And there are other ways that sickness can emerge.

It's easy for me to think about myself, the chemo, the effects on my body and availability of communication, my nausea, my exhaustion.  Every two weeks I have this experience that is tricky because of how it operates--makes me ridiculously exhausted as well as needing to be filled up with various kinds of anti-nausea drugs.  After the chemo day, I have at least two days when I'm wiped out and unable to drag myself into coherence.

She's trying to be happy in the picture
with Christy.  But damn, this is NOT
Maybelle with a happy expression.

But five days before my chemo experience was in gear, we had to take Maybelle to the MUSC children's ER.  She had developed the step beyond pneumonia.  I could look up the name of this sickness, but I don't really care:  it means that her breathing wasn't working.  She couldn't breathe enough to fill her body.  At one point she required 70 percent of her oxygen provided--typically, the human body has 20 percent.

Maybelle stayed in the children's hospitals for six days.  Initially they'd her in the basic children's situation, but in the second day they moved her up to the next-to-last most important section of the children's hospital.  At that point she was connected to wires, and her machine observed her oxygen all the time, putting oxygen and liquid into her.  She screamed and cried.  She was uncomfortable and couldn't be made comfortable.

We had a powerful group who was carrying this challenging, difficult time for Maybelle.  I'm now going to offer gratitude for some of the work people have done with Maybelle.  If you'd rather not read this, then now's the time to quit reading. For those of you who care to go on:  Maybelle had loads of family vibes sending to her.  But even more helpful was the fact that Maybelle was surrounded by people who were right there with her.  Brian was crucial to me.  Walter and Karen were there.  Claire, Cindi and Lily, Conseula.  Amanda, Anthony, Chantelle.  Maybelle's principal and one of her teachers.  And of course Christy and Patricia, who were there for this process, getting food, taking care of Maybelle in and out of of the hospital.

I was reeling from chemo.  Maybelle was
reeling from having been a week in the
hospital.  And here we were--finally.

 The amount they did as they process was 1) a recovering child, 2) with a mother who wasn't fully functional, 3) when a partner was working 14 hours a day for a (terribly timed) particular professional week.

Rough, people.  

Maybelle is home, and she's so happy that we're trying to keep her energy level low so that she can go to Nativity School on Monday.  My body has been under a lot of stress for the last eight days, so I'm not at 100%, but it doesn't matter.  Maybelle is here.