The bone fell out of her finger. Again. No, it’s not some comical put-the-bone-back-again type thing, more like some terrible infection tore up her bone and made it fall out. This means that her finger will be a little shorter now, a little more deformed. It also means that the reason we were in the hospital was almost certainly osteomyelitis – bone infection – instead of cellulitis – tissue infection. Either is bad but by all accounts osteo is worse.

She has an appointment with ortho tomorrow, but I fear they will do nothing. No, I fear they won’t believe me that it’s bone – this doctor wasn’t with us when the other half of the bone fell out. I don’t want to be placated. I want the doctor to be as horrified as I am, to realize the true nature of this monster we’re dealing with (the disease, not Gracie!).

Last night, the nubby stub of the bone was sticking out. It moved when I pressed on it, and I immediately stopped touching it and covered it. It didn’t look like good healthy bone – it looked like dead bone sticking out where it shouldn’t be. And now it looks like a big empty hole with white at the bottom – like the bottom of a distal phalanx, to be precise. (After her bath tonight, the hole was filled with water and red tissue. Maybe I was wrong about it looking white at first? Or maybe something happened in the bath?)

I am dreading our appointment tomorrow morning. I feel sick thinking that the doctor won’t believe that it’s bone, that she’ll do nothing. I worry that I made a mistake in switching from the nationally known hospital to the other children’s hospital in the city. (Yes, we’re lucky enough to live in a city with TWO children’s hospitals.) I worry even more that we’ll have to go back to the big hospital, to the egotistical I-told-you-so attitude we’ll surely get from the doctors. No, that won’t happen. Not yet. But still, how will I get Gracie’s ortho doc to trust me? To understand that we’ve been through this before, that I know what we’re dealing with?

I worry too that she’ll want to admit Grace. What would we do then? We just got home – neither of us want to go back now. No, that probably won’t happen. Grace isn’t as sick as she was.

All I can do is pray. Pray to my beloved deity, sweetest Amma, to guide us tomorrow. Om amriteshwaryai namah. I bow down to Amma, the Divine Mother.