Life Lessons

A little something I blogged on Myspace quite a while ago, before Kyle's donor had been found and locked in.


Here I sit, in my son's room while he's sleeping in his favorite spot... the couch. It's almost 1 am, we're getting up early to go the drive at Pikeville College (Kyle wants to go) and I can't sleep. I lay down, my body's exhausted, but my mind just keeps on going.

I am amazed by how the last 3 months have changed my life. One day, you're going to work, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, doing homework with the kids and then the next day you're practically living in a hospital. Everything that was once so important no longer is. You're suddenly forced to be stronger than you ever thought was possible, all at once everything has changed.

I knew that I was living a pretty good life. We had all that we needed. I had found love. My family has always been wonderful. But there was always some kind of petty drama going on and suddenly all that's gone, at least in my eyes.

I took my son to the ER for a stomach ache, thinking that he was just dehydrated and some fluids would help him out. The next thing I know we're being wisked away to Lexington via ambulance with a possible diagnosis of cancer. I sat in the emergency room at Pikeville Medical Center wondering what was taking them so long to help my son. Then the doctor came in and dropped a bomb on me. Kyle's white cell count was through the roof and we were looking at a possible leukemia. Nothing was as it seemed. It was as if I was Alice and had just passed through the looking glass. Everything was so hazy and gray. The lights were no longer as bright as the moment before. I rode to UK in silence. The next day a bone aspiration and biopsy were done and the diagnosis was confirmed. My baby boy had a very aggresive form of leukemia.... acute myeloid leukemia. I had noticed a big change in him when he had come home from his father's at the end of the summer but has assumed it was all the adjustments that he had to make. The doctor took my mother and I out into the hall of the PICU and we all sat down. He explained that not all the tests results were back yet. That there were 5 different sub types of AML and before they could start treatment they had to know which one he had. It was just a stomach ache. That's what I was thinking. Next came the news that his white cell count was so high that it put him at a very dangerous risk for stroke. So, pheresis was done to filter out as many white cells as possible to lower that risk. My baby boy.....he just laid there in his bed. He had tubes in his thigh, he had tubes in his neck and in each hand. He refused to eat. He only slept. It wasn't untill the night they hung his first bag of chemo that it became real to me.

I sit at the hospital, and I watch from afar. I watch as the community rallies around my son and my family. It amazes me to see everyone come together like this, to do whatever they can to help save one of their own. I watch strangers reach out their hands to us, and send up prayers by the dozens. Drive after drive we have more and more hope that my son's life will be saved. You never think of tradegy untill it hits home, untill it becomes personal. I think of everyone who has been tested. They not only are giving of themselves for my child, but several of them just may be the answer to another family's prayers.

There is so much going on in my own life, taking care of my son and still being there for my daughter. But sitting at that hospital, you get to know other families that are facing tragedy in their lives. You no longer hug them, wish them well, and move on. You become more active in helping them also. Anyone can pin a ribbon to their shirt. Anyone can give a hug. But we need to be there for each other in every way possible. We need to be more active in helping others when they are in need, whether it's a house fire or an illness. This world will never become the place we hope it to be if we don't get off our duffs and do our part.

I do wish that Kyle had never gotten sick. That he never had to suffer with this. All I can is take the lessons that it has taught me and use those to be there for others.