It’s 10:02 a.m. on Wednesday, May 18.  My last post reminds me that I’m supposed to be done with bad days, but I’ve been wearing it the last few days.

I’ve told myself a lot in the last couple of years that it, rather I, will always be okay.  But then I took my Cappy to the emergency room the other night.  He’d been vomiting…for weeks.  Not consistently, but regularly enough.  In early March, I looked at him in the middle of Church Street in my beloved Burlington, Vermont and knew, and said aloud, “There’s something wrong.”.  It was Saturday.  I called the doctor as soon as they opened on Monday.  Thankfully, she listened.  Given what we were working with,  it looked like a concussion.  We went to PT, modified school days, and took acid reducers for his upset stomach.  To no end.  So, when I picked him up from school last week and he looked like a fresh slice of hell – pale, ‘wobbly’ in his words, and vomiting – we struck out for Maine Med.  We were told that we wouldn’t find the cause of his vomiting that night, but they also drew labs.  A low white cell count and anemia were regarded as incidental findings, to be followed up on by our primary care doctor.  That visit generated a referral to a hematologist/oncologist.  The visit to the gastroenterologist generated nothing…other than there’s no apparent gastrointestinal cause for the anemia.  Which, in all reality, might be just about everything.

We left that office and I made a call to our primary care doctor’s office.  They gave me the name of the doctor Cappy had been referred to for his anemia.  I called.  “Maine Children’s Cancer Center.  How may I direct your call?”.

A mama on the brink of desperate is an interesting animal.  God bless the poor woman who took my call.  I explained, as best I could, what was going on and asked that someone please try to see us.  “Something is wrong…” was all I kept repeating, “He needs to be seen.  Please.  I need him to be seen.”  She assured me that a nurse would call either that afternoon or first thing the next morning.  Cappy rolled over as soon as I hung up.  He’d been sleeping in the passenger’s seat of my Jeep.  “Savage Mama…”.  And just like that, he was back asleep.  I blinked tears and looked over at my guy, pale as anyone I’ve ever met, giant ears, piles and piles of dark hair and eyelashes that made him seem even more pale.  Savage Mama – for you, my sweet boy – always for you.

(Ten minutes after I finished this post, our family doctor arrived at my work to personally tell me the news about Ky.  Not something you hear about much these days, but – she’s incredible.  She, along with a dear friend and colleague held me as I went to the ground, sobbing.  I was given a mission – pack a bag and get Ky to the hospital immediately – and, after one more conversation convincing me that not only could I do that, I *needed* to do that, I dismissed Ky from school and we drove to Maine Medical Center, where he’s remained since.)