In the last seven weeks our lives have wonderfully returned to normal – while not without moments where I am taken aback by the results of delayed trauma processing.
On one particular day, I was driving back from Peace River alone and while I can’t quite remember what triggered the memories, I starting crying thinking about the emotional pain and exhaustion that accompanied those first few months.
On another day, or half a week really, Elliott began complaining on and off about a sore stomach. He was uncomfortable enough for it to affect his daycare day. I won’t lie and say my brain didn’t go to that scary place. For those of you who don’t remember, after we spotted a few petechiae spots on Ezra’s abdomen, a stomach ache that would not ease was his next symptom. While the more rational part of my brain kept telling me Elliott was simply struggling with a bit of constipation (which proved to be exactly the case), it was hard to shake off the fact that he is five now, the same age Ezra was at diagnosis, and his stomach hurt for more than a day.
On the day Ezra rang his bell out oncologist warned Cody and I that the trauma would come back in flashes. That while Ezra was done the hard part, some of the hardest parts for us as parents were just about to begin.
I understood what she meant as I had read enough of the worried-parent posts on the childhood leukaemia parent support social media pages. But, again, I figured my tendency to think on the more logical side would not let that happen to me.
Boy, was I wrong. Just last week I got a phone call from Ezra’s teacher to say he was complaining of a stomach ache. I spoke with Ezra over the phone and we agreed he would try to stay at school until at least 10:30, and we would reassess then. Why, you might ask? Well 99% of the time, Ezra’s stomach aches magically disappear the second I pick him up. So, I just wanted him to have a bit more time at school/the opportunity to distract himself.
Well, I got the call just after 10:30 asking me to pick him up. Again, that irrational part of my brain went straight to, “What if this is more than a stomach ache?” While the logical part of my brain reminded me that we just did his monthly bloodwork the day before and the results could not have been any more perfect (Yay! This is definitely a praise item!), that worry and fear remained.
Ezra turned out to be fine. He was just a bit tired, nothing more. After a day in Grandma’s Hair Salon Out of School Care, he was ready to go back to school the next day.
Outside of these moments though, life has been good. The results of his bloodwork were excellent, he’s strong, his port was removed at the end of January, and for the first time since August 2021, I got to leave the “medical concerns” line on a registration form completely blank. When that situation came, I was overcome with a sort of grateful paralysis where all I could think was “Thank you God, I don’t have to write anything on this line.”
Ezra’s next clinic appointment is not until the beginning of March. For the next year he will do bloodwork monthly, and then the schedule decreases each year after that for the next four years, for a total of five years.
Just this last week Ezra brought home a writing prompt that asked him to write about a time when he felt loved. He wrote about his diagnosis day, and when he was taken on a plane alone. He wrote that when Cody and I caught up to him we hugged and he felt loved.
When I first read this, again, I was struck with this overwhelming sort of grateful paralysis. I just stared at it for a minute before I remembered I was supposed to be heading back to work after lunch. All I could think was “what a lovely way to remember the most traumatic day of his (and our!) life.”
Then, I couldn’t help but pray “Thank you God, for protecting my son’s mind, for healing his body, and for carrying our family safely through this storm.”
Our Family Chatter 