God I wish I was from the south!
Charlotte here, I am SO EXCITED to start posting! I've been dying to talk about Maisie the Great ever since Ma started this blog in August.
I have some stuff to post about, to get you up to date. First, Maisie has two major health issues that are pretty constant:
1) Her immune system is pretty shit. It doesn't work. Really at all (okay that's not true because if it were she'd be in a bubble. And she's not. But it's really weak.) So she gets sick super easily and has a pretty constant, fairy bad, really pathetic cold that we refer to as "those sniffles."
2) Her left kidney functions at 50%. Her right kidney functions at 20%. This is because the neural connections between her brain and her kidneys are weak, and they don't "communicate" as fast as a healthy person's do. So whenever she's in the hospital for some other reason, we slap the dialysis machine (which we call Wilhelm because Maisie said to) on her to give those poor kidneys a break. Hopefully she'll get a transplant soon, but who knows? She can survive - even thrive - just like this.
She often has stomach/digestive/gastroenterological issues, also, but those are varying and not as constant and reliable as those two above.
As you'll see, she encounters a lot of problems over the course of her daily life. But she's a fighter. And she's strong. And she will never, ever give up. I love her to bits. She's the best.
Oh, and I'm pretty much fine. I have some scarring and some motor skill issues with my left hand, but other than that I have almost no residual effects from the attack. Physical or psychological.
What else has been happening? Oh yeah! Kaitlynn! So two years ago, Maisie's tetanus resurfaced and she had to be hospitalized for a couple of months. She was put in the same ward as this girl Kaitlynn, who was seven at the time. She's been fighting bone cancer since she was five years old. Despite their age difference, Maisie and Kaitlynn hit it off like nobody's business. They've both spent most of their lives in the hospital, and I think because of that they just understand each other better than "normal" people understand them. They spent those two weeks coloring and watching movies and laughing. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were long-lost sisters. They call each other like every day and talk and just have a ball. The connection there is just mind blowing. The only problem is that Kaitlynn lives in Baltimore, Maryland and her doctors are there. She's rarely in New York, but sometimes she and her mom make a trip up here, or we go up there, just so the girls can see each other.
Finally, about a year ago, I started seeing this amazing guy Jeff. I met him at a coffee shop one day. Maisie had been feeling really ill so we were in the hospital doing dialysis for a week or so, trying to get her to stabilize. One day we took a break and went to get hot chocolate and doughnuts, and we ended up sitting near Jeff. Maisie said something about his beard and they started talking, and then we started talking. The amazing thing about Jeff is that when he met us, Maisie was about fifteen pounds underweight, her skin was this gross yellow, and she had dialysis tubing sticking out of her arm. She looked a mess. And he wasn't afraid or grossed out or freaked out or anything. He chatted with her just like she was a regular little kid. He's great.
Okay, now I'm going to bed. Night night!
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