hero

She's stubborn. She's willful. She pushy, bossy, and has attitude to spare. She is the youngest of three, and her mother (that would be me) can tell you with certainty that if she'd been born first she would be an only child.

She is challenging. Spirited. High-maintenance. Exhuasting.

My mother-in-law calls her my cross to bear. My mother calls her "my revenge."

I call her something entirely different.

Let's be honest. When you say you don't care if it's a boy or a girl as long as it's healthy, you never really anticipate anything but a healthy baby. I know that's what I expected, and for almost 9 months that's what I had. Then the vomiting started.

Projectile and violent, it would linger for six, seven, sometimes ten hours at a time and then it would stop as suddenly as it started, leaving her limp and lifeless for days afterward.

She started struggling to gain weight.

Give her more protein, they said, but she threw up every time we tried meat.

Give her more vitamin-rich veggies, they said, but she threw up every time she ate a veggie that wasn't a carrot.

She has been to immunologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists and allergists. She has been poked, prodded, and bled dry. She has been forced to swallow barium and endoscopes. She has been doped up and sedated, x-rayed and MRI'ed. The child has every reason to hate doctors and nurses and phlebotomists, but every time we have an appointment she smiles and says, "Hi! Which arm do you want today?"

She doesn't cry, not even when the needles slip and grind bone. She doesn't freak out when they lie her on a table and giant, noisy pieces of machinery come at her from above. She makes jokes with the nurses and when she sees me and her father struggling not to cry she smiles and says, "I'm fine, you know."

Her doctor explained it like this: Think of your immune system as an army of four or five soldiers. They're all lazy, even a little bit drunk. They go to work when they absolutely have to and not one moment before; your daughter's immune system has tens of thousands of soldiers and they're all trigger happy.

My baby's immune system doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and it can kill her if we're not very careful, but she's fine, you know.

Some heroes wear a uniform. Others wear white coats. Some wear helmets, or work boots, or baseball caps.

Mine wears fairy wings.