There are so many things you fear as a parent. The biggest fear of all being that something will happen to your child. An accident, an illness, any thought of such things make my heart clench. I think I am ALWAYS afraid. Not a day goes by that I don't worry about them. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with my oldest until the day I die I will worry. I know that the Bible says NOT to worry. I know that we are supposed to trust and rely on the Lord. It's so easy to do when nothing is going wrong. When life is routine and days go by with no incident. I could tell you that I'm a good Christian, that I go to church, that I have faith, trust in and love the Lord....but when trials come, do I still?
Last October Quin was running around the house playing when I noticed a lump on the front of her left shoulder just above her armpit. Of course it alarmed me immediately. I made a dr. appointment and took her in shortly after. The dr. we saw didn't seem concerned and said he thought it was probably a fatty cyst which, although he's never really seen in a child in that location, is fairly normal apparently. They usually appear in adults, but he didn't seem worried about it, and ordered an ultrasound just to check it out. We had the ultrasound done a few days after and the technician told me it was not a tumor. My biggest concern was cancer, so I asked if it was benign. She said they can't be 100% sure unless they do a biopsy but that there was blood flow, so they thought it looked ok. I had NO idea what that even meant at the time. The dr. called me and told me to keep an eye on it and unless it grew or changed he didn't think it was a problem. After a few months of never feeling completely settled about it, I took her to a new pediatrician to have it evaluated a second time. The pediatrician said the EXACT same thing the first dr. said & didn't even order any additional tests. At that point I figured it must be normal-ish & I was overreacting. Only a few weeks after our appointment, I started noticing growth in the lump. All in the same week three other people mentioned it as well. That scared me, so I took her BACK to the pediatrician who examined it again & THIS time said that she was now concerned. She called the other dr. on staff in to look at it who made a face that scared me and said "I wouldn't wait on this at all." They both told me I needed to get an MRI immediately. I called to make the appointment, but they wouldn't be able to get her in for THREE WEEKS! I was a complete wreck from the moment they told me to get the MRI. Every possibility ran through my head and I could literally think of nothing else. I had the MRI scheduled, but it seemed like every day that went by could be wasting time if something was wrong. Since It had already been about 7 months, I was petrified. I couldn't sleep or function properly and sent out a text to our Pastor's wife for prayer. The prayer chain at our church all were notified of the situation, and one of the women from our church who is a nurse at a Children's Hospital said waiting three weeks was CRAZY! She wanted to talk to me at church on Sunday and see Quin's arm. I have to say it was the look on her face when she saw Quin's lump that set me off. I'd already been barely hanging on, but having a nurse who has seen a lot say; "you should go to the ER immediately and demand they do tests!" completely freaked me out. I literally called Adam out of church and went home, grabbed some stuff and we headed out for the hospital. That entire day was filled with a lot of screaming as they had to draw blood from Quin not once, but TWICE because she was screaming and fighting so hard the first time they didn't get enough. They had tried once to get an IV on her and couldn't. Every nurse who came in and saw her lump kind of had this look on their face. After blood work they sent her for an ultrasound. I think that was the moment my stomach kind of came into my throat. The ultrasound techs reaction to what she was seeing was unsettling. She immediately got up and went to call the radiologist to make sure he looked at the images right away. She came back and said he was going to want an MRI. They put us back into our ER room and had the Dr. come talk to us about it. She said they were definitely going to admit us and that we needed more testing done to determine what this was. They had to get an IV hooked up to her since they were admitting us, and it was a horrible experience for the poor baby. She was so miserable by this point and they had to put it in her arm with a splint so she didn't bend her arm and rip it out. The biggest problem was that she sucks her left thumb and they put it on her left arm. She HATED that. They set us up for a cat scan, so Quin had that done as well. When the dr. came in to talk to us she said that all of the testing so far couldn't offer us a definite answer. She said it could possibly be a hemangioma, which is just a vascular mass that causes no real harm. When I asked her what else they were thinking it may be, she kind of looked at the floor and told me she didn't want to tell me. I insisted, so she went on to explain that because they could see calcification and her alkaline levels were a bit elevated and with the characteristics of the mass, it was possible it could be a sarcoma. My first question was "sarcoma's aren't always cancerous, right?" She replied that they aren't, but in this case the only kind Quin could have had would indeed be cancerous because of it's attributes. I don't know that I've ever felt so physically ill in my life. It was like someone punched me in the stomach. So, there we were. Two possibilities on the table and no answers until we had the MRI. Ruby was staying with my parent's, but because Dean is still little, I can't leave him for very long. He was with us at the hospital all day and by 10pm he was screaming and wouldn't go to sleep. We still hadn't been moved to a room, and weren't sure when we would be or even if I could stay since it was most likely a shared room. We decided that the best thing for everyone would be for me to take the baby home and for Adam to stay with Quin. Not being able to stay with her, not knowing what was going to happen....it was all sort of the stuff nightmares are made of. They didn't get Adam & Quin into a room until almost midnight and it was indeed shared with about 5 feet of personal space and one tiny little bed for a parent to use next to a little hospital bed/crib. We were hoping we would be able to get the MRI first thing since Quin had to fast until we knew whether or not she would have the test. I woke up at 4:45am and couldn't go back to sleep, so I showered, got Dean ready & we headed back to the hospital. I came into the little dark room, pulled the curtain back and saw little Quin laying on the bed sucking her thumb. Adam had broken part of the splint so she could bend her elbow and get it into her mouth. She saw me and started crying for me to hold her. I literally just scooped her up, sat down and started bawling. Adam & I kind of just sat there together with Quin on my lap and cried. I couldn't stop thinking about how bad things could be. I felt so incredibly helpless. At this point, all we wanted to do was get her in for the MRI. That was the only test that could tell us exactly what Quin's lump was. The morning went by slowly as we kind of jumped every time someone came into the room hoping that it would be to tell us if we could get her in or not. She was still fasting and we were just trying to keep her preoccupied. My mom and dad came to the hospital and took Dean for a few hours so we could have our full attention on Quin. She was really tired and needy & I think she could just feel our tension. FINALLY they came in and told us they were going to take her for the MRI. My parent's had brought Dean back so he could nurse & were waiting in the lobby for us. Through everything it was ridiculously hard having a newborn in the hospital! Quin wanted me, Dean needed me, so Adam & I did our best to keep them both happy! We finally got into the prep room for the MRI & were waiting for them to take her in. It was so scary being there. I wanted the test so badly, and then part of me didn't just in case the results were bad. It seemed like a really long time for them to come get us. We sat there & both just broke down crying. In the 6 1/2 years Adam & I have known one another, I've NEVER seen him cry. That killed me! They came in to get Quin & I carried her in and laid her on a big table. The Anaesthesiologist put a little bit of medicine into Quin's IV line & she was out in two seconds flat. It was so hard to walk away and leave her laying there on the table. After we left her we went into the lobby to meet my parent's and Ruby (who we hadn't seen all weekend!) and that was really hard to pretend like we weren't as upset as we were! We went to the cafeteria to eat something and everything I put in my mouth tasted like gravel and felt like rocks in my stomach after. They told us Quin would be in the MRI for about an hour & afterwards they would take us to the ward where they would wake her up & they would get us for that. We left Dean & Ruby with my mom and dad & went into the waiting room to wait for them to call us. When they got us and took us to Quin it was so weird seeing her laying on a bed unconscious with all sorts of tubes and whatnot all over her. They tried to wake her up but she wasn't ready yet, so we just sat and waited. Finally she woke up & started freaking out a little bit. I got to pick her up and hold her & it was like she was drunk. She was doing the silliest things and was super groggy. From that point on they moved us back into our room & we had to kind of just deal with Quin coming off the anaesthesia. She was a WRECK! It was just awful. She just kept screaming and throwing her body all over the place. I'm sure it must have felt very, very strange! Not to mention she already hadn't been eating and had been through so much already! We finally had a great lady come in from Child Life who helped calm Quin down with bubbles. Go figure! After that we were able to feed her & she was a little happier. The rest of the afternoon we spent just trying to entertain Quin as we waiting for the oncologist to meet with us. I tried to stop thinking about it & the results. I was out in the hallway pushing Quin in one of those cute little toy cars they have for patients when a group of three women approached our room & asked if I was Quin's mom. I ran in and grabbed Adam & we both came out to talk with them. They were all smiling & I honestly wasn't sure if it was some sort of tactic they use when they have bad news, or if it was actually a good thing. Then she finally said "We have good news!" I literally swear I didn't barely hear anything else after that. A huge weight just lifted off my chest. I finally felt like I could breathe again! Adam & I just looked at one another and had the biggest smiles on our faces! Basically, in short, Quin has a vascular anomaly. It's a mass of veins that do nothing and lead to nowhere. A jumbled ball of pointless veins. Very hard to diagnose & quite "rare". Nobody at the hospital knew what exactly we would even do about it. We had to stay the night again in case they were going to do another procedure the next day, which meant she had to fast again, and that was a bummer. Turns out that it was a little more difficult than anyone even anticipated in the fact that they couldn't come up with the best plan for her that quickly. We will probably need to have one procedure where it will be injected to stop the veins from flowing & another surgery following that where they will remove the mass. At this point we will be going to a couple different specialists to figure out the course of action. We are so incredibly relieved and blessed that was our outcome! Surgery won't be fun, but we know it could have been a lot worse. Getting to go home was the BEST! We came home & got the kids all cleaned up and fed and that night we all slept in bed together. I Love my babies! That was such a crazy experience for us, as parent's and as Christian's as well. I don't think I handled it with faith and trust like I was supposed to. I don't think I truly acted like the model Christian in my heart toward God. I don't think I really would have been pleased with the Lord had the outcome been bleak. But you know what? I learned an awful lot. About myself, about my heart. Adam & I feel so blessed to have gone through that together, and I think it has also made us closer & a little bit more understanding of how blessed we really, truly are. I try to be the best mom I can be, and I hope that I will never forget the lessons I've learned and the real privilege it is to have three beautiful healthy children!
Thank you so much to everyone who prayed for Quin & us. We appreciate your love, support and prayers more than you know!! xoxo
This was after she was allowed to eat again & was shoving bacon in her mouth. Yum!
Bacon & fruit were the only two things on the menu she could eat because nothing else lined up with her food intolerance's! Kind of ridiculous! Adam went two separate times and got her In'N'Out which made her very, very happy!
This is what our day's looked like when nobody was crying.
When we finally got home! Quin crashed out. Such a nice feeling!
