Am taking a very brief break from the Sanduskys' travels in Alaska. Will continue that tomorrow. This was a story I was working on last night at the hospital while waiting out the storms that were threatening to push through our area; I got the idea for this story while observing patients and other people at the hospital.

If I could trade places with my little sister, believe me, I WOULD! My younger sister has been through more in her 11 years on this earth than what most people go through in their entire lifetime!

My sister has asthma and allergies, and other than a few allergies that can still give her no end of grief or trouble (as long as she avoids these allergens, she is okay, but she still can have an allergy attack when one least expects it), she is doing so much better. These allergies include peanuts (and nuts of all kinds!), penicillin (and ALL cillins), stings from hornets, wasps, yellowjackets, and bees, or bites from poisonous spiders or snakes or fireants. She is doing a lot better than she was when she was smaller and younger, and she isn't having nearly as much trouble with her breathing. She doesn't have nearly as much of the problems she used to have, and hospital stays for asthmatic episodes are happily becoming fewer and far between. She still takes her daily dose of inhalers or pills, but she has improved, and it is almost like she is an altogether different person! She used to have to go to the emergency room every week (in fact, several times a week) for her breathing; now it's been nearly a year since she had her last hospitalization for asthma! (She was last hospitalized with asthma during July of 2003.)

She used to be dependent on supplimental oxygen, thanks to her severe allergies and asthma (plus she had been born very premature, weighing under 1 1/2 pounds at the time of her birth, and she had a lot of very serious breathing problems), but now she uses the oxygen only at night, when she goes to bed, or during any time she is sick (like when she has the flu, a cold, or pneumonia, for instance).

In addition to her asthma, my sister had another health concern that isn't as likely to improve or go away completely as she gets older. She has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA), and she is in a lot of pain most of the time. Sometimes it can get so bad it can affect her internal organs, like the linings around her heart or lungs, or her stomach, and she can get very sick, plus the pain she has during one of these "flares" is oftentimes brutal, and she has to be hospitalized because she can't function, and she truly is suffering. During these times when she is in the hospital for a "flare" she is in the hospital for several days to as long as a week, and when she isn't hurting as much as she was upon her admission into the hospital, she will have daily physical and occupational therapy, and she will also be given powerful drugs to help alleviate the inflammation and the excruciating pain in her swollen joints. She is also given medicine to counteract nausea and/or vomiting.

Because of her JRA, as her disease is often called, my sister can't walk or get around as well as most kids her age. She uses leg braces and forearm (Lofstrand) crutches to get around (or, if she is hurting more than what is "normal" for her, like during the times she has her flares), she will then usually resort to using her wheelchair. Her ankles, feet, hips, hands, wrists, fingers, and lower back are the areas that are most affected by her JRA, and she is starting to get the "telltale bumps" so often associated with rheumatoid arthritis. She did have problems with her knee last year, and it was so bad she couldn't walk without crying out in pain; and she ended up having to have major surgery and have the knee replaced. Ever since then, she has done beautifully, and it is as though she no longer has arthritis in her knee, and her knee no longer hurts her or gives her any trouble. She gets around better now than she ever has; in fact, I can't keep up with her half of the time! She is more like a little CHEETAH than a young girl fixing to become a teenager in a few years!

Needless to say, because of my sister (and also various other brothers and sisters who also suffer from chronic or serious health problems), the hospital has been sort of like our "home away from home" whenever one of my brothers or sisters become sick and need to be hospitalized. I have spent many a time whiling away the hours in a crowded hospital waiting room, watching the other people, or even seeing patients being wheeled by medical staff or patients sitting in wheelchairs or walking around in hospital garb, attached to I.V. lines or various other tubes or monitoring equipment (that is, if they are well enough--or strong enough--to be able to do so), looking careworn or unwell in nature (and their loved ones not faring any better than the patients themselves). Or I have seen people camped out in the waiting room, sleeping fitfully or carrying packages or bags, or doing stuff like watching a boring television program that has absolutely no interest to most of the people in the room, playing games, or drawing or writing, talking with each other or on the phone--or with medical personnel if they are available--, mostly about how their hospitalized loved one were doing.

Most of the time you could tell how the patient was faring, primarily on how the people were reacting when they got some information or news about the patient they came to see or spend time with. The people whose loved ones were doing well were usually laughing, joking around, or hugging one another in relief while those people whose loved ones weren't faring so well cried or looked upset/concerned, or just sat there like zombies or statues, talking dejectedly amongst themselves. Or they would sleep; they were past the breaking point, and it wasn't long when sheer sleep or exhaustion would consume them.

When we are visiting a sick loved one, we are always unduly upset or worried about them, especially if they aren't doing as well as we would have hoped, or if they were hooked up to all kinds of tubes or monitoring equipment, looking more dead than alive, or if they WERE doing well, by then, by some unforseen fluke or complication, their condition suddenly deterioates, right in front of our eyes; and then we are scared spitless, and we are so afraid that they are going to die on us if they don't get the needed help as quickly as possible. My sister (the one I had mentioned earlier) has been in this position many times, and I can't tell you how many times we have worried/fretted/cried/prayed over her. Like, for example, when she had her stroke on her eighth birthday, which will be four years ago this coming December. It was a bad one, and it was totally unexpected. She ended up being unable to talk (at first) and paralyzed on one side of her body, but thanks to intensive therapy (and her will to come back from the stroke), she emerged back to the (nearly) same little girl she was before she even had the stroke. To look at her now, you wouldn't even know she even HAD a stroke because she looks and acts..well, NORMAL!

We could spend our time trying to be a normal family, trying to carry out our lives as normally as possible, while our hospitalized loved one gets the best possible of medical care (or at least we HOPE they do!), but it is oftentimes so damned hard when say, my brother, who has a serious neuromuscular disorder and epilepsy (in addition to other serious problems involving his hearing and eyesight; he also has breathing problems now and is oftentimes on oxygen), suddenly starts throwing one seizure after another with no break in between and the alarms going off like crazy, sending a flurry of frenzied activity into the room as the medical code team then tries to revive him or stop his seizures before brain damage (or even death) sets in and claims my little brother. I have seen him lie there in bed, seemingly asleep, and all is right with him and the world, when, all of a sudden, his face darkens, his body stiffens and then starts thrashing uncontrollably on the bed, and the alarms start shrieking. We don't know what is going on with the little boy, and we are terrified for our little brother and his life; and we then start praying to our Lord above, asking him to please spare our little brother's life.

After such a crisis has abated, we are all left shaking in our shoes, and we are all left mentally, emotionally, and physically spent and exhausted; and it is all we can do to try to function as normally as possible and at the same time try to be there for our sick family member and try to think of pleasantries and try to console ourselves and tell ourselves that they are going to pull through the crisis with no lasting effects. We also let him (or her) know that we are by their side, and we are there, rooting for them to recover and to get out of the hospital as soon as possible.