Reminders

It's 4:30am. Henry's been up and down all night with stomach pain. He's been irrationally insisting on a wagon ride for the last 10 minutes. The nurse came in to draw some blood. I decided I needed a break - and some food. I sat down on the couch in the parents lounge while I waited for some leftovers to reheat. 'This is the most uncomfortable couch I have ever sat on', I think.

We're surrounded here by reminders of just how serious this whole business is. Monitors, nurses, medicines - these become routine. But when you see a child on a wheelchair going to the elevator for a test or kids playing in the playroom with their masks on, or the black and white pictures of hairless children on the walls, or the buzzing in the halls that indicates a child's oxygen isn't what it should be, or wondering how many kids have been in the same bed that yours is, the screams of the kids getting treatments like NG tubes or spinal taps or some other torture - all of these things remind you of the seriousness of childhood cancer.

I glance up to a sign next to the uncomfortable couch.

Furniture donated
in Memory of
Vincent
and All of the Beautiful
Brave Children Who Have
Fought the Fight