The Illuminant

Chapter 20

The surgery on Sophie's brain was successful. She is currently doing excellently and should be discharged soon.

The tumor was removed totally and Sophie is as normal as any other kid and I can't tell you how happy I am at that.

I feel she's really lucky to have such parents though. I mean we doctors had given up on her - we were practically just waiting for her to die, but deep down in my heart of hearts I secretly wanted her to live.

In the few weeks she spent at Kinder, I had grown to love her.
I know it's strange to love your patient who's less than a year old and whom you've known for less than a month, but like life, some things just don't have tangible explanations.
Each day, I would go to visit her at the ICU and watch her as she slept peacefully. Each time, my heart would break when I remembered that she had only a few weeks, at most a month to live.
If she happened to wake up while I was there, I took on the responsibility of calming her. I would scoop her up in my arms and rock her gently, then she would coo softly, gripping my finger with her little hands.
Things went on like this so much that some of the other doctors began to tease me of wanting to adopt her from her parents and I would just good-naturedly laugh it off.
Now I consider myself the happiest person (of course apart from her parents) now that she is back to normal.

Also, since that day that I broke the good news to Sophie's parents and we ended up crying on the floor in my office, I and the Blake parents have become close friends.
Each time Cecilia (Mrs. Blake) came over to see her daughter at the hospital, and I had spare time, we would talk about random things and each time she would try to bring up Jesus.
I always subtly changed the topic because I didn't want to delve into matters of such.

In the past few weeks, due to the course of events that have taken place, I seem to have lost my identity. I don't know what to think anymore.

My life is beginning to take a U-turn I never for once (after dad's death) thought it would take.
The nightmares that I had been battling for years have become less and less intense.

I think Brian has something to do with it because since that day we officially met and since I've been spending literally all of my spare time talking with him, I've noticed a change.
I've been finding it really easy to open up to him cause there's just something comfortable about him.

He's really patient and a good listener.

Unlike Clave, he never tries to force his ideas or suggestions on me (even though he has every right to because he's a Christian and I'm not) and he says the sweetest things.

Each time we talk (which is a lot), I always end up laughing really hard or smiling like crazy. I admit that before I met him, laughing was just something I didn't do much of.
Don't get me wrong, Tomi's a wonderful friend and all, probably the best I'll ever have and we talk a lot on the phone too but there's just something about Brian that makes me super giddy. I know that sounds weird but it's true.

Then there's that day that Tomi came over and I allowed her to pray for mom. That also contributed to the less intense nightmares.
I felt unusually calm that day and thenceforth. It also contributed to making me a tad bit happier because I mean after all mom woke up the next day.

Then again there's Sophie whose extraordinary recovery skyrocketed my high spirits to about 60%.
I know that's pretty low but before all this, my happy life (if there's anything like that) was more like nonexistent.

The only things that made me happy were Tomi, my mom and my job and those didn't really do much.
My job though, gave me the most satisfaction. As unbelievable as it sounds, I've kind of forgotten to worry about the hospital closing down. Whenever I thought about it, it always made me so sad, nervous, paranoid, flustered and a mixture of so many other horrible feelings, but thankfully in the past few weeks so many other happy thoughts have occupied my mind.
I can't even remember the last time I took an anxiety pill. I guess I used to practically live on those before now since I got anxious a lot.