36 hours of Fear

People always say there are moments in life where your life flashes before your eyes.  In just a split second, all of your "x" number of years, flash.  Well, since Monday evening at about 630pm, we have had our lives flash over and over and over again. 

At dinner, Monday, Ben was eating and I noticed what looked like a knot under his left jaw.  As my heart instantly stopped beating, and I reached to see what it was, Marc said, "what?"  I guess the look on my face said it all.  A huge knot was under my sweet Ben's jaw.  Then, I felt the other side.  Another knot...smaller....but was on that side.  Panic/tears/PANIC hit us like a ton of bricks. 

We immediately start calling the after hours doctor and are seen in the after hours clinic at 820.  From then until 1030, the pediatrician came to the conclusion it is some sort of virus.  Swollen lymph nodes.  Mono?  CMV?  Even though the 2 doctors were thinking virus....we were thinking something all the more terrible!  Blood work showed nothing definitive, so we left the office thinking virus.  I scheduled a followup the following morning with our pediatrician.  I wanted Dr Petelos to take a look at him.  He was stumped as well.  Agreed with a probable virus but was surprised by how large the nodes were.  He wanted to just let us go "watch them"....but I just wasn't leaving without knowing.  He decided to do additional blood work and run a few test to see if it is mono specifically.  At the last second, because of my fear of the "what if", he ran 2 tests for something that scares me too much to even say or type!  We left at 1030 am on Tuesday.  I cried the whole way home as I called Marc at work.  Marc left work immediately.  How could this even be happening?  How could they even be running these tests?  The thought was almost too much to comprehend.  We knew we had 4 doctors saying, "its probably a virus".  But we just couldn't handle the thought of the "what if it's not!"

For the next 2 days we waited!  Marc stayed home from work Wednesday and we played and played with our Ben and tried not to jump out of our skin with terror.  Every 2 seconds we checked my phone.  Ben acted completely normal......we were trying to keep up with him.  All the facts pointed to something like a virus.  But the possibility of something else was hanging so heavy on our hearts.  In all of our years, we have never been this scared!  As parents, you naturally worry....but this is a worst nightmare!!  We called and left a messages for the nurse to call us.  At the very end of Wednesday, we finally get a call.  NEG for mono and one of the scary tests was normal.  We praised the Lord for that but now were still waiting on the final scary test results.  Another sleepless night awaited us.  Thursday morning arrived.  At 910, my cell rings.  ALL results were normal.  We were told to watch him and followup in a week.  This is a moment we will never forget.  With tears of happiness and gratefulness, we shower our Ben with hugs and kisses.  We thank the good Lord for such wonderful results. 

Our family has been through pure hell the last 36 hours.  The moments of waiting were at times unexplainably painful.  With every  moment we waited, we would look at our Ben and just fall more and more in love with him.  Somehow, in a time like this, when you realize how powerless you truly are, you just love.  I had tried to not cry much in front of him...there were moments where I would be ok....then there were many moments where my tears would flow.  At my lowest point, when we were playing in his room, I began to cry. I just looked at him and saw my heart staring back at me.  As tears flowed down, he ever so simply wiped my cheek, held my neck and kissed my cheek.  Like it was just the most appropriate thing to do. 

How could we be blessed with such a joy?  How he wasn't given us as parents....but how were we given him as a son?  How do you trust when your foundation is being moved?  How do you face this ultimate fear and not just fall to pieces?  We prayed.  We prayed every single time we thought about it. 

We are so very grateful for having been given such wonderful news.  We stand in humble joy that our prayers were answered.  We have been through the hardest moment of our parenting life thus far and are standing on the other side with the utmost thankfulness. 

Our Ben.  Our son.  Our heart.