There Are Many Who Are Worse Off

I have met many family members here in ICS (Immunocompromised Unit). Let me share some of their stories. . .

We met a darling 20 month old girl in the toy nook awhile back, she and Erin worked on sharing toys. Her mother told me that her daughter had been diagnosed at 3 months old with a rare genetic blood disorder. Her baby has been in a hospital almost her entire life. She has done 2 different sets of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. They were back in ICS because of complications with the transplant. We talked so much about how her daughter hasn't had a normal life, how she has spent almost all of her life in a hospital, she doesn't have siblings and she has had very little contact with other children. Talking to this mother made me so thankful that Erin has been able to live almost 2 years of her life enjoying life as a normal 2 year old should.

Just the other day I met a couple who had an 11 year old daughter who has a tumor the size of a baseball in her knee, and some small tumors in her lungs. They said that she complained of pain in her knee, but they sent her to school anyway. After school her friends had to carry her off the bus because she couldn't walk, they took her to the ER and found the tumor in an x-ray. They told me that since she'd been on chemo that the tumors in her lungs had shrunk considerably. They were such happy positive people and they were very friendly. I was in awe by their positive example.

I met a mother who delivered her baby at 27 weeks old. She was rushed to the NICU where they found out that her liver didn't work. Her baby is now 11 months old and just recuperating from a liver transplant. This little angel has lived her entire life in a hospital.

I met a father who has a little boy here. For two months they thought that he had Mono until they took him to the ER because he was just so sick. The doctors wanted to send them back home with a prescription for Tylenol, but the father insisted they do a CAT scan. They went ahead and honored his request. They found a tumor between the little boys eyes that also goes back into his brain. He was life flighted from Montana (their home) to Primary Children's. They have been here since May and have only been home for 5 days.

As I talk to the parents here I have come to realize that we really have it pretty easy compared to the trials others around us are facing. Sometimes I look at someone and I think, "I could never have that trial." And sometimes I look at my life and I think, "this trial isn't so bad." We are given what we can each individually handle and our trials are uniquely our own. We cannot pass them on to someone else and we cannot pretend they are there. We have too look them straight in the face and conquer them with whatever it may take to conquer them.