Siblings snuggle on the hospital bed.
Well, okay, maybe my children aren’t perfect. Maybe they fight and argue, and maybe when Karina confessed to pinching Andrew when asked why he had those bruises, I believed her! Poor thing, we didn’t know the bruises were actually from cancer.
Both girls were there when Andrew cried bloody tears, and both girls experienced the shock of a cancer diagnosis, when anemia or just about anything else was expected. But no matter how you look at it, Andrew is still the little brother and, well, let’s face it—he can be obnoxious sometimes. But it sort of evens out in the end, because Larissa can be a little bossy and Karina can be just a tad whiny!
But you know what? Maybe my children are pretty cool, too. Maybe they fight, but they also stick up for each other at times, and the girls’ ability to put up with this whole leukemia situation has been pretty amazing.
Three days after diagnosis, we were already sick of the hospital and Andrew was thoroughly missing his sisters, although he wasn’t quite ready to admit it. Whenever I talked to them on the phone, though, he would struggle up and hold out his hand for the phone.
That evening I held the phone up to Andrew’s ear because both his hands and arms were sore from needles and/or filled with tubes. He told them all about his “pokes” and how it didn’t seem fair, but he was OK. He described to them the “squeeze thing” (blood pressure cuff) that “really hurts, but doesn’t REALLY hurt.” Suddenly I saw his face light up. He closed his eyes as though savoring the best ice cream in the whole world, sighed gently, smiled and said softly into the phone, “I love you, too.”
This week I’m linking up with Kirsten Oliphant and friends for story time. If you’d like to join us in crafting a story each week, or even occasionally, click here.
