My God … how blessed I am! Here I sit at my desk, looking out the window, reflecting on where my five children are in their lives today. It is with great pride that I can say they are all doing wonderfully. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but today, I celebrate.
About a year ago, a friend of mine gave me a book, I’ve Been Thinking, written by another woman of strength, Maria Shriver. My girlfriend told me it reminded her of my own writing and she thought I would like it. I absolutely loved it, but as I read a few chapters, I got nervous.
How does one begin to tell the story of the time their child was diagnosed with cancer? People usually call leukemia – leukemia. They say it like it is a disease unto itself, but it is cancer. It is a cancer of the blood.
This year, I went in a different direction. I am not a huge fan of Mother’s Day, and interestingly enough, so many people I spoke to aren’t either.
October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. The perfect time to share the story of discovering I would soon be blessed with a special child, the ensuing pregnancy and how we almost lost him.
But when I saw kids with brain tumors and babies who were sick, I became grateful that my child only had leukemia. My perspective changed and I felt blessed, his fight was not as difficult.
We ended up with a long delay after the horrible ordeal in the hospital. We had to go to the clinic every few days, but Joey’s blood counts were low, and he wasn’t able to start the next phase for 15 days. The next stage had four spinal infusions within two weeks with all the other steroids and chemos.
So there we were – heart problems seemed to have subsided, but then we had new issues to face. Joey’s arms and legs were starting to quiver, and he was experiencing diarrhea again. The body shakes were a side effect from a chemo.