This year has been a tough one, for a variety of reasons. And as I reflect, I find it very difficult, yet seemingly necessary, to go back to the darkest of dark days in March. One minute you're playing Scrabble with your husband, having a glass of wine and chatting about the cabin getaway you are leaving for the very next morning. The next minute, you're text messaging your ex-husband in Florida, who has just taken your daughter to the emergency room with a yet-to-be-determined diagnosis. Most of you know the rest. Emily nearly died. I wrote, as I helplessly sat in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (along with all the excited spring break travelers...) waiting for the plane to take us to Emily. At that point, we were told she had a brain tumor. It wasn't a tumor, it was a blood clot, swelling rapidly and threatening her life. But at the moment I wrote this journal, that's what we knew.
March 16, 2011 in the wee hours of the morning....
He is talking, talking talking. Situation. Family emergency. We don’t really know what is happening. Reserving plane tickets. It echoes, echoes. I can’t be living this life. I”m trapped in a box, unable to help, unable to comfort, unable to ask questions.
Emily is sick. Bloody nose leads to headache leads to throwing up and more headache leads to mixing up words and not making sense. ER visit leads to urine and blood tests leads to elevated white cell count but no fever leads to cat scan leads to a brain tumor.
Brain tumor.
Brain tumor.
My baby is thousands of miles from me, flying in a helicopter to a hospital where they will help determine the type of tumor she has and how to treat it. I am in the living room, in my bedroom, on the toilet, in her bed, clutching her clothes. They smell like her perfume. There is her colorful bear, on the floor. She has had him since she was a baby and I need to bring him to her.
Where is Gina? Is she all right?
They are worried about me. I don’t want to be touched. They comfort me, rub my shoulders, talk about how much it sucks. I don't want to be touched.
Mike and Becca are coming here to drive us to the airport.
Who fucking cares? Everyone needs to do something to feel better. I am still in the box. Pacing. I am a hamster spinning on a wheel, going nowhere. My phone doesn’t ring enough. I am addicted to information. Non-updates will do. I don’t care if you have answers to the questions, just let me ask them.
I close my eyes. How can I send Emily my love. Can she feel it?? I can almost feel her. I want her. Where is she????
At last, she is medicated enough to talk, the headache isn’t so bad now. She is cheerful. You don’t have to come, mom! I have had quite a night! I sure have a story to tell my family about my vacation! She has no fucking idea what is going on. I am holding onto this moment for dear life. She is Emily. Just plain her. She didn’t like the smell of the helicopter. Of course she didn’t! The people are nice, but she really missed her dad.
We are in line at the airport. Shoes off. Computers in a bin. Keys out. Liquids under 3 oz. I am worried about the pepper spray in my purse, and I am not worried. You wanna go, people? Let’s fucking go! I didn’t remember to leave my fucking pepper spray behind as I prepared to go to my daughter, just diagnosed with a brain tumor. Still, I like to follow the rules. I hate to be called out for being stupid and forgetting these American rules that are here to keep us all safe.
I walk through the body scanner arch and the guy let’s me know that I look absolutely exhausted. Thanks fuckwad. Long night running on my hamster wheel trying to imagine my life without my daughter. Not everyone here is off to Spring Break Daytona Beach.
We gather our belongings. The one time I am actually carrying something that could debilitate several people on the plane, including the pilot, I walk free and clear. I briefly recall that my dad couldn’t pass the “identifying objects” test when he applied to be airport security and wonder if he would have caught my pepper spray.
We move toward the gate. Endless moving walkway. All the stores are closed. Too early even for coffee. We walk on and on. Out of the hamster wheel. Toward Florida. I see a woman walking with a strange gait. I wonder, did she have a brain tumor when she was 14? Did it render her unable to carry herself properly. OK, that I will take. That is a problem we can deal with. Did she lose her legs to a terrible farm accident, chained to a life with prosthesis and never getting to kick her own legs in the swimming pool? Why does one person get one problem and another person get something else entirely. Why do some people seem to get all the problems, others none and some of us are pretty fucking lucky. But not all the time, really.
I can’t help but think about the stages of grief. Oh, I don’t really remember them. Something about disbelief, it can’t really be true. Isn’t that first? I am definitely there. Then, bargaining. Is that a stage of grief or just something about bargaining with God? I can’t remember that either. All these things seemed really important, yet so “somebody else’s life” just yesterday. Either way, I am ready to bargain. I would love to trade places with Emily, for example. Why can’t I have the tumor instead? Or, how about we take a bunch of other problems in exchange for this one. I don’t know - financial loss, house fires, I would even take another fucking divorce. Just not this. Please not this. But, you don’t get to pick, do you?
They are gathering around me. Coffee in hand (the shop must have opened). Smiling faces, are we going to Disneyland? Restless toddlers in strollers. Oh, honey, let’s get you a snack. Should I go let them know that they’d better fucking enjoy these moments, because one day they might be running on a hamster wheel, thousands of miles from that sweet little cherub, while he is mixing up his words and riding with strangers in a helicopter over St. Petersburg.
What is that next stage of grief? There must be something before acceptance. I know that I had a feeling on that people mover. I wanted to freeze the moment. Because at that moment, Emily didn’t know what is going on, and we just had a normal conversation. At that moment, she isn’t in surgery, she isn’t mixing up words, her head doesn’t hurt so bad. At that moment, we don’t know if this is cancer, if she will have surgery, if she will ever walk and talk again, if she will live. Freeze the moment, or fast forward this endless fucking night. I can’t decide. It must be one of the stages of grief.
I just asked my husband if he thinks they’ll serve booze on the plane. He asked if I was planning on having a drink, and I said I thought a cocktail to wash down some Dramamine might just be the thing. He asked if that was safe. Safe? Nothing is safe anymore.
They keep chiming on the loudspeaker about how the threat level is orange. The threat level has been orange for years. What does this mean? Green we’re good. Red we’re fucked. But orange? Orange is like a perpetual state of “maybe”. And isn’t that really just it. One day, we’re all bowling. Or eating pasta and talking about our day. One day we are planning on going camping and sorting the socks in the clean laundry basket. But it can all just change in an instant.
So, there it is. And you already know that it ended better than this. Certainly better than we imagined at the time. She lived. She made an amazing recovery.
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| Post op and crabby!! |
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| Drugged up and on the beach, like every other spring breaker, right? |
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| Gina and Emily at a wedding in October |
Take somebody you care about and wrap your arms around them. Tell them how much you love them and hold the moment and hold it tight, dammit. Because that moment could change in an instant.
It all happened so fast. Turns out that was good, because it was over so fast. Really just about 72 hours of anguish, and then relief. [Addendum to the pepper spray going through security: I, the father who flunked the Spot-the-Dangerous-Object Test, later went to work, once again, at the airport and became acquainted with a TSA guy. He told me that the way to pass the aforementioned test is to pretty much answer that every screen contains a dangerous object. Once a guy gets past the test and on the job, hell, he can let pepper spray and all manner of armament and weaponry go by.
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