If You Only Knew the Mountain that Was Moving Before Your Eyes

"It's her first day back to full days," I told the group of moms standing by the flagpole waiting to pick their elementary schoolers up, knowing two out of three of them had no idea what that really meant or what a big deal that was.

For months, our lives had been hijacked by her medical issues...her life hijacked worst of all. The past three months the doctors had her go for half days only because her little body couldn't handle the energy exertion and trying to be "on" all day while she was having so much pain. She needed weekly IVs and a bunch of lab tests run and rerun to see if she needed to be sent to a bigger hospital like the Mayo Clinic. She needed to take about 19 pills a day, a couple of them medications, and others which were supplements and minerals to help with the weight loss and bone loss that were side effects of the medication. She spent most of her afternoons at home resting, taking pills, and eating a ton to try to gain the lost weight back.

But one of the moms standing there knew that. She said, "it must have gone well if the school didn't call you!" She remembered that even before the three months of planned half days, there were five months where I would get calls anywhere from a half hour into the day to three hours in, from the school nurse telling me our daughter's pain was so bad she'd spiked a fever, and could I please come pick her up, and that she was so sorry to have to call again and again. I hated the look of defeat on my daughter's face every day that her body didn't make it through the day. That was actually part of the reason the doctors changed her to planned half days...if she couldn't physically make it through the day anyway, why not make it a victory to reach her goal of going at all, and let her feel good about leaving at lunch instead of feeling like that was a failure? It was brilliant, and as her body got stronger she started begging to go full days again, and to show us and the doctors that she really could handle it now.

I watched her teacher lead her class toward the flagpole, holding tightly onto our sweet girl's hand. She still looked so small, thin and still sickly in some ways...I had a moment of just wishing so desperately that she could look like a normal elementary school kid again. I wonder if the other kids notice that she looks different from them and ever make fun of her about it. From what she describes, I don't think they do, because the teacher has set them up so well to be on her team....she's been nothing sort of a saint. But I know she'd give anything to look normal again, less gaunt and with all her hair grown back in, and I can't wait for her to reach that point.

Her teacher gave me a thumbs up and told me she'd had a really good day, and then sweet girl grabbed my hand tightly and whispered about her day all the way to the car. "The class cheered when the teacher told them I got to stay!" Oh, my heart....

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