Rock On

I hear crying from her room. It carries around the corner, down the hall, and directly to me. I go to her, crawl into her bed, and scoop her into my lap. Her fever is breaking; she is hot and sticky. Blood pumps into her from a bag through a tube tunneled into her heart. Tears pour out from her squinted eyes, drip down her face, and puddle into my shirt, just above my heart. I rock back and forth, a metronome, and hum something quietly into her ear until her moaning subsides. And even then, I rock on.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

This poor girl's head is a mess. Squares of thick braids hold on by a strand or two, surrounded by bald patches. She has been holding on to those braids like they're her last link to normal. I tell her the braids look like they're ready to go. She agrees to let me help. I find myself pulling out the remaining wisps of hair, which come out in clumps in my hand. I don't know what I'm doing. I am better at drawing blood cultures or giving chemo or infusing platelets than I am at doing this. But she doesn't need cultures or chemo or platelets right now. Right now she needs someone to transition her from balding to bald. So I do.

Diva

In the middle of the night I take the elevator up one floor to the intensive care unit, holding a little chemo cooler and a folder marked last name, first. Her room is sleeping, quiet and dark. Tubes breathe for her, taped heavily to the corner of her mouth. Tubes feed her, curved into her nose. I smile as I notice the two puffs of hair on her head that make her look just like Minnie Mouse. I adjust what needs adjusting, give her chemo, and retrace my steps back to the elevator, empty chemo cooler and a folder in hand. Several weeks later I was confused when I saw a bald child sauntering down the hall in a pink robe- DIVA scrawled in rhinestones across the back- enter my little Minnie's room. Then I realized she was my little Minne, just without her hair. Minnie without her ears, but with all her diva.

All About Me

She spends the evening with colored pencils and paper. When she finishes, she tapes it to her door. The paper is divided equally into four parts. In each corner, she has written about herself:

I am a girl.
I have parents.
I want to be a doctor.
I want to get better.

The simplicity of this makes me ache.

Balancing Act

He's 23 months old. His eyes squint and his nose wrinkles as he smirks up at me from underneath his mop of dark black hair. He's perfect. He has myofibroma - a benign tumor in his right arm. Two days ago he had his right arm amputated at the shoulder. The suture line where the arm used to be is impressive: purple and blue and healing. He sits crookedly in his crib, unable to get his balance quite right, as he searches with his left hand for an arm that isn't there. And his nose still wrinkles as he smirks up at me. And he is perfect. Still. And he will find his balance, I am sure.

Ins and Outs

This little girl is two. She’s the kind that melts your heart. She’s very, very sick. Her chemotherapy is causing sores from one end to the other. She has sores in her in her mouth, down her throat, and across her entire bottom. Open, excoriated, necrotic. Bleeding red and black. I have never seen anything like this. I’m easing her into a warm bath. She’s squirming and wincing, shaking her head and crying no, no, no. I hate myself right now, that I have to do this. Because I have nothing else to offer, I hand her a plastic cup to splash around with. She takes it and she smiles up at me. All teeth and dimples. And for a minute I can’t breathe. Because I don’t deserve that smile right now and she’s giving it to me anyway.

Cinnamon, Spice, and Everything Nice

She runs right into me. "I was cooking!" she squeaks. "Cinnamon sugar sticks!" the words melt together, sticky and sweet.
I lean in toward her and inhale, "Mmm...you smell like cinnamon." She squeals in delight.
"You smell like chocolate," she tells me.
"I do?" I smile and tilt my head.
"No." She presses her little face into my shirt and rethinks. "You smell like oatmeal."
"Really?" I ask, thinking oatmeal's not a bad thing to smell like. Oatmeal smells nice and warm. Oatmeal smells like home.
"Maybe there's chocolate in your brain?" she giggles.
"In my brain?" I tease, "I would sure have to love chocolate a lot for it to be in my brain!"
"Maybe there's chocolate in your nose?" She can't stop laughing.
"My nose?! Why would there be chocolate in my nose?!"
"Guess what's in my nose?" she asks.
"I don't know. What's in your nose?"
She climbs into my lap, cups her hands around her mouth, and leans in to my ear to whisper "boogers" before rolling on the floor with laughter. And it's is sticky and sweet and nice and warm.