A mothers intuition is stronger than any force on the planet. It was just one of those things that I can't really describe any other way. The lump that had been on her neck since April 14, 2014 and wasn't going away was like a giant pink elephant living in my kitchen. Everybody saw it, but nobody acknowledged it or wanted to believe it was anything to worry about.
Every morning when she woke up I would ask my 11 year old daughter to see the lump, hoping and praying that it had gone down overnight. Sometimes I think I convinced myself that it was getting smaller. If she pulled her hair back you could really see it, so I began telling her to wear her down when we were in public so that people wouldn't ask her what it was. Out of sight, out of mind kinda thing. After all, our pediatrician told us we had nothing to worry about since her blood counts were good when they did her blood work. It was just an enlarged lymph node that was the lingering effect of a viral infection. we could biopsy it if I wanted to. Yep, that's definitely what it was. Just a swollen lymph. It would go down soon I kept telling myself. She's a healthy kid with tons of energy. There absolutely couldn't be anything wrong with her.
Fast forward over the entire summer to the end of August 2014 and she still had the lump. That damn lump! Why couldn't it just go away?!? Her blood work was good and so I had nothing to worry about, right? I took Alana back to her pediatrician on August 15, 2014 for some school shots, and I showed the pediatrician the lump again and expressed my concerns. This time she told us that she thought it was an abscess and gave us a referral to an Ears, Nose & Throat doctor. She thought that it might have to be drained. I called the ENT office immediately, but they didn't accept our insurance. It was late Friday afternoon, and I left a message for the pediatrician to call me first thing on Monday morning to help me find another one.
Two days later: Sunday, August 17, 2014:
I woke up and for some reason I decided that I was going to take her to the ER. My ex husband had changed the girls insurance back in May without my prior knowledge or consent to an HMO, and I was having a difficult time getting her seen by a specialist over the summer. I had hired an attorney and they were helping me to get a court date to hopefully change the girls to my instance plan, which would make it easier than an HMO. I wanted to biopsy the lump and explore further treatment to fully rule out the possibility of it being something more serious. I inherently knew that I wasn't satisfied with the pediatricians diagnosis. In fact, I do recall speaking briefly with the pediatrician about a biopsy on that first visit, but I was never able to follow through with it due to the insurance issue. Our pediatrician felt good about the blood work being normal. She just kept assuring me that it would go away in time. Bottom line: enough was enough with this lump. I was done waiting for it to shrink. I waited for Alana to wake up and then I told her my plan. We put on our yoga pants and sweatshirts despite the sweltering 98 degree Florida heat and made our way over to the hospital.
We walked into the emergency room and signed in. I wish that someone would've taken a picture of us at that check in desk, because it was the last time that life would ever be the same for us. We were about to enter into a different universe. The universe of being a family with childhood cancer. My single worst fear was about to come true.
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