101 Days

I have been trying for so long to start writing Jacob's story.  I keep thinking I have to go back to the beginning and start with diagnosis, or when he started getting sick, explain all the symptoms and then begin with the first day of chemo or maybe the day of surgery when he got his new "equipment" placed in his chest.  It's the tube thing that goes into a main artery and directly to his heart.  Basically, they use his heart as a pump to administer the poisonous medicine throughout his whole body...the poison that will save his life. ...it doesn't make sense.  I could begin there, but then I'd feel like I have to chronologically document every event after that...in order. I know I will procrastinate more if I begin there.  I decided to ask the nurse if I could go back over all his records to jog my memory so I could get it all right and in perfect order.  She said I could go down to the records library and sign a release form and then view it all.  ...that's nice to know, maybe I will do that someday. Someday...and this story will have to wait.  So, I'm not going to try to go back to the beginnning. I figure by now...101 days since his diagnosis, that everybody reading this probably knows that Jacob has leukemia. I'm sure that if I just write a little something everyday that the peices will all fit together.  I wish that I could have started doing this right from the beginning...but I was a mess.  It took me at least 6 weeks just to feel like my feet were back on solid ground and even still sometimes it feels like I am just floating.  Once in a while I get that feeling like I'm still reeling from the shock of it all.  When I stop for a second and let myself absorb the  reality that my boy has cancer. It's that feeling like the room is spinning or the world just kicked up the speed of it's rotation for 2 seconds...long enough to make me feel out of control, dizzy and confused.  Then, just as quickly, I get a handle on it realizing that my eyes are just a little clouded from the tear that didn't fall - it just filled up in front making everything seem blurry for just a moment. If I blink, it will fall. So, I widen my eyes as big as I can and think of my Heavenly Father and my Savior and how they love my boy so much - even more than I do, more than I can imagine. And then, the wet feeling in my eyes begins to dry as He wipes my tears and reassures me once again.  He says to me, "It's all going to be ok. I know you can do this because I will be with you and you can be strong when you have to be.  When you don't have to be strong, I will carry you."  I am amazed at how close I feel to my Savior now. I have always had a strong relationship with Christ and I don't ever remember a time in my life when I didn't know that He was real and right there with me. But, now...it is amazing how close He is all the time. It's sadly uplifting how I have come to deeply understand His suffering and sacrifice ...through watching my own son suffer.  I think of how much more painful and heartwrenching it had to be for my Father in Heaven to watch his son as he suffered here on earth.  It's too much to take in, too much to imagine that He felt pain so much more intense than what Jacob is going through, that he felt sadness so much more than I do.  Then I think of all the other kids going through this...some of them suffering even more than my boy.  Some so tiny and some just a few years older than him but who have been fighting this battle so much longer than we. When I think of them, the tears come back again and sometimes I just can't fight it. Why does there have to be so many children who suffer in pain and some who die? How do their families ever get through the pain of losing a child? I pray again, that I will never have to find that out.  I pray that I can learn how to comfort others and help other families and that I can learn the lessons and training that I He wants me to know through this...without losing our fight.  ...Strengthen him Father, as you have strengthened me...teach him to feel the spirit and to turn to You when he is afraid.  Help him to understand and relate to the pain and suffering that You endured so that he could be healed.  Teach me Father, how to reach his little spirit and help him understand your love for him. Hold his hand through this experience and carry him through it reminding him that you understand, that you know and feel the pain, the fear and the emotions that he has inside.