A little perspective from me (Jon)…
I remember clearly the January day in 2005 when Patti looked at me with a worried look on her face and said that she wasn’t feeling the baby move. I remember the Sunday afternoon, feeling tired and wanting to take a nap. I remember thinking about the emotions of a pregnant woman and being thankful that this pregnancy was getting close to a conclusion. I said to Patti, “What could really be wrong? If you haven’t felt him move by later this afternoon then we can go to the hospital and they can do their Doppler thing and you can hear the heart beat and they can tell you that everything is OK.” Then I went and took a nap.
The events of that day are forever embedded in my mind because that was the day that I lost my naivety. As you can discover from reading older posts, we lost our son Nathaniel. That was one of those things that was “never going to happen to us”.
I’m not sure why we tend to excuse ourselves from tragedy, but we do. We think that “bad things don’t happen to good people.” We think that if something bad happens once that we have “had our share of problems” or “paid our dues”, implying that tragedy will over-look us in the future. Coming face to face with tragedy, illness, death, financial catastrophe may do many and different things to each person, but one thing is common to all, we loose some naivety.
Loosing our son rocked us individually, it rocked our marriage, it changed our perspective on life, on relationship with God. It made us stronger and it made us more fragile. Having Angelica diagnosed with Leukemia this summer took another blow at our naivety. I can’t say what the end result will be, because we are still in the throws of shock and coping and cleaning and sanitizing and the emotional randomness that exists in our home. I can say that loosing naivety makes you a little weaker; not as bold and unquestioningly confident.
I called this post “side effects” because side effects are the unintended or unexpected or unpredictable consequences to an otherwise straightforward course of action. For example, Angelica gets a drug that will help to stop the reproduction of Leukemia cells and at the same time build up blood marrow… the side effect was temporary diabetes.
Getting to the point… Blood cancers are often discovered while treating “flu like symptoms” and when those symptoms present in another of your children, there is nothing to stop you from mentally wondering “what if”… The other night our baby, Judah, was feeling ill. He had a fever and signs of the flu. He had also had some sort of digestive problem where he has had a lot of diarrhea and sometimes a bit of blood and mucus in his stool. As the evening wore on, I could see that Patti’s anxiety was growing. As we went to bed, Patti was really concerned and I was laying there beside her and felt unable to console her… or myself for that matter. I can no longer say “everything is ok”. I can no longer say “you’re over-reacting”. I can also no longer shrug it off and forget about it. I am now aware that this kind of thing can happen. I am now aware that it can happen to good people. I am now aware that “lightning can strike twice.”
I brought this up at BC Children’s hospital at our last appointment and discovered that the oncology clinic there commonly writes orders for blood counts for siblings and parents of oncology patients, because as it would turn out, this is a common “side effect”.
After seeing a doctor, and checking things out, we know that Judah is OK. He had the flu and is mostly healed and is acting much healthier, but the naivety that something could go wrong is gone. Now this doesn’t make us pessimistic, where we sit around expecting catastrophes all the time… far from it. We expect that things will go well with us and we expect there to be blessings that come our way. We actually remain optimistic… but when “symptoms” of something negative start to appear, they are not as easy to dismiss.
~ Jon ~
Hey Jon
The very first lesson i learned when i got cancer was that i used to have an attitude it wont happen to me. I learned that day anything can happen. but God is in control and i am in His protective hands. Had bone scan from head to toe few days ago cause i was at the hospital all week and got home yesterday. the doctors were concerned about cancer, good news bone scan shows no cancer in my body, just cracked rib and slip back disk, that i now have. cracked rib is definately better than cancer. To be honest the doctors had me worried about cancer again cause they were worried. The doctors kept talking to me about my cancer history and wanted my file from vancouver. I am still CANCER FREE. cant wait to hear the good news that Angelica is CANCER FREE. 17 1/2 years and i am still here. Praying for you and your family. IT is so wonderful to know God is always with us and we are never alone. I even asked Jesus to hold my hands when i had the bone scan cause it was scary to have that done. All i had to hang onto was JESUS – there were no one else to comfort me. Sometimes God wants to be the only comforter. GOd is so good, He is always there for you!!!
Jon,
Thank you for sharing your heart in this post. It is true, to lose that naiveity is a HARD thing. When you experience tragedy/sorrow/shocking news, it makes other events in life that you would not even think twice about, become something that you can’t get out of your mind. I am praying for peace for you guys!
Lori