The next hurdle was to help Emily regain her strength.
Three days after they pronounced her cancer free, the nurse came into Emily’s room with a broad smile on her face.
“This is a big day for you!” she said. “You’re getting out of the PICU.”
Emily perked up at this news. The PICU nurses had promised to throw her a big birthday party as soon as she was transferred to the oncology floor.
“Dr. Grupp is on service this week in the bone marrow transplant hallway,” she said. “We’re transferring Emily there so he can watch over her care.”
“The bone marrow transplant hallway!” I grinned and looked at Kari.
“Yes,” said the nurse. “Emily’s still very weak, and once you get settled in there, I want you to work on getting her to walk.”
“I’ve looked forward to helping her get back on her feet,” I said.
“Start off slow,” the nurse said. “Her muscles haven’t been used for weeks. She’s not going to want to do it and it will be very painful for her at first. You’ll need to use tough love.”
“Love is the toughest thing I know.”
“The aides will be here soon to help you move,” she said, and left.
I looked up and Kari was smiling at me, her head cocked in that charming way where her hair is lush at the side. I could see she had joy in her eyes again.
“I’m never going to doubt your whispers again,” she said.
A few hours later, we unpacked our heaps of decorations and stuffed animals and boxes of books in the very same room on the bone marrow transplant hallway Dr. Bunin had showed me the first day we visited CHOP. I was itching to get Emily up on her feet and walking, and Kari was watching my restlessness with a sideways grin. Emily was asleep and sleep was important, so her antsy dad was not allowed to shake her awake.
Finally, Emily was awake, but she wanted to eat and then Kari and she had to read a book or two. It was like they were torturing me, letting this happen in its own sweet time when this was the most important thing in the world at that moment as far as I was concerned.
“Emily, the nurses say the only way you’re going to get back on your feet is to get back on your feet,” I said. “C’mon, let’s take a loop in the hallway.”
“No, Daddy,” she said. “It hurts to walk. It hurts when I stretch my legs.”
“I’ll help you. I’ll be right at your side there, holding you up just a little so it doesn’t hurt so bad,” I said. I swung her legs out of the hospital bed and scooted her forward at the edge to put a little pressure on the tips of her toes.
“Ouch!” she cried.
“Let’s go really slow, now,” I said. I eased her down off the bed as slowly as I could, and Kari brought around her walker. Emily was on her tippy toes, wary of letting her heels hit the floor because her muscles were so tight. I could hear a little whimper from Emily as she tiptoed lightly, taking such tender steps that if it wasn’t for the sound of the IV pole I was dragging behind, the bags of fluids sloshing against the side, we’d have made no sound at all.
Making it out of the room was the answer to my prayers. Emily, however tentatively, was taking steps on her own. I was the proud dad, the man with his heart about to burst. During the darkest moments of Emily’s illness, every time the news was bad, as with the relapse, and every time the cancer came back stronger than before, and that night when they all said she wouldn’t make it, I had clung to this very image. It was a dream come true to me, an accomplishment, a deeply desired victory—for Emily most of all, but also for me and Kari. And here it was a reality, hesitant, tentative, but one that seemed to have been supported by the whole wide world.
Chapter 19
HOMECOMING
As we prepared to bring Emily home, people all over the hospital were calling it a miracle. So many of the nurses and staff had been there next to us when no one thought Emily would make it through the night, and they were there to celebrate with us when she did. It was more than that, though. This was bigger than just the survival of one little girl. If Emily hadn’t survived, research into this way of killing cancer would have stopped. It might not have been funded again for many years. She had carried so much hope, and so many people’s lives, on her little shoulders, and she almost didn’t make it.
As we were piling all the cards and books onto a cart we borrowed from the hospital, Dr. Grupp came into the room to say goodbye, and to thank us. We were the ones who wanted to thank him, so the feeling in the room was all joyful. This crazy idea of using the body’s immune system to treat cancer had worked, and it opened up so many possibilities
