashes, temperatures, or episodes of conjunctivitis meantthat their main implication had become the stressful decision about who would have to take a day off work, letting down either several classes of children or an operating …