How's your baby doing?

I’m not quite sure what to say when someone asks how Talitha is doing?

Used to be the “hi, how are you?” followed by the “fine, how are you?” was standard greeting fare.

That doesn’t really work now.

Talitha’s not doing fine. She has cancer. And you fight this kind of cancer with dangerous poisons carefully labeled and handled with special gloves.

Today was hard for Audrey because there was a loud and wailing teenager in the room next door that just couldn’t be consoled. Earlier in the day this teenage girl received a dose of the now familiar Methotrexate and was in so much pain she kept asking for morphine. But it was more than pain, I’m sure. Fighting discouragement, and nausea, and ‘why-me-ness’ can just really add up and overwhelm. Most of the children at the PCMC are able to cope better than today’s neighbor did but it makes us wonder what Talitha is really feeling because she can’t verbalize most of what is happening in her life.

Is she in greater pain than what she shows? Is her pain threshold really that high? Is she being spared some of the pain because of the many people praying for her? Is it a little of both or something else?

We just don’t know.

And that’s what’s so hard about this journey. We’ve never done it before. We don’t really know what Talitha’s going through. And we don’t know what the outcome will be.

There’s a framed sign on our kitchen wall given to us by Brent and Julie Davis who have a granddaughter also fighting a brain tumor. It says:

“Faith makes things possible…not easy.”

That sign has been there for several years but my comprehension of its message is brand new. We’ve had to let go and trust that Talitha is in His hands. And if that ‘s the case, then come what may, she’s in the best possible hands and is therefore susceptible to the best possible outcome—whatever that outcome becomes.

How’s your baby doing?

She’s not fine but she’s doing great.