Living-Deliberately.com

Rember that on Little House on Prairie? Anything Dr. Baker couldn’t handle, they’d pack a basket of sandwiches, a neighbor would keep the other children, and they’d drive off with the child for the long journey ahead.

Ours wasn’t quite like that. We left long before dawn, the car covered in ice (note to self: get a scraper), nearly hit a little bunny on the way, and arrived at Children’s Hospital just as rush hour was gearing up in downtown Knoxville.

Andrew had an ultrasound on the mass in his leg. It is not, as we’d feared based on an appointment on Monday with our version of Dr. Baker, Soft-tissue Sarcoma.  It is a lymph node grown to nasty proportions. It could still be a number of worrisome things, like lymphoma or other stuff, but it’s not the BIG one that made us sob and hold our breath in terror.

I don’t fear man much but I sure fear what man’s body can sometimes do within itself. Cancer is right up there at the top. Cancer in one of my kids is off the charts.

I ditched Dr. Baker and went instead to the doctor I’d selected in Maryville earlier this year. I like her; I trust her. She was WELL worth the drive. She measured it, did blood work. sent stuff out, listened to Andrew and helped him with his own anxiety over this.

First thoughts are that it’s a crazy virus. Both Mono and Cat Scratch Disease can do weird things with organs and the body and it could be that. The blood work should help there. She also changed his antibiotic to something more appropriate. We’re going to wait for test results, watch the lump, and check back in a week. If it’s still there, likely we’ll schedule surgery to remove it and test it. The only way to make sure it’s not cancer is to remove it.

So we’re home. And feeling calm. There are other big trials going on that have largely been shelved until we can get over this hump. Plates are only so big and can handle so much at one time, no matter who wishes we could do more.

What has been really tender is hearing Wheaton and Celia pray, prostrate on the floor, at the table, in their beds, in the car, and nearly anywhere in between that their brother will be healed. They are children who understand, up close and personal, that sometimes childhood illness doesn’t end the way one wants it to. We didn’t ask them to pray for him; they did it on their own and it’s a beautiful thing. I think right now, we’re all feeling a  peace, feeling all the prayers, and making it through another day.

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