Funny Ows

At one point, during Ellie's first round of chemotherapy, she had lots of pain.  It's challenging as a mom to hear your child in pain, particularly when you know said pain is caused by the medication you are giving her.  Ellie rarely if ever complained of headaches, even after brain surgery.  So I knew if she was feeling something, it had to be pretty intense.  It got to me.

Anyway, one day I could not take it any more.  So I told Ellie, why don't we think of the funniest ows we can.  For example, "Ow! This pillow is too soft."  "Ow! My eye lashes just touched my cheek."  "Ow!  I'm relaxing and watching television."  It was highly effective in distracting her and me from all those dreaded boo-boos (as Elmos would say).

Later on, we even turned it into a game at the hospital, trying to think of the funniest things we missed from home.  "I really miss our toilet paper holder."  "I really miss the trash and how stinky it gets when we haven't taken it out."  "I really miss that stain on the carpet in the bedroom."

Well, one day one of Ellie's friends was over (a grown-up type person).  Ellie suggested we play the "funny ows" game.  I don't recall right now why she suggested it at that moment.  When it was her friend's turn, her friend said, "Ow, I broke my leg and had to have a cast on for months."  We all sort of stopped, not really knowing how to respond.

The story from then on was how her friend did not quite understand the task at hand and how awkward that was.