A Mother's Cry

We finally had a nice boring day with Declan. Our assignment as given by the doctor was to work on his sucking skills because he hasn't had a bottle since birth. All of his nutrition  has come through IV. He has started his feeding tube but we are hopeful to start bottles in the next few days or so. But throughout the day he remained stable and lasted the day without an SVT episode. We also had a special treat with Grandma and Grandpa bringing Acadia and Britta in to see Declan. I love hearing their hushed tones when they see him and lovingly stare at him

Earlier today I was reminded that I have so many things to be thankful for. I've been running a fellow "PICU resident" (father of a patient) wandering around the hospital floor for the past few days. Whenever I see him he's had a look of hurt in his eyes. So yesterday I tried to strike up a conversation with him. I learned through his broken English that his 17 year old daughter was just diagnosed with Leukemia. Well today Tammy and I saw him and his family in tears, and then heard his wife wailing uncontrollably. The sound was deafening to our emotions; it was a mother's cry for her daughter. I learned that his daughter had very serious internal bleeding which spread to her lungs and things had taken a nasty turn for the worse.  The family was not very hopeful. I don'k know Spanish, but understood enough to piece together,, "why". I felt helpless to do anything other than place my hand on the father's shoulder and let him know we would be praying for them.

The interaction caused me to take a pause at our situation. I think that sometimes I (or we) forget there is always somebody out there whose problems are worse than our own. So many people hurting out there we are not aware of. So many things to be grateful for in our circumstances - we just have to learn to recognize and appreciate each and every small victory and special moment!