It has now been 5 years since the day the world stopped. At least my world as I knew it. Sept 16th 1993, the day that I forever tucked my secure little world aside and faced my new reality. I remember so vividly that phone call, "I'm sorry", he said, "It looks like leukemia". That word... how do you process that? The events after that are like a movie in my head, played over and over again. I can look at it almost in the third person, seeing each action, each expression and at the same time reliving every emotion. I see myself sitting on the couch, looking bewildered and scared. Tears running down my face, trying desperately to grasp what he is telling me, and to write down the information that I need. I see Brittanys 4 year old face looking at me terrified, because she knows I'm talking to the doctor she saw just a few hours ago. "Whats wrong Mommy?" "Why are you crying?" I grabbed her and held on to her, thinking if I hold on tight enough, if I protect her well enough this can't be true. I see her running into the other room saying, "Daddy, Mommy is talking to the Dr. and she's crying". And I see John's panic stricken eyes, as he looks at me and realizes in these few seconds our lives have changed forever. Fast forward to the hospital, sitting there waiting to be admitted. Glancing at Brittany, with her long blond hair in pony tails, looking so beautiful and "normal". And then looking again and seeing the black circles under her eyes, the skin so pale you could literally see through her ears, and then thinking, the pony tails won't be there for much longer. We're walking up to ward 3-B, the "cancer" ward, and it is so unreal. You see this doesn't happen to us, it happens to other people. There's something wrong, its all a mistake. At any moment now someone is going to come running up behind us and say, "I'm sorry we mixed the tests up, its not your child, it's some other poor little girl". And then walking through the door and looking around, seeing the same black circles under the eyes, the same see through skin, and then finally, our future in the eyes of the children and the parents there. Now its all happening so fast, there throwing information at me left and right. Slow down, I can't grasp it all. They're telling me that it may not be leukemia, maybe its aplastic anemia? Thats better right? It's not cancer, but no thats worse. They don't know what kind of leukemia it is, is it A.M.L or A.L.L. I no longer have the privilege of hoping its not cancer, just that its the "good" cancer. I find myself praying that it is cancer and that its A.L.L. There's something wrong with that. 24 hours before I couldn't even think about the possibility and all of a sudden I'm praying for it. They have to do a bone marrow aspiration, do I want to be in the room with her? NO!!! I stand outside the door and as the first screams start, I rush inside knowing that I can't allow her to do it by herself. I look into her eyes and see the pleading. Mommy please help, make them stop. Then the anger, How can you let them do this to me? Then slowly the resignation. I watch as her innocence drains from her soul, and feel my own leave with it. And finally the diagnosis. It is leukemia, and its A.L.L. THE GOOD KIND!! We leave the conference with the Oncologists, and I'm happy, we are so lucky, just think how much worse it could be. And then the irony and the reality hits, this is CANCER, is there any "good" kind? My joy soon turns to tears. That was the beginning of the horror, the hell and the hope that became our life. As time went on, slowly we began to accept our new reality. I now knew that cancer is what we were facing, so my hopes turned to different things. I hope she can walk today, cause yesterday she couldn't. I hope that they can turn down the morphine so that I can see a little bit of the personality I love so much, or tranversely, I hope they will turn it up so I don't have to see her hurt today. I hope that today her blood counts are good enough that we can take her out without wearing a mask. And all that is okay, because she is alive and we have hope. Slowly the unthinkable becomes our norm. The pride we feel as parents comes in different forms. She is starting to read, isn't that great? But hey, she had chemo today and didn't throw up once. She swallowed all 7 of her pills without crying. We didn't have to feed her by tube at all today, cause she ate enough all by herself. We lived through it and learned. Happiness is possible, joy and laughter still have a place in our life. We are "strong", not because we are special people, or because we did it any better than anyone would, but because we are parents and we love our child. Life does go on, no matter how scary and uncertain the road ahead looks. The fear and the pain fade into bad memories, that merge somehow with your new reality. The one where there is no blind faith in the goodness and the fairness of the universe. Experience has taught me there are no guarantees, but there is always hope, and even then sometimes we have to rethink our ideas of hope, but as long as there is a glimmer, we survive. Maybe this isn't the life that we had planned when we started out as parents, but it is our life, and I am so glad we are all here to enjoy it. The little girl with the blond pony tails, has turned into a young lady with beautiful long brown hair. The cries of pain and fear have turned into demands for "tear away" pants and hair dye. (rolling my eyes here). The shy little girl, unsure of how her swollen face and bald head fit in with everyone else, has turned into the wistful pre-teen dreaming about the cute boy down the street and her (hopefully very far in the future) first kiss. All those terrible times that we thought we couldn't live through, can be looked back on now and laughed about. The horror of the first time she looked in the mirror and saw what was left of her hair, and her looking at me with faith in her eyes and saying, "Mommy, please fix it". Has been softened somewhat by the memory of sitting on the bed, putting tape on her head and then pulling it off along with the stubble that itched sooooo bad. The memory of the endless hours of nauseasness is softened somewhat by remembering the time we went out for pizza and clearing out the surrounding tables, because chemo "hit" and she vomited quite calmly right in the middle of the pizza. No matter what twists and turns life chooses to throw you, somewhere always there are lessons to be learned, and joy to be experienced. Cancer, what a ugly word. What a horrific reality. It has the power to destroy, but it also has the power to build and enlighten. For so long I have let cancer define who and what I am. But now looking back on the last 5 years I think its time to let that go. Reality is that they will not call her cured for another 4 years, until then her chance of relapse still remains at 1 in 5. Her chances of developing other cancers and long term problems are still greatly increased. But I have to work on the assumption that she will be fine, that she will lead a long and healthy life. I have to make that our new reality in order to move on and live this life to the fullest, and help her do the same. Somewhere along the way I've lost Shari, the person that I was and hoped to be. She was replaced with "Cancer Mom", the person that could hold down her child while horrific things happened to her, the one that could look at a series of test results and not panic at the implications, the one that could detach her self from the emotional side of 26 months of daily chemotherapy to stay sane. I think its time to merge these two entities, and become one again. Maybe I can become "Shari Mom". Someone that can come to terms with all the uncertainties of her life, draw strength from her experiences and regain the compassion, hopes and dreams of a young mother who knew nothing more than the fact that she loved her children and wanted the world for them. I think I can, I have 5 years of triumphs to guide me...... Brittany Lynn, October, 1998. 10 yrs For many more useful Cancer links please visit HEALTHLINKSUSA