The Eye of the Storm

I wake up this morning, thinking of my day and how full it will be. The music school is in full swing and I have work to do, teachers to prep and instruments to tune. I have students and parents that are excited about what awaits them at their very first lesson of the session. It’s a fun moment in time.

But this morning is hard, very hard. I will be waking up my baby girl to take her and her best friend (bless that boy), to the surgeon for a biopsy of a mass in her chin. It’s one of the scariest moments of my life, as a mother.

My other daughters flew to Raleigh to dress shop with their soon-to-be sister and here I am, with the baby (who is 16), getting closer to a surgery date. Tears stream down her face before I even see it this morning. I can see the marks on her cheeks. She is trying to breathe, but the anxiety feeds itself and nausea sets in. She spends a solid 20 minutes on the bathroom floor (next to her best friend), trying not to vomit.

This kid…it’s so hard to see this happening. But to be a mother through this is a cruel joke. Watching our children suffer is inhumane and disempowering to an extreme. I cannot, simply cannot, love her enough to make this go away.

So, I try to keep my voice energized, rub her back, her legs, her head, and smile when she looks at me. It is torture.

We drive 45 minutes and arrive before we are due. They take her back immediately to prep her and then invite us in. The nurses come and go, welcoming us and offering any assistance we might need. My baby’s legs begin to shake as she lays on the reclined chair. The nurses get a blanket…she’s cold, they say.

But that’s not the truth. She is filled with fear and her body is just telling her about it. The shaking is something I know well…all too well. Convulsive shaking comes next, if not treated. When it happened to me after her birth, 16 years ago, I had one nurse on each of my limbs, trying to keep them down in order for the doctors to do her work. It is not unlike going into shock…but with full and hypervigilant consciousness. Not fun.

So, I sit forward in my seat and rub her legs and as I do so, I feel warmth and comfort in my own shakiness. Anything I can do to relieve her suffering, relieves mine. We are a family of physical touch junkies, so I know very well that this is the way to speak to her body. She begins to relax, but the tears continue to flow.

The surgeon comes in, bedside manner intact. He is a beautiful man, an immigrant from Tanzania. I am grateful for his sense of humor and big smile He is pragmatic as well as kind with his words. We have to get this thing out, he says. And soon. So, no matter what, today we will have a biopsy.

An IV is first on the docket. This is her first experience with an IV. Hell, it’s her first experience with real painkillers and antibiotics. I’m a pretty hippy mom that way. I’m all about avoiding toxic shit when possible. And here we are, pumping her little body full of whatever the hell this is.

But it works…as it should. She was out within 30 seconds…just like her mama goes out. What a blessing. I feel her hand relax in mine. Her eyes close, slowly. Her heartrate decreases by 20 and remains there. It’s a peaceful moment I am so grateful to have witnessed.

After what we had been through that morning, I got to see her rest. True, it’s a drugged sleep, but it was calm, finally, for all of us.

I don’t know where my son is today. He is out there doing hard things, perhaps alone, perhaps in the company of swampy creatures, and certainly sweating like a MFer. But he is loved, so loved.

I am headed to the cathedral to light a candle for him. My daughter is resting. Her best friend is at school. It’s time to walk and let it go for a bit.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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