Phantom Pain

I know a bit about flesh-eating bacteria. M. had it, following an abscessed tooth. He spend two weeks in the hospital, half of it in the ICU. It's very scary stuff, and usually, it kills you. He was lucky.

So was this woman.

But there is some very, very small part of me that looks at that first paragraph: 

A Sanford mother says she will never be able to hold her newborn because an Orlando hospital performed a life-altering surgery and, she claims, the hospital refuses to explain why they left her as a multiple amputee.

And thinks... but her baby is alive.

Would I choose being a quadruple amputee over having birthed a dead baby? Yeah. I would. In a heartbeat. But we don't get to choose, do we? Life just hands us these things, here you go, this is yours now, like it or not.

Are we supposed to say "Thank you?" Are we supposed to "learn something" from these horrific experiences? Is this some sort of competition to see who can carry the most pain? Or does the person who experiences the least pain win?

I can't fathom a world that leaves one woman's arms aching for her missing baby, and another woman's missing arms unable to hold her live one.

They say you have phantom pain for years after you lose a limb. Can you imagine? A part of you severed, removed, taken, stolen away. Gone, but still, you can somehow feel it...your own secret torment, a torturous ghost reminding you every moment of what you've lost.

Honestly...I think I know exactly how she feels.