Those days when everything seemed to have returned to normal didn't last long.
The pharmacy still opened every day.
Customers still came and went as usual.
Pengpeng still played in her trampoline. When she got tired of it, she would come find me to hold her. When she was hungry, I fed her. When it was time, I gave her the packets of three powdered medications mixed together.
The days passed one by one.
I gradually got used to living that way.
I knew her heart was weak.
I knew she had a pacemaker inside her.
And I knew she needed more care than other children.
But after watching her eat, play, learn to walk, and reach out for me to hold her every day, after enough time passed, I would still forget—
She was actually a child who could have another crisis at any moment.
It wasn't that I had forgotten she was sick.
I just wanted so badly for our days to go on like that forever.
When Pengpeng was around a year and three months old, I started to feel that something was wrong again.
The first thing that caught my attention was still her edema.
I had seen that look once before.
Her body slowly began to swell again, and her energy started to decline.
At first, I continued to observe her.
After all, she took her medication every day as the doctor had instructed, and the three powdered medications had been mixed with a diuretic.
I didn't increase the dosage on my own, and I didn't adjust her medication without permission.
I simply continued giving her the medicine as before and watched her.
I watched to see whether she was urinating enough that day.
I watched to see whether she was short of breath.
I watched to see whether she could eat.
And I watched to see whether she still had the energy to play.
But after several days, I slowly realized that this time, things didn't seem to be improving as easily as before.
Her energy kept getting worse.
She wasn't as lively as she had been before, either.
Even though she continued taking the diuretic as usual, the edema didn't gradually go down the way I had hoped.
I began to feel uneasy.
At the time, I was a pharmacist, but when it came to my own child, professional knowledge didn't make a mother any less afraid.
If anything, because I understood something about medication and changes in the body, I knew even more clearly—
Some situations couldn't be left to wait forever.
I started thinking that maybe I should take her to see another doctor.
Because of our previous experience with Pengpeng's hospitalization at Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, I no longer dared to take her heart condition lightly.
Later, I decided to take her to Rongzong.
I asked around about a doctor with a lot of experience in heart conditions and made a clinic appointment with him.
That day, I carried Pengpeng to see the doctor.
The wait was long.
I remember that we waited for several hours—about three or four.
Waiting that long with a small child was difficult enough.
And Pengpeng didn't have the stamina of an ordinary child.
All I could do was hold her, stay with her, and wait as the numbers were called one by one.
Finally, it was our turn.
The doctor examined Pengpeng and learned about the medication she had already been taking.
As for what tests had been done at the time and what each result had been, so many years have passed that I can no longer remember everything clearly.
I only remember that the doctor later adjusted her medication.
It seemed that one of the original medications was removed.
The doctor told me to take her home first and continue observing her.
So I carried her back to the pharmacy again.
We continued living our old life.
Giving her medicine.
Changing her diapers.
Watching her eat.
Watching her sleep.
And watching to see whether the swelling on her body was improving at all.
But I waited a week.
She didn't get better.
At the time, I had the doctor's business card with me.
I remember clearly that it had his phone number on it.
Looking back now, I'm not even sure where I found the courage then.
Maybe after becoming a mother, there simply wasn't time to keep thinking over so many things:
Was this the right thing to do?
Would this bother the doctor?
The child was right in front of me.
She wasn't getting better.
So I could only keep looking for a way forward.
I picked up the phone and called the number on the card.
When the call connected, I told the doctor that Pengpeng had been taking the adjusted medication for a week, but her condition still hadn't improved.
The swelling hadn't gone down.
Her energy hadn't returned, either.
I also told him that the last time I had taken Pengpeng to the clinic, we had waited three or four hours.
The doctor had far too many patients to see.
But given Pengpeng's condition at the time, I felt she couldn't wait that long again.
After hearing me out, the doctor didn't tell me to make another clinic appointment and wait in line.
He told me directly:
"Then bring her in through the emergency room."
So I didn't wait for the next clinic appointment.
I started preparing the things Pengpeng might need for a hospital stay and took her to Rongzong.
When we arrived at Rongzong, I took Pengpeng straight in through the emergency room.
The medical staff began performing the necessary tests and assessments.
It was only then that I gradually learned that her heart function was deteriorating and that her heart had already become very enlarged.
I can no longer remember what medical terms the doctor actually used at the time.
Nor do I want to use my understanding today to fill in a diagnosis from more than twenty years ago—one I can no longer verify.
I only remember understanding one thing then.
Pengpeng's heart was gradually losing its strength.
The oral diuretic she had been taking at home could no longer remove the excess fluid from her body the way it had before.
That was why the swelling had started again.
That was why her energy had grown worse and worse.
After evaluating her, the doctor decided to send Pengpeng straight to the intensive care unit.
At first, I still held on to a little hope.
I thought that maybe once she was in the intensive care unit, they could adjust her medication and get rid of the excess fluid in her body, and she would slowly recover again, just as she had the last time.
At that point, I still didn't know—
This time was already different from the last.
I had already experienced the fear of hearing that my child needed to go to the intensive care unit for the first time.
So this time, it wasn't completely unfamiliar.
But familiarity didn't mean I wasn't afraid.
It only meant I already knew, roughly, what was behind those doors.
I knew there would be more tubes attached to my child.
I knew the nurses would give her injections and IV fluids.
And I knew there would be one machine after another beside her bed, monitoring her heartbeat and her condition.
I watched the nurses hurry around taking care of her.
Of course I was nervous.
But this time, we also quickly arranged a way for one of us to stay with her.
Her father covered the daytime.
I covered the nights.
The two of us took turns like that.
The pharmacy still had to open, and life didn't completely stop just because Pengpeng had been admitted to the intensive care unit.
During the day, her father stayed at the hospital with her.
At night, it was my turn.
We could only figure out meals as we went.
When I went back to the pharmacy, I prepared something for myself to eat if I had time. If I didn't have time, I bought something outside.
As far as I remember, we also handled most of Pengpeng's food ourselves.
We bought things she could eat or prepared them ourselves and brought them to her.
Back then, we didn't have the luxury of worrying about what she was going to eat each day.
It was enough for the adults to fill their stomachs.
As long as the child was willing to eat, I felt a little more at ease.
Every day, we went back and forth between the hospital and the pharmacy like that.
At night, I stayed by Pengpeng's side.
She simply couldn't be away from me.
We had known that for a long time.
Back in Zuoying, when Fourth Sister and Sijia stayed with her, she could cry for nearly two hours.
The last time she was admitted to the intensive care unit, the nurse called me back not long after I left.
This time was no different.
As soon as she couldn't see her mother, it was very hard for her to truly settle down.
So at night, I slept inside with her.
When she slept, I slept beside her.
When she woke up, I was there.
For me, there wasn't really another choice.
She needed me.
For a child undergoing treatment, if her mother wasn't beside her and she kept crying and feeling unsettled, that wasn't any better for her body.
The medical staff knew Pengpeng's situation and let me stay by her side as much as possible when I could.
Only when examinations or procedures were needed did I follow the medical staff's arrangements.
The rest of the time, especially at night, I kept watch over her.
When she opened her eyes, she could see me.
When she felt uneasy, I was there.
Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night and checked on her, too.
I checked whether she was asleep.
I checked the tubes attached to her.
I checked the machines beside the bed.
Then I lay back down beside her.
During those days, I didn't really stop to think about whether I was sleeping well.
If I could sleep, I slept.
If she stirred, I woke up.
When she was peaceful, I felt a little more peaceful, too.
To Pengpeng then, her mother wasn't someone who had come to visit her in the hospital.
Her mother was the person she hoped to see whenever she opened her eyes.
After the treatment, the swelling on her body gradually began to go down.
As the swelling eased, her energy improved a little, too.
As soon as she felt a little better, she started getting restless again.
She would move around.
She would look around.
She wanted to know what was going on around her.
When I saw that she couldn't sit still, I sometimes picked her up and slowly walked around near the ward with her.
She leaned against me as I carried her, and we walked while I looked around.
Even in the intensive care unit, she was still a curious child.
Another child was in the bed beside hers.
I didn't know the full details of that child's condition. I only remember that he seemed to be seriously ill, with wounds on his skin that needed frequent care, and that tissue fluid often needed to be cleaned away.
The nurses were extremely busy.
Almost every hour or two, they had to go over and take care of that child.
There were curtains between the beds.
But the curtains couldn't stay pulled tightly shut all the time, and the medical staff needed to be able to observe the patients easily.
So whenever I carried Pengpeng past, her eyes drifted in that direction.
She kept looking.
And looking.
She probably had no idea what was happening next door.
She was simply curious.
What were those aunties so busy doing?
Why did people keep going in?
Why did people keep coming out?
Of course, she couldn't ask such complete questions.
But that was exactly what her eyes seemed to be saying.
I knew as soon as I looked at her.
This child was meddling in other people's business again.
At the time, I even found it a little funny.
She was clearly staying in the intensive care unit herself, with an IV drip attached to her, and she still had the energy to investigate the bed next door.
Looking back now, that is one of the images I treasure most.
Because as long as she was still curious, I felt—
She was still my Pengpeng.
The little girl who looked, played, made a fuss, and wanted to know what was happening in this world.
But deep down, I knew.
This time was different from the last.
Although the swelling on her body gradually went down with treatment and she seemed a little more energetic, the things the doctor had said didn't disappear with it.
Her heart function was gradually deteriorating.
I didn't know how she would be treated next.
The doctor hadn't laid out a clear path for me then or told me that she would definitely recover as long as we completed some particular treatment.
It seemed that all we could do was one test after another.
Observe her day by day.
Watch her energy.
Watch her appetite.
Watch to see whether she was short of breath.
Watch to see whether she was still willing to play that day.
Watch for any small changes in her condition that might be worth noticing.
And during those days, she was actually doing all right.
At least in my eyes, she was still that same child.
She would lean against me.
She would want me to hold her.
She would curiously sneak a look at the bed next door.
As soon as the swelling went down a little, she would have enough energy to squirm around again.
So I stayed with her and let the days pass, one by one.
At the time, I still didn't know that what awaited us next was no longer just another hospital stay.
It was a stretch of days I would never be able to forget for the rest of my life.