Monday, July 23, 2018

Monday, July 23, 2018

Tonight's picture was taken on my birthday, July 25, 2008. Two days after Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. I will never look at July 23, diagnosis day, the same way. I can recall the feeling of intense stress and anxiety after the diagnosis, so much so that both Peter and I had trouble sleeping for days. It was like some sort of switch went on in our bodies and we began working at an intense level like no other imaginable. 


Quote of the day: Grieving the loss of a child is a process, it begins the day your child passes and ends the day the parent joins them. ~ B.J.Karrer


I can't believe that ten years ago today Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. To me it seems like it was just yesterday. Yet the world keeps revolving and progressing forward, but we partially live in the past..... remembering. It doesn't matter how much time goes by, July 23 immediately transports us right back to Virginia Hospital Center, where Mattie was diagnosed.

Ask anyone who was diagnosed with cancer, the specifics of the moment they heard the news.... and you will definitely hear a story. It is something that is burned into your memory forever. In Mattie's case, I took him to the pediatrician on July 23, 2008, thinking he had a sprain or pulled a muscle in his arm from tennis camp. Thankfully the doctor took our complaints seriously and ordered an x-ray on the spot. The x-ray took forever to complete and I was irritated with the technician. After the x-ray, the technician told me we had to wait in a holding room. It never dawned on me why! In that holding room were other patients, all adults. There was a telephone in the room and it began to ring. NO ONE approached the phone to answer it, so I did.

A radiologist on the other end of the phone asked me my name and whether I was Mattie's mom. When I said yes, he told me I had to go right back to the pediatrician's office. I did not like that answer or his tone, so I told him I wasn't moving until he told me what he saw on the x-ray. It was at that moment, on the phone with Mattie and strangers watching me, that I learned Mattie most likely had Osteosarcoma. To this day, I still HATE phones and talking on them.

You maybe asking why was it Christmas for us on July 23rd? It was Mattie's idea! Right after being diagnosed, on our way home from the hospital, we asked Mattie what he wanted to do. He requested getting out all of our outdoor Christmas lights to decorate our deck. When your child is diagnosed with cancer, it is amazing what you will agree to and do!

On this 10th anniversary of Mattie's diagnosis, we remember our beautiful 7 year old who died too soon....who was brilliant, gifted, creative, and always humorous!

Today, I returned to the scene of the crime. The place where Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. I did not go back for nostalgia, I went for a mammogram. I am not sure why I booked this test on this anniversary date, but clearly I wasn't thinking. Never the less, they say that there is a high incidence between boys who get osteosarcoma and their moms who develop breast cancer. So I don't miss my yearly scan. 

You see that front entrance in the above photo? Well it was at that entrance that I met Peter, the day Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. I literally text messaged him at work and told him he had to get to the hospital as soon as he could. I text messaged him..... "Mattie has C." I literally couldn't write the word cancer back then!

Meanwhile this evening, I had a lot on my mind. I had Sunny in tow with his filled poop bag in one hand, along with my cell phone and his leash in the other. As I went to throw out the poop bag, I accidentally flung in the bag and my cell phone. As soon as I recognized what happened, I started screaming. Sunny did not know what was wrong! I quickly got him back home and I ran downstairs to our front desk for help. Thankfully we know all the staff that work at our complex. They mobilized quickly and had a maintenance worker come with me to our dumpster. However, they prepared me for the fact that the phone probably broke going down the shoot over three floors. If it did not break then it most likely would get compressed by the trash compactor which consolidates the trash in the dumpster. 

My phone is important to me and the thought that it broke or was shattered into pieces was too much to handle. Any case, my new hero is Jose. He went with me to the dumpster. He opened up the door of the dumpster and I had him look first. I couldn't bear to see the reality. When he told me it was absolutely fine to look, I was stunned. There was the phone..... just sitting there. No garbage around it, not a scratch or a ding. It was sitting there waiting for me to pick it up. I view this as my birthday miracle for the week!