A memory

During Interim Maintenance Sadie struggled with awful mucusitis and mouth sores.  She couldn't eat, or swallow so the saliva just streamed out.  She would gag on mucus when she cried.  She was miserable and would spend a few days mostly in her bed with her blankie and binkies or on my lap watching a show.

These were not fun days.  I just wanted to make the pain go away, and nothing seemed to work.  During the third round, it got the worst.  Oxycodine wasn't even taking the pain away, and she was losing weight quickly because she wouldn't eat. 

During these days, she still needed to take her Mercaptopurine chemo which is a pill form that we crush up, mix in some water and give to her orally with a syringe.  She has to take it on an empty stomach, so 2 hours after eating and then she can't eat anything for 30 minutes afterwards. And it has to be given in the evening. We've found what works best is to put her to bed with her bottle, wait 2 hours, then wake her up to give her this medicine and she goes right back to sleep. 

On one particularly rough day, I had to wake her up to give her this medicine.  Dave was still at work.  It had been a long and emotionally exhausting day.  I woke Sadie up and held her in my arms.  She immediately knew what was coming and kicked and screamed and started hitting and fighting.  She did NOT want to take her medicine.  "I know Sadie, but you have to take it."  "Just swallow it then you can go back to sleep."  I was holding it together amongst her abuse and fighting until I just couldn't take it anymore.  I broke down.  I started crying.  "Sadie, I don't want to give this to you either."  I just sobbed.  All I wanted to do was make it better and this medicine was only going to poison her further.  How much could a little body take?

Sweet little Sadie noticed I was crying.  She stopped hitting and screaming and looked at me.  Then she wiped away my tears with her hand and said, "It's okay mommy, it's okay.  Here I can do it."  And she took the medicine and squirted it in her mouth.

Funny, here I was being comforted by the cancer patient.  She is such a sweetheart.