Wanderings

I always find people's flight stories boring. "We were headed for Kansas City but then there were tornadoes there so they re-routed us to Chicago" yada yada. Until they happen to me. Oh my. Then they're like juicy gossip and everyone ought to sit there with their mouths in a perfect O, listening and exclaiming.

I got to Chicago ok today knowing I'd have to wait 3 hours before going on to Charlotte, North Carolina. Ok fine. Bought expensive food, worked on computer. (Note: you all need to fly to Portland sometime and experience buying food in restaurants/fast food places for the same price that they charge in their non-airport facilities.)

O'Hare is a dirty, humid, busy airport. At one place there were these big tall white columns like airports have, but the top half of them was taken away for some reason, revealing that they were actually just white decorative tubes around a bunch of pipes and wires. . .and these pipes and wires looked rusty, crusty, caked with awful things, and downright dangerous, like they were going to crumble away any minute now.

Meanwhile in the restrooms they had these cool new inventions, the only redeeming factor at O'Hare--there was this tube of clear plastic around the U of the toilet seat. You wave your hand in front of the little green light, and ZZEEEEEEP! the germy tube gets sucked into one end of the U while pulling behind it a clean section. But trust me, don't go to O'Hare just to see this, because the toilet flushes on its own with great ferocity every thirty seconds as well, a frightening experience.

Oh yeah, my schedule and stuff. So there were thunderstorms around the Midwest and more and more flights were being delayed. And after two delays they said our flight to Charlotte was cancelled. What a sick feeling.

Everyone else scampered to the desks to change their tickets and I followed with a heavy heart, meanwhile calling Paul and Amy to pray for me. And of all the miraculous answers, the airline lady was able to send me on a flight to Greenville, and Greenville is way closer to Amy than Charlotte anyway, and Amy was already in Greenville with her friend Esther. And then it was a small plane, three seats wide, my favorite, so I was a happy traveller again.

So Amy the dear daughter picked me up (but not my suitcase because it got sent to Charlotte )and we talked with great speed all the way to Due West and Erskine College where the convention is, and I have completely fallen in love with this campus. It's like something out of Anne of Green Gables going to Queens. We're staying in the women's dorms, a 3 story white brick building with a large porch on the front with southern rocking chairs here and there, and inside are high ceilings and tall windows and elegant furniture and a parlor and a sitting room and two wide white open staircases turning upward, and you can just see Gilbert nervously waiting on one of the elegant settees while the matron watches with an eagle eye and Anne comes dreamily down the stairs in her new taffeta gown and he gives her a box with flowers and she pins them on and they walk across the Quad to the cotillion.

Yes, well. This is what's actually on my mind: I took Emily in for a blood draw a couple of weeks ago to be re-tested for food allergies like she was 6 years ago, and found out mere hours before I left that they couldn't do the test because her white blood cells were dying off way faster than white blood cells ought to die off.

Now does that sound ominous or what?

I managed to get hold of the doctor before I left, and he tried to keep me from freaking out, but said yes it's cause for concern and we need to look into it a lot further.

Best case: someone made a mistake with the blood draw. Worst case: some horrible form of leukemia or a blood disorder. In between: something to do with West Nile. Something fixable that will restore her to good health. Who knows, maybe she'll be the textbook case, helping the medical world discover the link between WNF and idiolymphocyticatrophy. (I made up that word).

So today I was on the plane and the woman next to me was a wise and Godly grandmother whose son is dying of cancer. So I told her about Emily because I knew she'd understand. And she re-affirmed that prayer is the key to all of us getting through this and was so nice and just what I needed that of course I started crying, which is what I do whenever someone truly empathizes.

Speaking of which, a number of very kind and well-meaning people have hinted/suggested/implied/insisted that Emily's health issues are due to emotional/spiritual issues. And if she would talk more about things/quit reading fairy tales/confess hidden sins/expose some unknown past abuse/get counselling/get treated for anxiety then she would get better.

I find this very difficult, for two reasons: 1) I am easily intimidated, and 2) all of my instincts as a mom tell me she has something specific wrong with her physically, and while I know she has plenty of character issues to work on, none of these conjectures resonate with my spirit as being true.

I am not saying she doesn't have emotional issues. But goodness, who of us doesn't at 17 or 18. And we don't go around analysing Emily's friends her age and getting them to probe as deep as they can to see if there isn't maybe something down there, do we? Even if they listen to bad music or flirt shamelessly or seem sad and withdrawn, somehow we let them grow up and deal with things on their own timetable, because they're healthy.

Ok, I'm annoyed and frustrated and tired, did you guess? And worried.

I also think we American Mennonites don't have a box for anything vague and chronic. Cancer we can handle, or a broken leg. But bring on slow fevers and fatigue and we start analysing and conjecturing and implying and blaming.

I would love to be vindicated by a specific diagnosis that would explain everything. But I would way rather just have her get well, vindication or no. And if I'm wrong and it's emotionally based, I'd happily be proved wrong if it made her well.

Meanwhile, I cling to my sister's words: "Dorcas, trust your instincts. Fight for your daughter. As a mom, you know if there's something wrong. Don't give up."

Quote of the Day:
"Just go on your trip and don't worry. You can pray, but don't worry."
--Dr. Hansen