It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Regular readers of the blog will remember my friend, the highly pregnant fellow inmate with the marital difficulties. Well she delivered a healthy child in the middle of a December snowstorm, and this morning lost another. Her little girl, just three weeks older than Benjamin, died suddenly this morning of cardiac arrest, a rare but long term side effect of the chemo. That's the thing about chemo: if the cancer doesn't get you, the chemo just might. And she had been doing so well recently; after months of disappointments and setbacks, the chemo was working and getting rid of her tumors.

Luckily, or unluckily as you would have it, we were in clinic today for Benjamin's last spinal tap and bone marrow biopsy (to officially declare remission), and then for an echo cardiogram (heart ultrasound). I was advised within a half hour of the passing that the family was still up in ICU so I abandoned Benjamin to the social worker and ran up to the ICU to offer what condolences and support I could. We held each other and cried, and then she was on the phone making arrangements while I ran back downstairs to rescue the poor social worker from Benjamin. This woman, this bereaved mother is an absolute rock, an amazing pillar of strength, and we know that she'll power herself and her family through this just because there is no other choice. But I don't even know what to write any more. I'm so sick and tired about writing about children dying. I'm sick and tired of having to break the news to other families who have children in the same boat. I'm sick and tired of wondering who's next. It's not fair, and it will never ever be fair, and I'm sick and tired of that too.

Needless to say it was an unsettling day, but back in Benjamin's world all his procedures went without a hitch, and we will find out the results in two days. In the meantime we will continue with weekly visits for maintenance on the Broviac until it comes out (hopefully within the next couple of weeks). The scary thing, especially in light of what happened this morning, is the echo - not because of the procedure itself, but because of what it represents. Benjamin was given enough drugs in a high enough dosage that his heart will be monitored on a regular basis for the rest of his life. Now I know that the little girl's family has a history of heart problems which probably put her in a higher risk category for heart failure as a side effect. But until now that particular side effect was an asterisk, one in a million, it will never happen to Benjamin kind of thing. Now we know that it can happen, and happen so suddenly and unexpectedly that even the doctors and nurses are shocked and in disbelief. So while we are physically free from 8D, the ties that bind continue to hold us fast, ensuring that we will never truly be free, even when we're in remission.

On a personal note, I got a job (and maybe two)! I'll be doing the bookkeeping for a home-based company 5 minutes from us a few days a month. As well, I offered my accounting expertise to a parent in the ward who has his own law firm, and it looks like he's taking me up on it. I'm excited, not for the paycheck, but for the sense of normalcy I hope it will bring, that things are falling back into place after being out of whack for so long. We'll see how that works!