I never expected to see something that touched my heart so much when I went along with my friend as she was getting a CAT scan for her injured leg. An assistant led us to the waiting room where we sat and finally my friend was called in the distance by a doctor. I was told to stay in the waiting room with her brother while she and her parents got up and walked away. Just then a desolate mom holding a small baby curled under her jacket rushed into the waiting room. Her eyes were red, tired and numb from the cold, rainy weather and from what it looked like, she had been crying. She was drenched in rain and begging to the assistant for a doctor.

Slowly she walked to the chair next to us still grasping her child who was waking up due to the noise of the other children. The mom took a deep breath, and gulped as if she just swallowed a rock. The baby started to cry. I looked over to the brother and he looked at me with a worried look. We both felt helpless. Slowly the mom began open her coat and cradle the baby in her arms. The baby girl seemed to have a lot of torpor, she was unusually small and she had big distressed eyes that screamed “I’m miserable, please, someone help me.”

Soon a man came in, who seemed to be the husband, and he clutched his baby like she was the only thing in the room and held her tightly. A tear fell down the mom’s cheek. I could tell there was nothing these parents could do to help the pain of their poor, little daughter.

Imagining myself in their place only made it worse for me to witness. A doctor hurried in, the parents had obviously met him before as the mom yelled to him, “We’re over here!” and he looked over and rushed towards them. The mom gave him an immediate hug and the dad put the softly crying baby into the doctors’ arms. He sat down with child as the parents were practically in his face pleading for a way to help their child.

He lifted up the baby’s shirt and I saw the most terrible thing. There were tubes that were injected in the babies deformed stomach and they connected on top. The baby girl laid there bawling as a nurse hustled in to the doctor asking if he needed anything. He shook his head and began to gingerly examine and touch tubes on the little girl’s stomach. Soon he started to get blood on his fingers and he became alarmed. He jerked up and exited the room with the weeping baby, the mom started to break down and went rushing after him which led by the father and the nurse picking up the moms purse and her jacket and hurrying after them, too.

Again, I looked at the brother. I felt hopeless, just like the parents did. I glanced around the waiting room once more. I noticed all the children around me: cancer patients, kids in wheel chairs, and kids that just needed help and a lot of love.