Life of a Cancer Mom: Part 3

Fear is something your children give you from the day you see a positive pregnancy test. You stress over every little flutter, watch what you eat, try to keep yourself healthy, finalize every little detail of their room, even down to worrying you won’t be good enough. Then, when your child finally makes their appearance, you fear on a whole new level. As newborns, you don’t think you are doing things right, you fear every little sneeze, fart, cry. From there, comes a whole new level of fear! Missed steps, picky eaters, temper tantrums, repeating cuss words even! But imagine that not being all you had to worry about.

For most parents, that is all they have to worry about. But for a whole classroom of parents a day, they have something far worse to worry about. Something worse than the boogeyman or vampires. Childhood Cancer. The scariest thing on planet Earth to date.

Not just the disease itself, but the treatment that comes along with it. Surgery, chemo, scans, ultrasounds, waiting, doctors upon doctors, various other medicines that we have to put in our child’s body, pokes and prods, even scars. That was just my child. Many other children have to go through so much more.

March 15th, 2017. The day before my birthday. Hubby, kids, and I should be celebrating right? Wrong! Instead, we had far too much to worry about.

Surgery day. Surgery to remove a demon from my child’s body, plus an organ. Then, to add something to his body that could potentially make him sick. To say we were nervous would be an understatement. B had no clue as to what was going on, just wanted to go home.

First things first, CT scan. That was pretty normal. In and out of the machine, breathe, hold your breath. You know! From there, we had to go back to a hospital room that was full of people. Granted, it was people that loved and cared about my son; I just wasn’t up for company this day.

After fighting with B for what seemed like forever, and eventually calling in one of the nurses to help us, we got him in his hospital gown. I do believe I would have rather fought with him another hour or so. Because once the gown got put on, it was time for surgery prep.

Hubby and I walk down this long hall, baby boy in a hospital bed, none of us speaking to each other. It was hard. As parents, we want nothing bad to happen to our children, ever. That’s what made this so hard. Cancer is one thing we cannot protect anyone from. When we hear the word, our hearts sink. But when we hear our child has it, it’s something different. Something I can’t explain.

Down in the surgery prep, the nurses give us a few minutes before they administer the “goofy” medicine. So, we sit and play. For once, I don’t worry about who is calling or texting, although my phone is ringing off the hook at this point. I don’t think about what’s going to happen. The only thing on my mind is that I won’t be seeing my boy for a few hours, and I can’t protect him from what’s about to come. That is by far the most scariest thing ever as a parent.

“Goofy” medicine administered. Ok, so we get a few laughs. B has no clue where he is, or what’s happening; and his actions are quite hilarious. It felt good to get a few laughs in! 15 minutes until they sweep B away from us to take out this devil! His surgeon comes in to talk to us one more time. Tears still streaming down our faces, we thank him and say one more little prayer before we have to exit to the waiting room!

Once in the waiting room, Hubby and I sit and talk to the abundance of guests we have there to support our baby boy. Let me just tell you, our baby boy had a half of a waiting room full of support, but I still felt lonely. I cannot speak for hubby, but people just weren’t doing it for me. I had to get up, move around, clean something. Be anywhere but there! So, I go to clean our room. Yes, clean a hospital room. We were supposed to get hourly updates on B, so I made sure my phone was fully charged.

First phone call, everything was going good, he was sedated and the surgeon was about to begin. “Thank you!” The coldest appreciation I had ever given in my life up to this point. So, Hubby decides we were allowed to eat. Instead of me driving and dealing with MORE people I didn’t need to, I had my sister-in-law take me out to get some lunch! Thank goodness I did, because the second phone call came during this time.

Back to the waiting room I go to sit with our company as to not appear rude. Another hour goes by. Third phone call. During this phone call we found out the tumor had been removed and the surgeon was about to begin port placement. I’m loving the nurses and doctors at this hospital so far!

The next time we spoke with a medical professional, the surgeon actually came out and wanted to speak with us about how everything was going. B had his tumor and a kidney removed. He had been sewed up and his port had been placed. Coming back to us, he would have a breathing tube and a catheter. Ok. That’s fine. The devil is out of his body. With tears in his eyes, the surgeon told us everything would be fine, that he had high hopes. I just lost it and had to hug him.

We were informed that B would be brought straight to his room from the first recovery room. So what do I do? Go clean some more and impatiently wait for him to return. As I arrive in our room, the nurse we had for the day tells us we are moving to a different room that is larger. She helps me pack up everything and move it all as well. Thank the Lord for my sister-in-law and niece for their help. I wouldn’t have been able to do a thing had it not been for them. As we are moving wagons upon wagons of toys, and cards, and clothes, I hear those three little words that still make my heart flutter.

“Where is mommy?”

That’s my baby boy. I’m pretty sure I threw whatever was in my hands and ran to him. One of the nurses catches me.

“Hey, he’s really tired and will be really sore. We know you have a large family. And that is fine. But tonight, let’s just do a few guests at a time. To make it a little easier on him. He had this pain medicine pump and is allowed to push it anytime he needs. But he cannot get out of bed, and needs his sleep.”

I frantically try to catch everyone before they come in and find my husband and explain to him. At this point I think we had somewhere around 10 family members there. Allowing each to come in a small group at a time, hubby and I do not leave his side. How can such a small 4-year-old be such a strong fighter?!

After our round of guests, it’s time for us to catch some sleep. First though, the breathing tube gets to come out! That was horrible! I never expected such a long tube to fit down my child. After B takes some sips of water and I make sure he isn’t hurting, it’s time for bed. Hubby takes the window couch, I curl up at the end of B’s feet and hold his foot while he sleeps.

Any mommas reading this will know exactly how I feel at this point. Sleep is eluding me. It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with cancer, the flu or whatever, we never want to see our babies hurt. And my baby was hurting! He had all kinds of mucus in his lungs, his body was sore, he had IVs everywhere and a catheter coming from his netherworld!

I lay with him, trying my best not to hurt him, and I look over at my husband. “I love you!” I don’t think either of us had said those words since Monday, this was Wednesday. We knew it was there though, as did our boys. We were one step closer to being done, and now we needed each other more than anything.

That night, nurses came in and out, getting vitals and just checking on us. Sleep was more like little naps in between here and there. I am a stay-at-home mom and am used to very little sleep. Hubby works full time at a pretty rough job, so when he got the chance to sleep, I let him. Who knew what the next day had in store! Guess only time and God would tell!