Day 8: Lumps

Skinny girl, as tall as most five-year-olds. We used to call her "chicken legs" as a baby - there

was never meat on her bones. 

She was NOT a Gerber baby even though she ate Gerber Baby Food.

Lumps like jelly beans, bouncy balls, Easter eggs on her tiny 3 1/2 year old neck and face.

How did we miss them on Halloween? Not see them for almost three weeks?

Pale skin stretched to translucency, blue and red veins in plan view

She called them her bumps - said she liked them - cried at the kitchen table, "Why did you let

the doctor cut them out?  I wanted to keep my bumps!"

They were hers after all - she had grown them by herself without help from anyone - except a

tiny germ.

No crying on the way to the operating room, even without a calming anesthesia

Her shyness paid off - she shut down on her own without need for medical intervention.

Woke up afraid, wanting the ID bracelet off - wanting to go to Grammy's house - wanting

the IV OUT!

Crying for Mommy to hold her - in and out of the sleepies, the scaries, the weepies.

It took two days before the questions came.  "Why did you let the doctor take me away?  I

didn't want to go."   "When will the boo boo go away?  I don't like it."

How can a mommy explain the incapacitating fear of cancer to a three-year-old, a baby

really?  

The fear of IT being the worst part for the mommy - the waiting for answers - the not

knowing for six weeks.

Mommy jumped up and down at Toys R Us - so happy to hear the words, "It's not cancer" on

her cell phone.

Relief triumphing over the fear of embarrassment at such a public spectacle.