on sunday, november 21, 2004 molly was rushed to necker hospital in paris. she'd had a convulsion, and on the way to the hospital she fell into a coma. the doctors found a massive growth in the right frontal lobe of her brain and emergency surgery was performed immediately.

the original diagnosis was a malignant tumor, so for two days we were coping with this thought and starting to research oncologists and pediatric cancer treatment centers in france and in the usa. these were pretty dark days.

but when the lab tests came back negative for cancer, the doctors informed us that molly had a brain abscess, an entirely different prognosis. but it was an atypical abscess; it didn't meet the normal criteria, including the fact that all the pathology tests came back negative for any type of bacteria and there was also no trace of how an infection could have moved up into her brain.

molly was in a coma for almost a week. she was in the hospital for six weeks, nearly all of this time in the intensive care unit.

there were complications - a secondary infection at the catheter (where she was getting a nasty cocktail of intravenous antibiotics to treat the abscess), which turned out to be a meningitis, so she had a few days of high temperatures and shivers, which was treated but soon afterwards she started vomiting. it got to the point where molly was throwing up twice an hour and this lasted for nearly a week. the abscess also didn't seem to be responding to the antibiotics and shrinking as it should have, but rather reforming, like the image of a hurricane off the coast of florida, so the doctors recommended another operation.

molly had a second brain surgery on december 17th, during which they removed the whole mysterious thing from her head. this operation went without complication, although she continued to vomit for another week. finally some gastro-work or removing some antibiotics or something - we're not sure what exactly - got her to stop throwing up and from then on she was very quickly on the mend. molly was allowed home for a 36-hour home leave on january 1, 2005. she came home for good on january 4th.

the doctors still don't know what caused the abscess or how it got into her brain. a whole series of tests were done on the material removed during the 2nd surgery, and just as it was after the first surgery, all the results were negative.

molly was amazingly courageous, she remained poised and graceful through the entire experience. the nurses and doctors fell in love with her. molly also became tenacious about her own rehabilitation, and even during those first days after she came out of her coma, she occupied herself with finger exercises and worked to regain her strength and coordination.

there was some minor damage to her brain from the trauma that first day, but she retained or regained all her cognitive capacity very quickly. her motor skills were another story - when molly came home from the hospital she could not walk. she started physical therapy in mid-january and by the end of april when her treatment was finished, molly could walk and run and jump and play (and even scale a climbing wall) like any other little girl her age.

molly knows what happened, she's proud of her story. if you ask her, she'll tell you, "they took the bad thing out of my head and put in love, strength and wisdom." molly says that while she was in the hospital she talked with angels, and they told her that her mommy and daddy love her. (it's so true!)

this medical ordeal was a horror story in so many ways, and yet also a series of miracles: that molly made it to the hospital in time, that the doctors got her into surgery right away, that it wasn't cancer...that she recovered so quickly once she got home and started physical therapy. another miracle: how many people, family and friends (and friends of friends, and their friends, too) from all over the world, were praying and sending healing intentions for molly - all of it directed to her via the eiffel tower which she could see from the window of her hospital room. we have living proof of (and much gratitude for) the power of collective thought!