Rose bent down and picked her up with minor difficulty. At a mere 55 pounds, Ella was severely underweight and malnourished. The cancer treatment had delayed her growth, but as for her behavior, Rose was at a loss. Did she somehow correlate bathrooms to being sick? Was her mind reliving the memories of chemo nausea when she stepped inside? No, that wasn’t it. She was fine using the portable commode, or what she referred to as the chair, but she had spent many nights with her face inside its pink bucket regurgitating her stomach’s contents.
“I’m gonna set you down now, okay?” Rose lifted the girls hospital gown up and set her down. She tried to back away, but Ella still clung to her sobbing. “I need you to let go, I promise I won’t leave.”
Ella shook her head, heaving and sputtering for air while clinging to the front of Roses scrubs. It broke Roses heart to do this to her, but it was what the Doctor wanted. Exposure therapy.
