Sick Kids gives out “bravery beads” to its pint-sized patients.

Red beads for needles, yellow for admittance, green for an IV, orange for a scan, white for chemo, a lion-headed bead for a surgery, purple for a spinal tap, and so on and so on. Dozens of colours and designs, each representing a health hurdle.

Michael Gomes, 8, has 352 beads.

“He’s my brave bro,” whispers his sister Michaela, who is 5.

The Gomes and I are in a quiet corner of Variety Village. Michael is in his wheelchair.

Those beads are hard-earned.

It started in the spring of last year, on a holiday in Cuba with their mom, Ariel Gomes, a kindergarten teacher in Peel Region.

They frolicked on the bleach-white beaches of Cayo Coco. They chased fish. A crab chased Michaela. Her big brother was fit as a fiddle, already d

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