2012 May - Aria MacDonald

Today we got into a time machine.

We went back to Starship for the first time in 2.5 years.  It was really hard.

We went because Sylvie was being tested for the same disease Aria had.

We don’t think she has it (neither do the Docs really) but if she does it is a minor form of Hirschsprungs.

I can’t figure out how a place that was essentially a second home to us now feels empty and hollow.

We are no longer ‘part of the furniture’ at Starship like we were.

Starship was one of Aria’s favourite places.  She could be quite unwell in the back of the car with a central line infection but when we drove up the hill and she saw the hospital she would always say “Yay Star!”

We had the same pram/pushchair/stroller that she spent many hours sitting in as we pushed her around the halls of Starship/Auckland Hospital, much like we did at UNMC.  Except it was a different little lady in that pram who will never know her big sister.  Tragic.

On the bright side we got to see some familiar faces which did our hearts good.  We miss our lovely medical teams in Auckland and Omaha too.

God brought this verse to mind as we drove home.  Aria’s disease is fully healed, not as we wanted in a worldly sense but fully and totally in a heavenly one.