Somewhere in the beginning

The past couple of days have been hard….probably some of the hardest so far. McKaylee has had a really rough time with this round of Chemotherapy drugs. They gave her a cocktail of three different Chemo’s this past weekend and it really rendered havoc on her little body. She threw up almost the entire day on Sunday in spite of all the anti-nausea medicine they were pumping her full of. She’s never really been sick before so having to watch her struggle through the day was heart-wrenching for me. The sympathy and compassion that I feel for her in my heart is almost unbearable. I would do anything to relieve her from this suffering…..it’s just almost too hard to watch. One of the drugs, called Cisplatin, made it hard for her to walk for a couple of days and that seemed to frustrate her even further. It’s weird because sometimes I forget that she even has a brain tumor, I guess I’m so caught up in her current Chemo treatments and all the side effects they bring that I actually forget (momentarily) why we’re in all this mess to begin with. I feel so helpless in this situation. It seems so horrible for her to have to spend so much time in the hospital, constantly being poked at and messed with. All I want is for her to enjoy her little life, to run and play like other children, to experience the world around her…..I guess it makes me incredibly sad that she can’t do all those things right now. What’s even sadder is that she doesn’t even care. I know that sounds weird, but it’s like she just adapts to whatever we’re doing, wherever we are. Like when we’re stuck on the second floor of the hospital during her treatments, instead of becoming fussy and irritable that she can’t go outside and play like she wants to, she just makes light of it. She’ll make her “rounds” from nurses’ station to nurses’ station, waving at everyone and putting on a show for them…..it’s so sweet. Even when she’s being dragged from appointment to appointment during the week, she still keeps a smile on her face and always makes sure to entertain everyone around her. I have learned so much from her in this situation. I think all too often when life doesn’t go our way, we whine and complain and kick our feet, then here’s this little girl whose life couldn’t be harder and she never lets it get her down. How incredible is that? And that’s why these past few days have been so hard, it’s the first time throughout this process that I’ve really seen her spirit fade. You can see it in her eyes that she’s miserable. She’s really fatigued, has lost her appetite, and gets sick to her stomach sometimes. It’s so sad because as sick as she might feel, every time we pass someone in the hallway, she’ll have her little hand just a waving at them, constantly blowing kisses at everyone. Her patience astounds me, her spirit humbles me, her will to fight amazes me. She has been through so much and yet she just keeps on going and with a smile on her face, at that. I used to wonder why God allowed this in her life, how He could allow this precious little girl to have to journey through so much pain. But I don’t look at it that way anymore. For now I feel unbelievably blessed to be able to stand by this angel as she battles for her life. I learn something from her everyday, life lessons that I will carry with me forever. Christ has used her to change my life in a way I could have never imagined. There’s been some days here lately where my heart felt like it was going to explode, all of this just seems so ridiculously unfair for her. But then I know God is there beside us each and every step of the way, constantly looking out for us at every turn. As this gets harder and harder, I just can’t help but wonder if I will go home from here with her in my arms or with her in my heart. And it’s those times of almost extreme depression that I remember to just cherish the moments I have with her right now, without worrying about what might lie ahead in the future. After all, a story wouldn’t be a story without the beginning, the middle and all the little parts in between…the ending is just the culmination of all the things we’ve already experienced and the closure it brings. So I think I’ll just hang around here somewhere in the beginning of her story…..not worrying about what the next page might read. After all, at least for right now, I’m still holding her in my heart and in my arms.