Hope Is Our Only Hope
September 3, 2008 by BloggerNewbie
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Hope Is Our Only Hope
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. It is very important to share stories and make people aware of the reality of childhood cancer. It is ugly and it is real and yes, it does really happen. There are also stories of joy and hope. And I can tell you from experience, joy and hope are scarce when you and your family are suffering through cancer.
The beginning of our story started with the shock of cancer. That happens to other people. Not our family. This can’t be happening. Hospitals and doctors have made plenty of mistakes before; after all, they are human. He’s just a baby. When are they going to fix him so we can take him home?
Now what are we going to do? Yesterday, I brought you to the start of the baby’s treatment. Oh, I think this is going to be a long road. It was about 10 days before Christmas. They wanted a larger biopsy to test the tumor outside the body; I guess they wanted a one inch by one inch chunk. Why don’t they take a bigger chunk? Maybe that would buy a little more time. We were concerned that the tumor was going to grow and we didn’t know what, if anything, chemo was going to do. There wasn’t any more room for this ugly thing to grow.
The team of doctors tried to prepare us for how Drake would come out of surgery. The little guy was going to be on a respirator, he was going to have tubes coming out of every spot on his little body. He would be in intensive care for a few days. He’s just a baby. I hate this.
But he amazed us. Drake came out of the procedure without a respirator, without any feeding tubes, without any other tubes. What a tough little guy! When we were finally able to see him, I peaked in his room while the nurses were settling him. I could see he was looking around for someone familiar. When he spotted me he tried to get up but decided that was not such a good idea.
We spoke too soon. We weren’t prepared for the little guy’s reaction to this “little” biopsy. Now I knew why they couldn’t remove anymore of the tumor. In the night all hell broke loose! He was having difficulty breathing so they reinserted the respirator which he didn’t like too well. He was transferred to pediatric ICU. They put him into a medicated induced coma. They haven’t even started treatment yet.
My daughter and her husband hadn’t been home in a month. 
My daughter wasn’t holding up so well. We decided it would be a good idea if she went home to be with their daughter for a couple of days. Their daughter was getting a little worried about her brother. It was getting close to Christmas.
We were going to have to celebrate Christmas for Emily. We went back to Boston the weekend before Christmas. We brought Emily, all the Christmas gifts and an artificial tree to our room at the Ronald McDonald house. We were lucky that we had a room at the Ronald McDonald house with kitchen utilities and our own bathroom. I had my Christmas with Emily a few days early. I had my video camera to capture granny’s girl when she discovered she would get to open presents early. Drake was spending his first Christmas “sleeping”. The team of doctors had taken Drake off the respirator Christmas Eve hoping he was going to be strong enough to breathe on his own. One of my other daughters stayed at the hospital with Drake so mommy and daddy could have Christmas with Emily.
Christmas morning at my house was pretty quiet. My husband and I were both preoccupied with our own thoughts and pain. I told him this was the worst Christmas ever. I called and spoke to Emily and she was excited that Santa Claus did know where she was. And of course she got just what she wanted – Hannah Montana stuff! They were on their way to the hospital to see Drake. My daughter called me about 15 minutes later and I could hear Drake in the background! They had him sitting up and he was jabbering away! This is the BEST Christmas ever.
It’s time for Chemo. We’ve all heard the horror stories. 
We were trying to prepare ourselves for the crap this baby was going to have to endure to “maybe” reduce the size of his tumor. The plan was: he would have a round of Chemo wait two weeks then another round before they would know if anything was happening. More excruciating waiting, more praying, more begging. Drake was going to be able to go home between Chemo treatments. He had been in the hospital for two months. It was going to seem good to have some resemblance to normal.
My story is a little longer than I thought. I need another break and you probably do too. I will definitely try to conclude my story tomorrow. There are no words.
Toodles – Blog Happy!
” Once you choose hope,
anything’s possible…”
~ Christopher Reeve
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hey where is the ending to this? i think you got pritty much all of it.. even stuff that was a blur but now so clear.. these blogs are like the end of each chapter where you just want to stay up 10 minutes longer to finish the next chapter…but we have to wait an entire day for the next part..very well done..and very painful… i read this and cant believe it happened to us… like you said “it doesn’t happen to our family” it seems like so long ago yet it seems like it was just yesterday. good job!
Thanks Danielle,
I am sure it was as painful and tearful for you to read this as it was for me to write this. I didn’t intend to spread this out over 4 days but the story just kept spilling out. Although, I probably could have written something every day for the entire month. I did leave a lot out in the interest of time (believe it or not). I did conclude or at least bring up to date Drake’s status in last nite’s post (9-4-08).