The Day the World Turned Upside Down AGAIN

[saw]

I told the doctor he must be out of his mind, that he had obviously made some kind of mistake. My mind was having no part of this happening a second time and besides, healthy six year old girls don't get leukemia...but the TESTS, the tests, the tests, they confirm it, and there is no time for packing, we must go at once.... There will be time later to gather the necessary assortment of clothing and stuffed animals.... But Now, Right now my wife and I wil live apart, one home with the healthy child, and one here at the hospital, alternating so each kid can have a piece of us, a slice of our old life.... And the chemo is already dripping and there is no time for second opinions, so we plunge our faith into the hands of strangers, and the prayers commence. Even from a heathen like me, and I ask the heavens for help to put on a confidant face, a happy face that brings birthday and Christmas presents to the room on the fourth floor where the little girl is clearly much braver than I.... she doesn't want to disappoint, so she forces a smile, speaks the right words with the maturity of an old soul and vomits into the plastic basin.
It's 3:15 am and we roll the IV pole into the sterile bathroom, and my daughter says "Daddy, I wish there was no such thing as cancer"....and I reply, "me too honey, me too."

[justwalt]

speechless now,
but I know how to pray

[saw]

happily I can report my daughter just turned 19....I also have a 36 year old son that had leukemia when he was 15, who is still here and owns a restaurant here in Baltimore called Maggie's Farm....my daughter needed a bone marrow transplant and my youngest son who is now 21, was a sibling match, and so they were all pulled into this....one of the more surreal things in my life was seeing my daughter hooked to an IV pole in room 105, and my son hooked up to an IV pole in room 106....I could never see it as reality....not then, or now

I wrote the little story from notes I took in the hospital....the exchange between my daughter and I, is verbatim

[justwalt]

humans are amazing sometimes
hope all goes well from here
keep on truckin' man

[judih]

after a few years, even surreal experience becomes tamed by words
something to sit down and look at, listen to, share
the past can't shake its lifeform, yet here we all are, currently in awe

i think i'll listen to dylan

[sooZen]

Saw... funny (or not so) how lives intersect... Welcome to my Tribe. Without my journals and notes, if would all be a blur...

[justwalt]