I am a mother of 2 kids, 5 yr old boy who has progressive profound bilateral hearing loss and is also diagnosed with mitochondrial disorder & a typically developing (though developmentally delayed ) 20 months old daughter. She is too young to communicate her feelings but she can show it, she adores her brother – in the morning when he is getting ready to go to school, she will go and fetch his hearing aid container, get his glasses and sometimes even takes out his shoes for him to wear. She will do anything to appease him, but yet gets fiercsely competitive with my son for my attention. Every day, when I choose to go out for therapies with my son, my heart dies a little, because I can see the sadness in her eyes- she didnot choose this, but I make a choice everytime I do it. I totally relate when you say -  “But the reality of life in our home was a hard one to survive in. Everything we did, we did for Chris. He needed so much, so much time, teaching, therapy and love. Whatever we salvaged emotionally was left for my daughter to pick at. Our home life seemed to have an ever present open wound. Jessica was left on her own to heal.”