To live as a parent of a child, formally a blood cancer patient. What does it mean to live through it?
Long after the last drop of your child’s blood is medically deemed unpolluted with an alarming number of mutated leukocytes, fear still lives in you like a latent virus infecting your own cells. Dormant. Inactive at times. But, still, it is alive. You almost forget it is there, until, what otherwise might be a minor event or innocuous comment, somehow inflames panic.
The fear virus.
The fear virus flares up like a raging case of dermatitis. You feel the painful swelling and annoying itch, yet must carry on with your duties. But you know it’s not your best work. You attempt to cover the defenseless, raw blemishes. But you know others can still see them. You lament the discomfort; the whole sleepless, joyless, listless ordeal.
You apply ointments and balms, oils and antiseptics. But nothing works. You just have to let it run it’s course.
All you can really do is wait for it to pass.
Likewise, you wait for the fear virus to pass. You pray and you wait and you pray. You hold tightly to God and hope. It doesn’t leave your body, but it does leave your sight. It does pass. It will pass. You will live through it.
Grace be with you, parents and friends.
After a year, it’s time to remove Justin’s central chest line. Switching to IV’s in the hand when in clinic. Ouch, I know. Somehow we think it still beats repeated stabbings and large bandage adhesive removal on a sensitive skin chest area.
We said goodnight to friends and I began to clean up the kitchen. My mind was troubled. Why wasn’t Justin playing with the other kids? I had taken him to see three different doctors and had two set of x-rays done, yet he still complained of hurting feet. I had put him to bed earlier with a dose of children’s ibuprofen.
Last night, I yelled at Nicky because he kept making careless mistakes with his math homework. Like really yelled at him. Like a lunatic. Over multiplication.
grace steps 