Anxiety is the Beast

I hear myself tell my story, and it becomes new again. I hate that. I think whenever people go through something traumatic--like your child having brain cancer--it's best to leave the memory behind when you can.

Denial
Emma started aquatic therapy April 1st, weekly for 12 weeks. She has never had swim lessons, so its really wonderful to see her enjoy herself so much. We love our therapists, Lance and Rusty. She gets quite the work out and is literally a wet noodle at the end of the session.

I'm in a conversation at aquatic therapy on Wednesday, talking to another mom I've been trying to avoid for weeks now. (Oh man.) I hear myself telling her that Emma is now four years old and had a malignant brain tumor removed almost a year ago. (Ugh.) I also hear myself saying we are fortunate. And really we are. I almost feel guilty that this woman cannot have the same thing for her child. The one confined to a wheel chair, with a feeding tube and no muscle tone at all. Her beautiful 3-year-old daughter who is almost blind, doesn't walk nor talk much because of a brain bleed that occurred in utero. (Sucks!)

Here I am telling my story; my child is alive, and healthy and swimming. Yet I avoid this woman and other parents at hospitals, why? Not for lack of compassion. But only because I want to be normal. I don't want to admit, or even remember what happened last summer. I want to pretend that Emma a normal 4-year-old girl. Is that wrong? Sometimes I look at myself and wonder if this is how I should be handling the situation. Most of the time I don't have the answer to that. In fact, I don't know if I ever really will.

March MRI
The last MRI that Emma had in March was completely clean. Not even the "little spot" that the doctors were watching was evident.

Dr. Andrew Jea, our neurosurgeon, started by showing us the previous scans from January; then the new March scan. When the new images came up on screen, I gasped. There was nothing. No tumor, no spot, nothing at all. Amazing! I was speechless. Mike was standing next to me, so taken aback and relieved that he began sobbing. I had my doubts that this was correct, but the Dr. Jea assured me "Emma is tumor-free." I was beside myself.

So since March, we have been trying to be those normal people. To try and give our daughter the best, most normal life we can. This is an extremely difficult thing to do, especially for me. That "tough as nails" persona, the "strong mother" thing, it was all just temporary. I set my emotions aside--as I often do--to deal with the hard issues. I am more effective that way. I didn't cry, I didn't even let myself feel anything until it was done. Not that we are out of the woods yet with Emma. But in November, when we moved back into our house, when her cancer treatments were over, when I could finally relax a little, that's when I really found myself hitting rock bottom. The weight of every little emotion I had been collecting came crashing down on me. It was hard to breathe. I had terrible anxiety and mild depression. I still have issues today.

There. I said it out loud. So now you know. This is part of the reason I've been hiding far away from this blog. It's easier to forget the bad stuff if you ignore it. I choose to focus on the positive.

School is Cool
Emma started school in March at our local elementary. She's in a Pre-K Montessori program that seems to suit her well. She actually got accepted last year in the spring and was supposed to start in August. But God had other plans. In June she was diagnosed with a tumor and when school started in August, she still had more than two weeks left of radiation therapy. The school people were kind enough to hold a spot until October, but she was still quite fatigued and still suffering the lingering effects of radiation therapy, so we decided to pass on the opening. So when a spot in the program opened up in March, we jumped right in. We were encouraged by doctors and therapists to place her in a program that would more mentally stimulate her. She went from one day a week at daycare to a full-fledged, five day a week montessori program. It was a very tough transition, but she loves it. Today was her last day and summer vacation has now officially started.

Anxiety Issues
Currently, there is another MRI scheduled for June 1st, and the past few days I have been haunted by nightmares.

The first one was odd: a room full of random people, inflating balloons of all colors. It didn't make any sense. The next thing I knew all of those random people, including myself, were in the middle of a grassy field with balloons in hand. A man stood in the middle of the crowd, releasing them one by one into the sky while saying a name. The first one was "Emma Maltbie." I woke up immediately and was really shaken.

The next dream was even worse. All I remember was that she was in a child-sized coffin, open-casket, people sobbing all around her. I'll leave it at that. Just describing it is too much for me to handle. I woke up crying and really distraught and I can't get the image out of my head.

So hopefully those dreams don't come true. I know I'm not psychic; let's hope not. I ask you to pray that our little Emma has a clear scan on the 1st of June again. I don't ever want those dreams to become a reality. Can you hear me God? I hope you're listening.