My baby's story part 2

I had just hung up the phone with Daddy. My baby was going to Primary Children's Hospital. (PCH) I stood up and began to wander through the house. What was I supposed to get? Daddy had just told me to grab what we needed and get back to the hospital so they could take my baby in an ambulance to Primary's. My cousins were there to watch our two other boys and I'm glad they were. 

I wandered. Nothing was collected. My mind was numb. I have never understood how someone's emotions could make them physically sick until I received the worst, no the 2nd worst, piece of news a parent could receive. Death being the worst news- and at that point I prayed with all my heart I would not be feeling this feeling soon. Because being told your baby has an unknown mass and seeing in everyone's eyes the pity they feel for you is bad enough.

My cousin helped me get things we needed. Without her, I would have still been stuck home in a stupor.

"J. What about a change of clothes?"

"oh yeah... Right .. " I'd collect the clothes and then run around the house trying to think of more things while she quietly followed me and essentially told me what else I should get. With her help I made it out the door in 5 minutes or less. 

2:45am

I made it back to the hospital in 2 minutes and ran inside, not wanting to be away from my baby for another second.  

He was lying on the exam table, exhausted from everything we'd put him through that he was asleep. We were told he would have to be put in his carseat for the ambulance ride. I was devastated. He was in so much pain and finally sleeping. I didn't want to move him at all. 

I wanted to take him and hold him and will his tumor away from him. I wanted it to be me. Writing this now, I still wish it was me. Please Heavenly Father, let this tumor be in me and take away all his pain. I wanted him to understan, I needed him to understand how much daddy and I love him, but how can you tell a 6-week old that. You can't. 

I put him in the carseat. Crying probably as much as he was at this point. If he cried, I cried. I wish he knew that we were putting him in his seat so when the EMT's arrived, he could have time to settle down. I wish he knew that everything we were allowing to happen to him was because we love him.

Two men came in with a stretcher. Baby boys' carseat got strapped in. One of the men smiled at me reassuringly. The other stood back with saggy firefighters' pants on, seemingly uninvolved. Definitely not comforting when your babys' needs are in his hands for the next 1/2 hour as we travelled.

He and I were loaded into the ambulance and tried to settle in for the drive from Orem to salt lake. Daddy drove home and met papa so they could drive up behind us. I had the pleasure of sitting there with my own haphazard thoughts in a strange smelling ambulance, with a silent, uninvolved EMT, jerking about at every little bump, putting my fingers under my baby's nose to make sure he was breathing. 

It. Was. Awful.

I can remember now thinking of the stupidest things and then remembering what was happening to 
my little boy and I'd start crying all over again. Very embarrassing when the EMT is sitting over there listening, doing everything he can to not look in my direction.

The one thought that kept creeping into my mind while riding in the ambulance was actually about my sweet grandmother. She lost her first child at 10 months old. And I was praying that her experience wasn't so she could help me through my own loss of a child. My mind couldn't shake this irrational fear and it was terrible.

We made it to PCH at about 3:30am. And then it all began again, but this time it felt different. 

There were doctor's everywhere, nurses, and other medical personal coming to and from our room in a steady stream. Daddy and papa made it and seeing a new face only renewed the crying I had kept at bay for at least 10 minutes.

We told our story over and over. To the ER doc. To the surgeon. The oncologist. The nurses. I cannot even begin to express the agony I was in. No one wanted to say cancer, but no one wanted to tell us it wasn't that either. I've never really felt physically sick from emotions before, or at least not to this extreme. I wanted to puke. I felt like I had to pass out. I could barely stay standing. And thinking 
functionally was a joke. 

4am. Daddy, little boy and I had been awake now for 22 hours straight. 

PCH brought their IV team in to stick him and draw blood. It was amazing how different their approach was. They weren't going to poke him until they knew they had a good vein. They were very attentive to daddy and I and the attention we needed. They were also very concerned with keeping baby boy as calm as they could, all things considered.  It was a breath of fresh air to feel safe being sent where we were. 

We had a few more tests we had to go through.  After the multiple blood draws, we went down to get a catscan.

Daddy, papa and I had to hold his arms and legs down while they strapped him into the machine. The poor boy had to have the contrast dye put into one of his IVs. It stung a little, he cried. I cried. 

They took us back to our room and we waited. 

7am.

The ER doc came in, the surgeon and the oncologist. And they told us this.

Your son has a tumor. It's 6cm by 6.5cm around. About the size of a softball or grapefruit in his lower right abdomen. We cannot confirm or deny that it's benign at this moment. He is severely anemic, we think he's been bleeding into the tumor. We're going to want to give him a transfusion. We are going to have to do surgery. So what we'll do first is get you up to the PICU, get him comfortable and put him on the stand by list to get him in as soon as we can tomorrow. 

We had about a million questions. I couldn't really ask anything. Those dang tears just wouldn't stop coming.  So I listened numbly, halway lost in my thoughts. They were talking about my baby. My sweet little angel boy with the big blue eyes and happy personality. At one point daddy came up and hugged me. He told me, we are strong. We have gone through so much and we can take this. 

I hugged him tight and told him I didn't want it. I didn't want this challenge. I wanted it to be taken away. Please take it away.