This is the picture I took that, unbeknownst to me at the
time, would flip our entire universe upside down. An entire month would come to
pass, wherein we sat with bated breath waiting to find out whether our baby
girl had a cancerous tumor.
Taken in early December 2013, when Margot was 10 months old,
this picture became a blaring alarm bell; while I was running a bath for us to
take together, I couldn't help but giggle and marvel at that cute tiny little
bum - so I pulled my phone out of my pocket, and snapped a string of little
naked baby pictures. I noticed nothing amiss, and went on to have our warm
bath, then continue on with our day as usual. That night, though, long after
she was in bed, I was looking at the pictures I had taken, and realized that in
every single one, there was this small but unmistakable lump on her back,
sitting just below her left shoulder blade. I'd never noticed it in person, but
there it was in these pictures, staring back at me. I worked hard at keeping
calm about it, not wanting to overreact, so at first I kept it to myself. But I
spent the following day at work stewing over it all day long. I was obsessing.
I kept flipping through these shots on my phone, zooming in, and simultaneously
wracking my brain as to whether I'd ever seen this lump before - whether maybe
I was making the whole thing up and it was just a little part of her body - or
maybe it was just an odd shadowing effect and there was nothing there after
all.
But I couldn't shake my intuition; there was a lump on Margot's
back, and I knew something wasn't right. So when I got home from work, I told
Daryl, showed him the picture, and he agreed that we should call the
pediatrician. Well, okay, I thought - did Daryl's acknowledgement make me worry
more, or less? I couldn't decide. We called the doctor, and the very next
morning we found ourselves at our clinic, watching Margot's pediatrician
examine the lump, ask us a series of questions about when we'd noticed it, what
we could glean as far as whether or not it was causing her pain, or whether
we'd noticed any changes in appearance since finding it - uh, no, as far as I
was concerned, this thing was less than 48 hours old. We'd only just met one
another's acquaintance; we hadn't exactly exchanged phone numbers or gone out
to dinner and dancing. I had no idea what to tell her about this thing except
that no, from what I could tell, Margot didn't even know it existed. She
certainly didn't seem fazed by it.
Well, while her pediatrician speculated that chances were
good that this was nothing more than something called a lipoma, a harmless
cluster of fatty tissue, she encouraged us to drive across town to the
children's hospital, where Margot could get an ultrasound done on it. This
would determine with more certainty what we were up against. Now, the
pediatrician happens to be one of the most lovely people I've ever had the
pleasure of meeting, and her bedside manner is remarkably wonderful. But the
fact that she placed a call and got the hospital to squeeze Margot in for an
ultrasound 20 minutes from that moment had me understandably on edge. I mean,
if it wasn't at least some degree of concern, would we not have been waiting a
day or two, or even a week? Anyway, off we went - we bundled back up into our
car and drove over to the hospital, and sat with our tiny girl while she had an
ultrasound.
This went as well as we could expect - especially since she
was so caught up in that little light-up toy, she didn't even know what was
going on. After it was over, we were sent home and told to wait for a phone
call to give us the results and bring us up to speed. The waiting was agony, of
course, but we managed. And a few days later, the pediatrician called us and
told us what can only be classified as bad news, in spite of its uncertain
nature. Unfortunately, she said, this wasn't a lipoma after all. There are
blood vessels extending deep within the mass, she went on, and her hope now was
that this was something called a hemangioma - a benign tumor, but a tumor
nonetheless. She encouraged us to do our best not to worry, and told us that
the next step would be an MRI.
An MRI?! Okay, I told myself; breathe deep. We don't know
what this is, but the MRI will tell us conclusively. And until we find out,
there's no sense in worrying. That little lump is there, snug on Margot's back,
and there was nothing any of us could do about it. So an MRI was scheduled, and
much to our chagrin, it was three weeks away. To this day I can't exactly be
sure how I made it through those weeks, because never in my life have I felt so
worried, so afraid and so anxious. My tiny, happy little girl was being poked, prodded,
and examined and she had no idea what was going on; and really, I had to find
solace in that; I was thankful that she wasn't in pain.
Finally, the day of the MRI came. We got up at the crack of
dawn and drove back to the hospital, and checked ourselves in. We filled out
the paperwork, we met a series of nurses, doctors, and an anesthesiologist, and
then we got Margot into her tiny little hospital gown. How tiny she looked -
how sweet her little face was - it was all I could do to keep from crying.
Then we held sweet Margot while she was given an IV in the
back of her tiny hand, and while she was sedated. Never in my life have I so
badly needed to crumple into a ball and weep as I did while I watched the life
slip out of her eyes, and as she was laid onto a hospital bed and wheeled down
the hallway, away from me.
We waited about an hour and a half when all was said and
done; the MRI went perfectly smoothly, we were told - thank God! - and here was
our groggy little girl, so doped up she looked as though she had had about as
much wine as a frat girl at a party. And oh, did we ever laugh! She was like a
little bobblehead on drugs.
SO. Okay. I'm getting long-winded, here. Back home we went,
with our little frat baby in tow. And of course, we were told to wait again.
This time, three days. It was a Friday, so we had to wait for the weekend to
pass before we'd find anything out. So on Monday morning, I called our clinic,
who told us our pediatrician was out of town until the following Friday (No.
NO.), and the pediatrician who was replacing her was swamped with work, so I'd
maybe hear back, but also maybe not. I was advised to call the hospital. Okay.
So on a wild goose chase I went - but no, sorry, the hospital wouldn't give me
any information unless I printed out an information release and either faxed it
or snail-mailed it. (FAX? Who faxes anymore?!) I nearly bit this woman's head
off on the phone, but Daryl bopped me on the head and reminded me she was just
the messenger and to let it go. Blughghghh. So I called the clinic again and
begged them to please have this on-call pediatrician call us. Please. Please. I
just need to know if my baby's okay. Then I hung up, and waited.
And then - finally - a phone call...
With the blessed good news that this was indeed just a
hemangioma! With an exclamation point at the end! We got the news that this
little lump is a harmless, benign tumor that needs no further attention or
treatment. It'll disappear on its own time over the course of the next handful
of years, and won't cause our girl one bit of pain or discomfort.
I don't think I can ever do justice to the fear that rippled through my heart and my body while we waited. Never in my life have I been more afraid than I was at the
thought of what could have been.
Daryl and I, well, we were bowled over. I was finally able to exhale for the first time in nearly a month.
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