- It's Christmas Eve, 2005.

I am driving over the Charles River, leaving Cambridge, Massachusetts, heading to my home in Newton.

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas is playing on the radio.

And I'm crying so hard, it's difficult to see the road.

I've just left the hospital where my husband has been for over a month, and the life we've built together over the last six years is on hold.

That life started in the spring of 2000 when we both met through one of those early dating websites.

The fact that both our profiles said we wanted kids was part of the mutual attraction.

Although over the years, as those kids have given us trouble, I tell him when I said kids, I meant baby goats.

I met my future husband at a little cafe in the south end of Boston called, wait for it, the Garden of Eden.

When Jim and I sat down to eat, I noticed he was on a cane and I said, "Did you have an accident?"

He said, "I had a spinal cord injury in college in a body surfing accident."

The matter of fact way he told me this was my first insight into how strong a man he was.

It's May 2001.

We're flying to Greece.

We're going to exchange our rings and our vows to just each other on the island of Santorini.

We go out to one of the patios of the hotel overlooking the Aegean Sea.

We hold each other's hands.

We start to exchange our vows as the sun sets.

We have dinner on the hotel terrace.

It's a picture perfect evening right up until Jim starts throwing up from food poisoning.

It's November 2001.

We're starting the process to adopt our first child.

May of 2002, Mother's Day, we get a call from a birth mother.

She wants to talk to us.

We speak with her for about 45 minutes, at the end of which she says, "I want you guys to raise this baby.

We're blown away."

And in December of 2002, we welcome Joshua Hugh Noonan Sloan into the world.

We are there to cut the umbilical cord.

Joshua very quickly becomes our life.

It's November 4th, 2005.

I'm at work.

Jim calls me and says, "I need you to come home early tonight."

I said, "Why?"

He said, "In a strangely calm voice, I've fallen down our basement steps and I can't get up."

I take a deep breath.

I tell him to call 911 and then I'm on my way home.

I drive home as fast as I legally can.

Worst case scenarios are rolling through my head.

By the time I pull into the driveway, I feel like I'm prepared for whatever's going to wait for me inside.

But what I see inside is my husband sitting at the counter while the paramedic is pulling our dinner brisket out of the oven.

I'm not sure whether to hug him or hit him.

He seems fine, but this is actually the start of one of the most difficult periods in our marriage.

Following Thursday, I come home from work and I notice something is wrong.

He's having a lot of trouble moving around.

About 2:00 AM, he wakes me up and says, "I'm having trouble breathing."

I bolt out of bed.

I get dressed.

I throw him in a fireman's carry.

I take him downstairs to our car.

Our mothers happen to be visiting, so Josh was taken care of.

I drive as fast as I can the few miles down the road to Brigham and Women's Hospital.

I race him into the emergency room.

I am desperately trying not to panic, but he is fading away right in front of me.

A spinal tap reveals that he has Guillain-Barre syndrome.

GBS, the effects of which can be as mild as tingling in your extremities that may last a few days or as severe as complete total temporary paralysis that can last for months.

For the second time in his life, my husband's paralyzed.

The next time I see him, he has a breathing tube in his neck and a machine is breathing for him.

He can barely move his eyes and his lips.

He spends the next few weeks in the ICU and my life becomes a cycle of work, hospital, and home.

Jim's been the driving force in our relationship from the day we met, and I am a single dad completely lost without him.

I am trying not to give in to the sadness and despair and loneliness I feel.

We make it to the new year.

My mother comes up to help us with Joshua and Joshua every day asks me about Jim, Abba, which is Hebrew for father.

"When is Abba coming home?

When can I see Abba?

"And every time he asks, it's like a knife in my heart.

Finally, Jim and I agree that he's recovered enough where Joshua can probably handle a visit.

So early in February, Joshua and I head to the hospital.

We get on board one of the large hospital elevators to go to his floor and he says," Why are there two doors front and back?

"I have a bit of a twisted mind, so without hesitating, I say," Well, Joshua, that's where they keep the dragons.

They use the fire breathing dragons to heat the hospital.

"He never takes his eye off that door every time we visit, and he holds my hand very tightly.

On this visit, this first visit, we walk into Jim's hospital room.

His bed is perpendicular to the door, and Joshua grips my hand a little bit tighter.

He can hear the breathing machine.

He can smell the antiseptic.

I'm worried Joshua won't recognize Jim because he's lost so much weight.

Jim turns his head ever so slightly and looks at us.

At that, Joshua breaks from my hand, runs over the bed, puts his hand in Josh Jim's and says," Abba, when are you coming home?

"The effect on my husband is immediate tears stream down his face.

His mouth is open in a silent wail.

He desperately wants to hold our son, but he can't.

Our friend Pam happened to be visiting, so I ask her to take Joshua down to the cafeteria for a treat.

I sit by my husband, I hold his hand, and we both let the tears flow.

There are going to be a lot more challenges over the next few months, but this is our low point.

By May of 2006, Jim's recovered enough to come home.

So Joshua and I get in the car, drive over to the hospital, get on board the elevator as we've done dozens of times at this point.

But this time, the rear door, the dragon door starts to open.

I didn't think it possible for a three-year-old to move as fast or jump as high as he does, but he's in my arms before I know what's happening.

The door opens and an orderly pushing a bed through comes in.

Joshua looks confused and actually I think a little disappointed that there weren't dragons.

He looks at me and smiles.

This little game was one of many we had that helped get us through.

We take Abba home and over the next year or so, he makes a near full recovery.

That night in Santorini, when I held his hand and I said, "For better or for worse," I didn't know what worse could be.

I do now.

And I also know that no matter how worse it gets, the bonds we formed as a family during that time will see us through.

Thank you.