My son was born with breathing difficulties, so he had to stay in NICU, the hospital unit for newborns needing intensive care. There he could only be fed through a tube. I hated the tube. The lovely dreams I had of nursing my baby were entirely ____1____ .
On the fifth day, I ____2____ about the tube, saying that I wanted to feed him with a bottle. The doctors agreed to let me try. My son’s feedings would be closely recorded to see if he was able to get ____3____ milk intake without the tube. After eighteen hours, it was determined he could not do that and the tube was back. This meant he wasn’t getting stronger. The ____4____ felt so dark.
Seated outside the NICU, I started crying. Just then, a young nurse came and sat beside me. When I had ____5____ my sorrow a little, she handed me a tissue and asked if I wanted to talk. I asked again if we could remove the tube. The nurse replied, “Not today. But remember, tomorrow is a new day.”
She seemed much younger than me, but her words were ____6____ and hope-filled, and I held on to them. I remembered her advice and repeated it to myself multiple times a day. The nurse changed my perspective away from current ____7____ to see the hope of tomorrow. Gradually, things started to ____8____ . On day eight, my son drank half of his milk without the tube. On day ten, the doctors approved taking off the tube ____9____ . “Tomorrow” came. It just came a few days later than expected. On day fifteen, we were released from the hospital, and my son “graduated” from the NICU.
What I learned from that nurse was to look beyond today and the suffering of it and to consider tomorrow with ____10____ . After all, tomorrow is a new day.