COUNSELLING IN MILTON, STOKE-ON-TRENT

Not every weekend starts with pancakes and cartoons.

Sometimes, Saturdays look like hospital corridors, appointment letters, and waiting rooms. 

When you’re raising a child with medical conditions, hospital visits become part of the rhythm of life. Some are planned. Others arrive with no warning. Either way, they carry weight, emotional, physical, and sometimes even spiritual.

This Saturday, we had an appointment.

And as we arrived,right there in front of the hospital, I saw it again.

The crane.

Tall, still, and oddly familiar. I felt a strange sense of comfort. Like it was quietly saying, “You’re back. You’ve done this before. You can do it again.”

It was seeing the crane that sparked something in me, a moment of reflection I didn’t expect.

We walked past the dinosaurs outside the children’s wing, just like we’ve done for years, and it hit me:

Eight years. We’ve been doing this for eight years.

And in that moment, there was no panic. No overwhelm. Just… presence. Gratitude, even.

Because seeing that crane reminded me of one memory I’ll never forget, the day of my son’s third surgery, while I was waiting for him, I looked out the window, nerves twisted in my stomach, I spotted a man climbing the crane.

He moved slowly but surely, steady, calm, purposeful.

Something about that image stuck with me. It became my symbol of strength and resilience. The kind that doesn’t roar. The kind that simply keeps going.

Now, every time I see a crane outside the hospital, and oddly, there almost always seems to be one, it feels like a quiet message from the universe:

Look how far you’ve come.

Look how strong you are.

So yes, sometimes Saturdays look like hospital visits.

But they also look like milestones.

They look like strength, and survival, and quiet rituals, like walking past the same statues and noticing the same signs.

And sometimes, they look like cranes, tall, still reminders that we are doing this. That we can do this.

 

💜If you’re a parent walking this road too, I see you. It’s exhausting, and it’s beautiful, and it can feel so incredibly heavy.

But there’s strength in sharing the load. That’s why I offer counselling — especially for mothers navigating medical journeys, emotional overwhelm, and everything in between.

You don’t have to carry it all alone.

☀️ Book a free consultation with me via my website or feel free to contact me directly

© 2025 Relight Counselling / Danielle Knall. All rights reserved.