I am a mother of four beautiful children, Triston a six year old little man whom never ceases to amaze me. Seth, 5, my little sweetie, thumb sucking, giraffe loving cutie of a little man. Kaileigh who is so sweet and intelligent, and her twin brother Keagen who is so loving and cute, he makes me want more. lol The twins are two. I have been married to my husband Dewayne for 7 years, going on 8 next month. Although our marrige has had many ups and downs we work hard to keep it strong and keep our family together.
Last August our lives took a turn that changed us and everyone in our family forever. It was a beautiful summer weekend camping with the family, my youngest son Keagen had such a big belly which we had put off as baby belly, but my mother thought I should get a second check to make sure. The following week, we had many visits to our local clinic. We went through alot of food allergy testing, xrays which showed alot of gas in this little tummy, and even the possible diagnosis of ciliacs disease. To rule everything out our primary physician decided to do a ct scan to see if there may be a possible blockage in his intestine.
We went about our day that day, garage saleing, working around the yard and house and getting the boys ready for their first soccer practice of the season. As I was getting in the car that evening to head to soccer practice, almost forgetting about the ct we had done earlier that day, the phone rang. It was the nurse asking me to bring my husband, Keagen and to pack a bag, to come to the clinic for a conseltation. I remember telling my husband and crying while hugging him in the driveway and saying to him " what could be wrong with him"? I remember thinking that he may need to have some miniscule organ out or something but never thought it would be too serious. In a moments notice, I called my Grandma and had her watch the other kids for me for a bit while we went to the clinic to see what the deal was.
When we arrived at the clinic, the Dr. was still with another patient and we waited in a exam room, with millions of thoughts going through my hear. A knock at the door and Dr. entered starting with some small talk with Keagen, an.\d then right to the chase. I do not remember to much of the conversation, but he explained to us that they had found a tumor in Keagens stomach, and that he wanted us to go to Uw Madison to have it checked for malignancy. He never at that point said cancer, he said a sentence first that will forever ring in my head. He said "I am not going to lie to you. This is serious, about as serious as it gets." I remember thinking that this was all just to be overcautious, and asking the Dr. if they would just take it out if it were not malignant. The look he gave me was so serious when he replied, " I am almost possative that it is cancer, little boys just don't grow tumors the size of grapefruits in their tummies." I did little crying there in the office, i remember the disbelief in my head. The second that we left the office the tears started falling and I remember thinking, my little boy is going to die and there is nothing I can do about it.
The rest of that night is pretty foggy, I called my mom to watch my kids, picked up the kids from my grandmas, and made a few more calls on the way to my sister, and grandmother. I remember my sisters reaction word for word, she said" stop, tell me everything" I remember thinking it had to be a bad dream this just dosn't happen to us. The drive to Madison was very long, even though it was only an hour. We arrived there very late at night.
We were taken to the room at the end of the hall and almost instantly they started poking him to get blood, it was terrible. I still did not believe them.
The Dr came in and sat with me and asked me what I knew as to why we were there. I told her I know that Keagen has a tumor in his stomach, and we are here to find out what it is. She then told me if she had to diagnose it then she would be 99% sure it was cancer and even told me the type. It is neuroblastoma, she said. A word that until that day I had never heard. She told me that he would be having a major surgery the next morning to have a biopsy taken, bone marrow asspirations, and have a hickman put in his chest. This is a port used to give medications and take blood.
I remember the feeling I had that night. I felt like I had the most sudden onset of the flu. I remember asking the dr if I should feel sick to my stomach, and she replied that I should feel like I want to crawl up and die. I hardly slept that night, my mind was going crazy. I remember this wierd thought going through my head that maybe now people would look at him differently like damaged goods. I don't know why this thought went through my head, for it was very short lived, but it was really hard for me to look at him and imagine this huge thing growing inside him, and that he never really acted sick.
The next day was a wirlwind. Tons of information was thrown at me. Thankfully my Grandmother was there with me to help me absorb the information, hold my why I cryed, and just sit with me. Keagens surgery took six hours, it was hard for them to get to the tumor. During that time we learned everything that we could about the cancer and the treatment process. All in one day we were thrown into a world that we now know all to well.
Chemo was schedualled to start that saturday, the 30th of August, but he was so sick that he needed a blood transfusion. Chemo was then pushed off and started on Sunday August 31st. Which also happend to be my 28th birthday. Needless to say the begining was a wirlwind of emotion and confusion. I honestly cannot tell you if it had sunk in at this point that from this point forward we were going to be fighting for my sons life.
That first visit we were in the hospital for 12 days. I missed my children terribly and had a ton of training to do on Keagens homecare. ....
