Weary. . .

Okay. I'm not sure what the deal is with me frequently having sick kids, but here we go again. I've heard of parents who conjure up their kids' sicknesses and of course hypochondriacs, but I assure you I'm not one of them. I would be THRILLED to go a whole month and not deal with some sort of infirmary around here. Before I begin the story of my drama for the day, I apologize that I informed almost nobody that this was even going on. Tra was out of town so I talked to him a lot of the day. And I'm sorry to all my friends/family who might read this and it will be the first you heard of it.

Last night Tra left to go out of town---actually out of country. He was on a short business trip to Mexico. So of course, I'm getting Jack ready for bed and realize he is HOT! Running 101. That's it though. Happy, smiling, typical Jack. Slept all night, still running fever this morning. Call dr. and they squeeze me in at 9:20 at my request to check his ears to rule out infection. Of course I have a hair cut at 10am b/c they are supposed to be at school. Cancel hair cut. Fight tears---it's WAY past due. Take Hayley to school, realize I don't have wallet when I contemplate driving through Starbucks, call doctor to tell them I don't have wallet and they say come anyway. Go to Dr. VERY hungry, craving coffee, needing gum that is in my purse at home. Try to find a way to look at the positive side of the morning so far. Struggle. Late to doctor. Nice receptionist---thanked God for her b/c I might have broken down if she was tacky. Contemplated asking her for money for coffee. Called my in-laws hoping I could go by after apptmt. and borrow money. No answer. See doctor. Ears clear. He feels around on his stomach---do you ever wonder what they're feeling for exactly? Today I found out one thing---an enlarged spleen. Are you kidding? I thought we had an ear infection. Doctor (who I'm a HUGE fan of by the way) says he wants to do bloodwork. I ask what it could be? He said most likely viral--like mono. And there are other things, but he'd talk to me about it after he got bloodwork results this afternoon and said, "Don't go home and look it up on the internet." Traumatize Jack w/ taking blood---although after all of Hayley's cathedars it was a piece of cake! He doesn't know how easy he actually had it today. Go home, feed Jack breakfast (late--thought I had money in car) put him down for nap. Go to computer (you didn't know I was so rebellious!) and look up "enlarged spleen." BAD IDEA. My heart sank. I saw the words leukemia and lymphoma. Needless to say you can imagine the state I was in the remainder of the day. I was supposed to hear back from Dr. by lunch(ish), he left message at home while we were picking up Hayley. I call back I felt like 500 times (only 2) and finally hear back a little after 5. Dr. says he was worried it could be leukemia but that it looks like it is not. (Deep breaths--thank you God, thank you God!) He has low white blood cell count but his platelet count looks good and he isn't anemic (sp?). If the latter 2 were off, we would have a problem. So he thinks it looks like mono. I didn't know 14 month olds got mono. He called a hematology oncologist to talk w/ him about the case and that guy agreed it sounded viral (mono). We're checking blood again Thursday. We're feeling pretty good about things and expect to see things looking better next week and not worse. Those few hours today were by far the scariest, most stressful of my life so far. And I've had some scary hours in my life. It was hard on both of us to have Tra gone during the time of waiting. So pray for Jack---his eyes look tired but he acts pretty normal. I'm thinking his throat hurts b/c he's not eating great or drinking as much as he usually does. We're going to do some smoothies tomorrow! Lots of vitamin C!

This is the day that the Lord has made! I will REJOICE and BE GLAD in it. It was hard to do at times throughout the day, but I will drift off to sleep with rejoicing in my heart tonight. And I will say an extra prayer of God's comfort and peace to all the moms and dads that heard the words today that their child DOES have leukemia. And for the ones in the midst of it---treatments, etc. Oh Father----COME QUICKLY!!!