And when I puke I see stars

One of the patients on rounds last week was a chubby four year old girl with leukemia. She'd been vomiting for a couple of days and had looked exhausted on admission, too tired to speak beyond monosyllables. We admitted her and took care of her dehydration and so remarkable was her recovery that the next morning, when the team went in to see her, we were astounded to find her sitting up in bed with a book, eating potato chips.

The attending, a wonderful woman with a talent for laughter and a gift for prying out hidden histories, stood by her side and shook her head in amazement.

"How are you feeling now?" she asked the girl.

"Good," the child said, biting nonchantly into a chip.

"You look good!" the doctor remarked. "So why are you in the hospital?"

"Uhm, because I was puking," the child told her. "And when I puked I saw stars."

The whole room burst out laughing.