Yes, we are.

"You're still here?"

I can't count the times I've heard that question this week.  

It was a week ago Friday when I decided that Clara might need a little help in her journey to feeling well.  I had picked her up from daycare and the workers there had reported to me that she had been lethargic most of the day and wasn't taking her bottles.  

At the urgent care they saw us right away.  Everything happened so quickly, and before I knew it we were riding by ambulance across the street to the hospital.  "She just needs a little help," I thought.  "This will be one night."

Here we are, our 9th night here.  Because she is connected to oxygen she doesn't look as sick as she is.  She doesn't look like she has pneumonia.  She doesn't look like a child who's health would rapidly decline if she was taken home this very moment.  But she is sick with pneumonia and it would be dangerous for us to leave.

She plays, she eats, she takes her bottles--but she only does these things because of the extra oxygen being provided by tubing connected to her sweet little nose.  The amount of oxygen she needs varies drastically from day to day.

The doctors are baffled.  The nurses wonder why this child is still here, and they are the ones that know us and see us after their days off and ask, "You're still here?"  I jokingly reply that we sold the house because we live here now.

I don't remember what it feels like to have a home; to be able to wander from room to room; to have privacy.  

I hold tears back.  I am overwhelmed with worry.  I pray.  

She has to get better.