Being home on oxygen means re-adjusting to yards and yards of tubing. Lucy is on the leash of a long plastic cord. One end snaking out of tall, R2D2-like oxygen tanks, bubbling away through the plastic humidifier filled with water, and the other end taped right underneath her nose.
James prepared by attaching lengths of clear tubing together so the line could reach back to her room from the living room where the tanks reside. It helps that she doesn’t have much will to move around right now – just the patient lethargy of a person devoting all the energy they have to the effort of breath and heartbeat.
It’s hard not to worry about her. Most of the other children run in and out of the house like the tide: out to school, in for snack, out for play, in for dinner and homework. They bring offerings home from school with carefully shaped letters and symphonies of crayon combinations. Lucy tries to sit up and call to them – here I am! Bring your sounds and color and paper to me! – and they pat her with affection and roll away again as the tide recedes. I wonder sometimes if she misses being able to MOVE like everyone around her. Maybe it has never occurred to her that she could.
I breath short prayers over her when I’m the one close to her. Lord help us…please heal her…please let her get stronger…please don’t let us be at the beginning of a long slide down..
Our times and seasons are in hands other than ours. So much of our lives are normal but the flashes of fear take my breath away, too, leaving both me and Lucy breathing ragged for a moment.
But then she sees me looking at her and smiles, telling me how much she loves me. And I’ve been thinking about the Robert Earl Keen song lately, All I Have Is Today.
All I want to do is climb that mountain;
All I need is the other way
All I am is a lost soul, searchin’
All I have is today (Robert Earl Keen)
We’re not lost. The Lord is holding on to us, and I’m thankful for today. – Katie
