Fight on, Miss Boots...Day 13

Okay, so I'm about to get a little heavy on y'all. Bear with me...

 

There is a fellow little cancer warrior out there, Brennan. I don't know him personally, but he is battling neuroblastoma (brain tumor, thankyouverymuch, Grey's Anatomy), and things are not going well. His parents have been told there is nothing else to be done for him, so they are being faced with some very difficult and unconscionable decisions, like whether to continue IV nutrition, whether to perform CPR on him, whether or not to take him home. I not only feel for that poor little baby who is struggling to survive when the odds are all against him and the outcome probably won't be good, but if we're being honest here, which I usually am ;), my first thought is that poor mother.

 

I have thought about this very thing many times, as I'm sure every other cancer mom has. We all hope that things will go the right way, but how do you cope when they don't? How do you force yourself to let go, when your instinct is to fight? I feel for this mother deeply, even though I don't know her. I pray for her strength, and for peace for her because I can only imagine what she must be going through.

 

I have imagined what she must be going through, tried to wrap my mind around what I would do if the doctors told me there was nothing else to be done for her. How would I be able to fight every motherly instinct that I have and just sit back and watch my child die? As a mother, how do you sit back and do nothing? Mothering is an action verb, it's something you do. What do you do when there is nothing to be done?

I think if I were faced with this situation, I would fight as much as we could, because I believe in a benevolent God, and I believe that miracles happen every day that even the doctors can't explain. There is always a chance, even if the doctors say there isn't. When they say this, they are almost always right, but it could happen, and it isn't wrong to hope. But I would also take into account what my child wanted. Sarah tells me at least twenty times a day that she wants to go home. So, I think if it came to that, and there was nothing else to be done, and I mean ABSOLUTELY nothing, and a whole team of doctors were telling me there was nothing else to be done, I would give my baby what she wanted. I would take her home, to be with her family, and her dolls and her things. 

Are you crying yet? I am, and my heart feels heavy just thinking about this very real possibility. Don't get scared for us yet, the doctor said that Sarah looks really good, and her counts jumped from 29 yesterday to 48 today. That's a big jump! At this point, what they expect is that she should still be at 0. The members of Team Bossy Boots have all told me that it is too early for engraftment (the process where the donor cells take over for her own cells in her body), but as I said, miracles happen every day that even doctors can't understand. And this little girl is special. They all are, these little angels, these cancer warriors, and while they can't all win, this little girl still has a fighting chance, and she is fighting with a vengeance. We are fighting together, the "team teamers" as she calls us (don't ask me why), Team Bossy Boots, and we will continue to fight this demon called Cancer until the bitter end, or the sweet one, whichever comes. Bring it on.