How many times does a person have to face death before they truly learn to live?

 Late August I asked myself that question over and over again as I found myself praying for my own life, my own future while I lay, curled up in pain with a fever raging while nurses and doctors monitored my vitals in a quarantined room at Mass General Hospital.

Perhaps you don't know the odds I'd already overcome to get to this point, this age, this time of my life. As a child I was born with several genetic heart defects and from the age of one, had a short life expectancy. The prognosis had me living if I was lucky, to 14. Clearly, I overcame those odds... although leaving more than a few doctors shaking their heads with wonder. When I turned the lucky age of 14, I went sailing with a cute pair of tow haired teenage twins I'd met on a summer vacation in Cape Cod. The boys couldn't sail and I didn't know to duck when the boom swung around, standing to flirt and smile I was hit smack in the forehead and went overboard, only to fall asleep peacefully under the waves wondering if that was what drowning felt like. I was later found on shore covered in seaweed, unconscious... no one ever knew how I got there as the tide was going out that afternoon. When I turned 18 my heart took a turn for the worse and the head of pediatric cardiology at MGH suggested my parents have my valves replaced with pigs valves... it would guarantee me five more years but not much longer than that. Roll the dice, take a chance she wont live a few months or do the operation and guarantee five years. Not much of a choice for parents but I remember my mother telling the doctor I'd rather take hope... and believe my daughter will beat the odds.

I did... only to fall in love with a mafia prince in my early twenties (talk about taking your life in your own hands) 7 years of loving, literally, the wrong man and somehow I managed to survive... with just a battered ego and broken heart (thank goodness not literally this time). During a break when the love of my life was away 'serving time' I decided to hop a plane with two gal pals and bam! Hurricane Hugo hit our island paradise of St. Croix. Three tornado's whipped through the villa we were staying it, it was blown to bits.. with us clinging to wet mattresses, lying in the dirty, flooded rubble. One week of crazy looters with machetes and shot guns running lose and the military shipped us safely back to Boston.

A few safe and quiet years went by and an apartment I lived in caught fire... a pal had to throw a blanket on me to help me run through a wall of flames... the fireman still quite didn't know how we managed to escape as it was the middle of the night and there were no working fire alarms on the floor I lived on. Hmmm... always believed that house was haunted, my friend was convinced someone shook him awake but no one else was in the building.

Then two years ago, my heart problems came rumbling back leaving me gasping for breath after feeling like a truck had hit me in the chest while walking my dog Logan, early one morning. Thanks to a brilliant cardiologist, an amazing treatment was found and I was finally on the path to a full life with a healthy outlook... and the courage to finally take the step to become a mom... all by myself.

So here I am, last month, lying in one more hospital bed wondering why, now that I am a single mom... and had more to live for than I'd ever had, was it all being put at risk.

It started a few days earlier. I'd had head aches for several days and then developed fevers during the night. By the morning I was burning up and couldn't leave the bed. Thank God, my mother was staying with us and I sent Kajal to get her. She tried to help but aspirin didn't work and an hour later she was calling an ambulance. As we were rushed to the hospital, Kajal sat in the back of the ambulance with me, quietly saying over and over... Mom, I'm not having fun. This isn't fun. As I lay there with a mask on my face and the EMTs taking my vitals I tried to reassure her while also mentioning that she was right... sometimes we have to do things in life that aren't any fun at all.

After a long day in the hospital emergency room being pumped full of IV fluids and countless tests I was released, still running a fever with a prescription in hand for a bacterial infection they'd decided I had. Two days later, still feeling ill I received a call to come back as soon as possible, to the emergency room.  Turns out they'd been calling me for the last 24 hours but I'd been too sick to check my voice mails. The doctor made it pretty clear a 'mistake' had been made and all he'd say was my blood tested positive for something they were concerned about, that they had given me the wrong medication and I needed to return to the hospital as fast as possible. I did. I was rushed into quarantine and told that one of my blood tests had come back positive for bacterial meningitis (sp?). Gratefully, at that very moment I didn't know what it was. Not really... but shortly after seeing four or five doctors and countless nurses who clearly were taking my situation more seriously than I.... I checked it out on my handy laptop on the CDC website. That was when I realized that if they were right (they were questioning the validity of the blood test) I had passed the time of treatment and was headed down hill fast facing imminent brain damage and most likely death within days. ouch.

They did a spinal tap... excruciating beyond words (what should have taken 20 minutes took over an hour) and treated me for the bacterial meningitis with all kinds of courses of antibiotics. I prayed. My priest came in and prayed with me.  I have never been so scared in my life... not even close.

The one reassuring thing they could tell me, after six or so hours... was that I probably didn't have it, because if I did I'd already be in a coma, or dying. Wow, that should have made me feel better.

I was kept over night but finally released (the hospital acknowleged a mistake most likely had been made, a blood culture had been contaminated on their end resulting in the misdiagnosis, I was just suffering from a harsh virus) and spent the week in bed recuperating. At first, Kajal didn't want to be near me... she was afraid of touching me, of catching what I had. Smart girl, talk about life preservation. Then she told me I smelled like doctors... so when I headed for home I arranged to have someone take her for the day so that when I got home she'd be away and I'd have time to wash the scent of sickness off of me. I stopped in the gift shop on the way home and picked up a huge Winnie the pooh balloon for her.  The second she saw it, she punched it.

Between my being ill and my mother moving back to Florida... it's been hard on Kajal. She's regressed in someways, but continues to grow in others. Her regression has manifested though more episodes of baby talk, extreme neediness and heightened insecurity, bouts of sadness and introspection. I often find myself wondering what she saw in the past, did her birth mother suffer in front of her, was she ill... what has my little one suffered, experienced, seen? I know that seeing me sick triggered fears in her... no wonder. I was supposed to be her safe haven.

Thank God my mother was still here, she took care of both of us. The church really showed up for me as well, Patty and Steve, the Vicars of the Old North came to the hospital to hold my hand and pray with me during the most terrifying hours of doubt. Lisa, Steve's wife showed up three days in a row and took Kajal with her son for days full of fun.

She's doing wonderful now... blossoming every day. Her humor is so fresh and wise, clever and dry. She is my miracle and I can't imagine my life without her...

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while... I'm not sure why. Life is so busy, I seem to be on the go from first thing in the morning until I crash with exhaustion in the evening. There have been many moments when I've sat down to catch up but then all the memories of the last few months assault me and I don't know where to begin. So if I ramble, in this entry... please hang in there. I thought I'd tell you first, the greatest challenge we'd faced... my being ill and the scare I lived through... it effected our family in a deeply profound way and I believe it stroked the deepest fears of abandonment that Kajal fosters in her own unconscious mind.

There have been so many moments of laughter and joy, more than any challenges. The summer was full for us, countless afternoons and evenings spent attending the Italian feasts in our neighborhood. They happen every weekend through the month of May. There was the day the procession of the Saint marched straight down our street... I was in the next room when I heard Kajal screaming. I came running to see her leaning out against the window, jumping up and down on the couch screaming "I saw Jesus, Mommy, I saw Jesus!" The statue of the Saint was held high in the air marching straight past our second story window. The joy on her face was breathtaking!

She lost four teeth in several weeks... discovering the tooth fairy was incredible. Kajal could hardly believe a little fairy was flying through the house leaving fairy dust in her wake and even a bit of money by the bed. One day the tooth fairy left a little Dora surprise for Kajal. She was so excited, "how could the tooth fairy know that I like Dora" she asked, then looking at her pajama's with Dora on the front she laughed knowingly. The next time she lost a tooth she wore pajama's with monkey's on them and asked me if the tooth fairy would leave a monkey for her. Of course, that was also after she asked me if it would hurt when the tooth fairy came and pulled out her teeth... I had to reassure her that the tooth fairy would only take the ones that had already fallen out.

Lately, Kajal has also been taking great pride in the 'strength' of her dark skin. One summer day when she commented to me that she wanted to have skin my color I spent some time explaining to her that her skin was darker because of the melanin. That mine burnt easily in the sun but hers was much stronger... to help her with the strong sun in India. She liked that. Now, when we are about to step outside and the wind is blowing colder I suggest she put on a sweater.. .her answer is, No mommy... my skin is stronger than yours, I wont feel the cold. Or when I suggested she put on sunglasses on a particularly sunny day, she pulled me close and looked in my eyes. Mommy, your eyes are pretty but blue/green. Mine are black... they're stronger, I don't need glasses.

I've been teaching Kajal about Halloween. It's a little confusing for her. School sent home boxes of chocolate for the children to sell for fund raising a few weeks ago. Kajal was so excited she grabbed her box and ran outside. She approached the first man she saw and held the box up to him... Trick or Treat! She screamed at the man, completely confused when he didn't take the chocolate from her.

Life is good.... Kajal and I laugh all the time, we are silly, we play, we hug, we truly enjoy one another. We also have our struggles, as she tests... and pushes me hard, especially when her fears surface. I lose my patience occasionally but I'm trying to learn and find myself more and more feeling compassionate when she acts out because I know how rare it's becoming, how much stronger and happier she grows with every day that passes.

We are so truly blessed