Tag Archives: fear

I Live in Hope.

Posted on April 22, 2011 | 4 comments

I have anxiety. Everyday, it seems to get worse. I read a story of someone’s baby who didn’t make it and I hold Gage and pray that’s not us. I wonder if what happens when we put his mediport back in will his candida come back? Will we catch it in time if it does? Oh my god, what if he relapses?

For a long time I was able to get a hold of my panic attacks and anxiety and then one of Gage’s doctors said ”we were lucky to catch the candida as quickly as we did last time, because a lot of the times, we lose the young ones before we get to them” …. ”but you’re doing a great job, job keep doing what you’re doing” …

The thing is I don’t know what I am doing. I’m barely holding on some days. I feel like I am being held together with string and one false move and I’m going to shatter and break into a million pieces. I’m not able to fall asleep at night anymore, it seems every time I close my eyes I’m watching a movie of every complication Gage has ever had. I hear it all, I smell it all. The fear washes over me and it wont go away.

I took a CPR certification course yesterday, and as I sat there watching the training DVD, I felt the anxiety start to creep up on me. My shoulders tensed up the blood started rushing to my head. Oh god, please don’t let me start crying, I don’t want these people, these strangers to think I’m crazy. As I sat there I hear CODE PINK (code pink at our hospital means that a child is in distress) being paged over the hospital paging system. I went back to that day. The day we came so close to losing him. I sat there, a I started to sweat, my hands were shaking so hard. I was afraid, I was going to have to leave. But I NEED to get CPR certified! Thankfully, the instructor calls for a break, and I can call the Hubs, who reassured me, that Gage is still here, still alive and that everything will be fine. And for a moment at least, I’m ok.

Later that day I went to my Holy Place. Target and aimlessly walked the isles, eating popcorn and drinking a watermelon slupree basking in the fact, I was by myself. A very rare thing. I found this:

I have to...

Of course I bought it. I don’t know what I’m going to write in it yet, but I keep it with me in my purse and I take it out and stare at the words, needing to see them. Needing to know that what they say is true.

4 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged acute lymphoblastic leukemia, anxiety, cancer kids, chmotherapy, fear, Gage, hope, leukemia, live, love, panic attacks

They Deserve a Chance…

Posted on March 4, 2011 | 6 comments

So one of the many things I remember from the hospital, one that I would like to forget is when we would go down for surgery, ct scans, or ultra sounds the nurses would sit my adult sized ass in a CHILD SIZED WHEEL CHAIR! which totally is not what this post is about, but I just remembered this one time when trying to shimmy my way out I actually got stuck and they had to have someone help me out. Because my ass was not meant to squeeze into a pediatric wheel chair. UGH- embarrassing memories, thanks blog post.

Anywho, the other thing I remember most about those trips in the hospital was I would be in the mini wheel chair, and Gagers would be on my lap waving to everybody we passed. I wouldn’t at look anybody we passed in the eye ever, because I hated their pitying looks it was bad enough hearing the “oh, that’s so sad and poor baby.” Really? You totally think that is appropriate to say when I can hear you? It’s not comforting to me. In fact I want to scream “yes, this is fucking sad. But would you like to know what’s worse? Pediatric cancer research sucks.”

Did you know? The federal government has made only very modest investments in research through the National Cancer Institute (NCI). For every six research dollars per patient with AIDS and every one research dollar per patient with breast cancer, a child with cancer receives only 30 cents. To us, and the families of the 35 children diagnosed with cancer each day, it is clear that much more needs to be done to ensure access to treatment and the opportunity to fully recover.

30 freaking cents, that is all Gage is worth to them. It truly is enough to make me want to march to Capitol Hill and shove this blog down their throats. To make them see pictures of Gage make them look at his face, hear his laugh, show them that he is one amazing kid. Make them love him like I do. I’d tell them to get their heads out of their asses and do something about childhood cancer research funding. Because every baby deserves the chance to grow old.

Ethan Deserves a Chance

Caleb Deserves a Chance

Gage Deserves a Chance

And so do the 12,500 children and adolescents in the U.S. diagnosed with pediatric cancer each year.

6 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged birthday, blogher, broviac, cancer kids, Capitol Hill, chemo, chmotherapy, clinic, death, delayed intensification, failure, fear, Gage, healing, hope, hospital, life, live, love, lukemia, National Cancer Institute, NCI, panic attacks, port, surgery

The Stinker

Posted on February 18, 2011 | 9 comments

Bath time in our house is a HUGE event. For Gage. Not for me. Gage loves baths, mainly because he only gets them once a week. Then he is only in the bath for like fifteen minutes tops, with no splashing. While during the entire bath I am freaking out, begging Gage not to splash, and telling him to “sit down before you fall down.”

Normally Gage would be able to take a bath for as long as he wanted to, heck I have had to refill the tub with hot water half the time, he can play in the water for hours. That all changed in December when, after careful consideration and tons deliberation Gages doctors decided to take out his port. Because no matter how hard we tried, and how much medication we pumped into him, Gage kept getting candida in his blood. So with fear and trepidation, we sent Gagers back into surgery to remove his port and replace it with a temporary hickman line. Which is a pain in the butt, not only because I have to drive to the hospital every three days to get the dressing changed, because it’s an open site. But also the site can not get wet. Hence the excitement of bath time.

I have concocted my own special, Gage is gonna have a bath dressing. Which involves saran wrap and surgical tape. Poor Kid he hates this, mainly because every bath he gets, I use half a roll of the saran wrap and a whole roll of surgical tape. But Gage gets his bath, the nurses get a clean smelling baby for clinic the next day, and everybody thinks I’m a good mother for making it possible to Gage to bathe; so everybody wins.

I was begging Gage to give me the bucket, since he is on steroids right now I have to ask nicely and make it seem like he totally wants to give me the bucket. Or he might go Linda Blair on my ass, and throw him self backward in the tub, his head might start spinning; and throwing up chemo medicine on me. Come to think of it, he does that when I don’t get his food to him quick enough too. But he did give me the bucket, nice and calm like; and so I gave him an extra fifteen minutes in the tub. Ain’t I just the nicest?