My knees buckled as I started hyperventilating. I quickly handed my husband our baby and sat in the hospital bed alone as if I were the patient.
Breath Caley... breath damn it. Your son needs you. Be strong.
Our new oncologist slid down the wall and sat on the hospital floor. She spoke softly, with love, yet matter of fact. As she proceeded to share with us the multiple tumors in my sons head, I fervently started absorbing information. (Little did I know this would be one of my strong suits in this journey moving forward - learning the language and ways of our doctors, nurses and medical team.)
Above all I clung to this:
What we believe your son has is SURVIVABLE, but your lives will never be the same.
She wrote the words on the hospital room white board right next to the happy faces we had been drawing hours earlier in hopes to distract our screaming baby.
That was one year ago to this day -.
So let me move to the tricycles, 365 days later.
This morning after I returned from dropping my 19 year old off at DIA to visit her boyfriend on a dream 10 day trip, I returned to our home and snuggled up in bed with my 16 year old son who had been watching Whitten John. WJ has many challenges - one of them sleeping. He wakes up multiple times a night whether hungry, in pain or scared. I was thankful to find them both sound asleep. I laid there in peace reflecting on my gratitude for how far we have all come.
Whitten John has been through 50 chemotherapy treatments, three different types administered through a quick push, subcutaneously at home and finally connected to a drip for hours and hours at a time. Every round has seemed to offer us a new challenge to persevere through, and we do persevere, because that is the only option.
He has been under anesthesia 7 times which means 7 rounds of NPO. He developed 5 new tumors and we watched those same tumors and the first ones dissolve as we found the chemo that worked for him. We have 4 more round aka four more months, 2 sets of scans and finally a bell to ring. 🤞🏽
As I listened to my boys' slow relaxed beautiful breath, I relished in my love and pride for all of the ways we have evolved over the past year and how far we have come. The boys started to stir and I immediately prayed -
Thank you for ANOTHER DAY. May we be Your light and have Your strength.
When they awoke, we went down to greet the newest addition to our family, our puppy Finley, who will hopefully be a service dog to Whitten in the future.
We stepped outside into the perfectly crisp Colorado morning air where Finley played out in our sand filled backyard.
Whitten and I pulled out his new tricycle and I taught him how to pedal for the first time.
Here we are, one year later:
Happy
Alive
Supported
Strong
Loving
Living in faith
Present
Breathing
Flowing through challenges
Rising up
Laughing
Being
Giving
Serving
And riding a tricycle.
I smiled - looked up and said thank you.
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