Friday, July 10, 2009

More surgery and chemotherapy

This week we have played some phone tag with Dr. Whitlock's office. It is a long story and I don't think that I can even remember how many phone calls and how many different people that I talked to.

I did eventually get someone to tell me that her CT and her bone scan were all clear. No lesions anywhere! No LCH in her body. YAY!

We were planning on seeing Dr. Whitlock again on the 20th. We were waiting that long because we had to wait for the water deprivation test. But since the endocrinologist canceled the water deprivation test, I was hoping that we could see Dr. Whitlock sooner. There were some calls made back and forth so try to settle on a time. Yesterday I was thinking that we had to see him again so we could decide when she was going to start chemo, ask questions about chemo and so on. So when Vandy called this morning, I thought they were calling to set an appointment for this coming week. I was so wrong.

The voice on the other end told me that she was calling to schedule surgery for Clara Jean to have a port for her chemo out into her chest. This is a minor surgery compared to the last surgery she had, but it is still surgery. I was a little caught off guard by the call. I wasn't expecting it to happen so fast. I wasn't expecting it to happen before we saw Dr. Whitlock again.

I sat trying to take it all in. I prayed for strength, for Clara and for me. I cried.

The next call that came was from Dr. Whitlock himself. I was surprised. How often do you get a call from the doctor? The first thing that he said was that he wanted to make sure that I knew that the scans were both clear. He said that he was happy to hear from the endocrinologist that she doesn't have diabetes insipidus. He said that he was ready to move forward with the chemo, as we had talked about at our last appointment. Then, he said that she would have her first round after her surgery on Monday! Um...ok.

Now, I have been saying that I want to just get this going. I have been saying that I want her to start chemo as soon as she can so she can get several weeks out of the way before school starts. I have been saying that the sooner she gets started, the sooner it will be over. But today, I wanted to say, hang on, I'm not ready. I need time.

To be completely honest, I was pretty much a mess all day today. I just could not pull myself together. Everytime I thought about surgery and chemo, I started crying. I got tears in my eyes about a million times today. I would start to pray and just end up in tears. As the day wore on, I decided to just embrace my fears. Embrace my sadness that my daughter is going through this and just be sad.

Trusting God doesn't mean that we don't feel. My feelings, don't mean that I have stopped trusting. They just mean that I am a mom. I ended the afternoon giving my feelings to God. Asking Him to help me feel all the emotions and to keep my trust.

Please continue to pray for us. Please pray for Clara. She is scared. She doesn't understand. Please pray for her surgery to go smoothly and for her to have chemo without side effects. Please pray for Tom and me to continue to have strength, peace and trust. Oh, I could go on and on, but I think you get it.

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