Maybe everyone else could handle pain better.”

Those were not words a child should have been taught to say about herself.

PART 10

On the fourth day after surgery, Dr.

Raman came into Sadie’s room with pathology results.

By then, my daughter could sit up in bed without wincing, and she had asked me to bring her favorite blue hoodie.

“The mass was a benign mature teratoma,” Dr.

Raman explained.