Mothers are strong.

"Haha ha tsuyoshi."

There's probably very little a mother would not do for her child. If the child is sick, mom will take him to the hospital. If the hospital he's been taken to can't provide sufficient care, she'll take him to a different hospital. If the treatment is costly, she'll find a way to earn enough money to pay for it. It might involve getting better or staying good at her current job, for example. She will find a way. She just will. That's what mothers do.

At age 33, Oksana Chusovitina is currently competing in her 5th Olympic games. If her event were something like archery or equestrian or swimming, it wouldn't be that unusual, but her event is gymnastics, which is notorious for being dominated by pigtailed teenagers too young to get a driver's license. If the country she were representing were someplace like Toga or Palau, not known for their gymnasts, it would not be that unusual, but she represents Germany. Germany's not Romania or the USA, but they are consistent participants of the games. She has been around since she herself was a pigtailed teenager too young to drive. I remembered her name from back then and I noticed her name this time around and thought, no way is it the same girl. But apparently, is is the same girl.

She has continued to compete this long because of her son. She used to compete for Uzbekistan, but she moved to Germany so that she could get better treatment for her son when he got leukemia. She continued to compete so that she could earn prize money to pay for his chemo (I Googled and found an article written in 2005 that her son was in remission, and I couldn't find anything that said he'd had a relapse).

She placed 9th in the individual all around for the Beijing games. She'll compete in her specialty event, the vault, tomorrow (August 17th). Unfortunately, they don't broadcast women's gymnastics much here in Japan since it's not one of our strong events. I hope she does well, though.