Life Unfolding

If you don't know what's around the corner, does that mean its not there? Before Henry was diagnosed, I never fully considered the weight of that question.

Today brought more tough challenges. Tara returned to work. Henry had his first day back at the hospital since our first chemotherapy and we faced up to a bit of the reality of having a chronically ill child. Partly because of her background and partly her nature, Tara has consistently been thinking several moves ahead of this thing. For me, I just don't digest it until it happens. I don't know if one or the other is better, perhaps they're complimentary in our situation.

Tara has talked to me about the long days of tests, I've imagined scenes of road-side stops holding the head of a vomiting child, sick from chemo and even considered how I'd handle a roomful of children with no-hair, realizing the circles of lives that had been up-ended with their diagnoses. My imagination, it seems, just isn't up to the task. I feel like I barely made it - and that was with the help of my very capable mother at my side.

Henry has a rash around his midsection that I can only guess must feel like fire sometimes as gauged by his reaction. Guessing among that, nausea, constipation and general aches and pains - and what to do for these - parental anxiety is constantly piqued. All these things seem intensified by the hospital.

I'm not really sure how our 1pm appointment kept us there until just after 5pm, but those were long hours. His blood count resulted in having to schedule Henry's first blood transfusion (for Thursday) as his red blood cell counts are low. His white blood count is so low, its below the testing threshold. This means - and its nothing they didn't warn us of - that he is at high risk for infection. If we measure a temperature over 100 degrees, then we're off to the emergency room at Washington County to be later admitted to Hopkins.

So as Henry drifted in and out of sleep and fits of unease, I wondered what was next. Will we be back in Baltimore yet tonite? Tomorrow? Wednesday?

This didn't heighten my anxiety as I thought it might. In some respects I feel like we're watching a piece of paper unfold. Some we can see, some we cannot, but either way, its all been written. I look at pre-diagnosis pictures of Henry and realize the cancer was there. We just didn't know about it yet. For some reason thinking of things this way releases me from feeling like I have to control everything and just helps me to accept it.

So what will tomorrow bring? Just because we don't know doesn't mean its not there - we just can't quite see around the corner.