Holding My Breath

It feels as if I have spent much of the past year holding my breath. Once Olive was diagnosed with an intramedullary astrocytoma, which is just the official way of saying, big, fat, ugly, cancerous tumor in her spinal cord, our roller coaster ride had begun. Over the course of the year Olive would undergo multiple life threatening surgeries. More than once, I was faced with the possibility of losing my child. Our family's life was turned upside down. We had a house we couldn't sell in Twin Falls. For a little over 9 months, Richard lived and worked in Boise while the kids and I stayed at my parent's house in Pocatello. All of it was hard, but one moment stands out among the hardest. It was the early morning hours before Olive's first surgery. I had not released the hold on my baby since first learning of her diagnosis some 36 hours earlier. Already she looked different. Her face had become very puffy as she was pumped full of fluids and steroids in preparation for her surgery. We had been surrounded all day by family, doctors, and nurses. Olive was hooked up to IVs and monitors, and she had received a blessing of health and healing from her father, and my brother who had helped Richard administer the prayer. All that was left to do was wait. Wait for the doctors to rid my baby of the evil cells that had invaded her sweet, tiny, perfect body. Cells that if left alone would slowly paralyze her spinal cord and brain stem, eventually preventing her lungs from supplying her body with the oxygen it needed to survive. We were out of options. We were helpless and totally at the mercy of the Lord, and the skilled hands of her neurosurgeon. We knew we had to discuss one last thing. Where we would bury our baby. No conversation has ever been so difficult. This stands out as the hardest moment of my 31 years on earth. As I held my child, and felt her breathing on my neck, I had to think about her lifeless body, and her last breath. We finally decided we would lay her to rest near the family plots in Pocatello. We have never mentioned it since. At this point we were all physically and emotionally exhausted, Olive and I couldn't get comfortable around all the tubes and monitors to which she was mercilessly hooked. At this point, my sweet and loving husband gave me the world. With the permission of the nurses, they unhooked all the monitors and cords. The tubes were taken out and the alarms were shut off. I was able to lay down on the fold-out chair, and hold my baby without any interruptions. Her breathing became steady and even as she spent those last, precious hours asleep in my arms. The next morning at 8:00, I carried my beautiful baby down two flights of stairs and into the operating room of Dr. Douglas Brockmeyer. For the next 5 1/2 hours I held my breath.