One Year Out

Officially, Rosalie was admitted to the hospital on May 12. 2006. But that day stands so vividly in my mind as a Friday - that today seems more appropriate as our acknowledgement of Rosalie's one year anniversary with cancer. It is so interesting to think that the day we went to the hospital she looked completely healthy, but there was actually a large tumor growing inside. And today, she obviously looks less robust because of the chemotherapy, but she is much healthier!

This was a day that changed our lives forever. I can remember driving to the hosptital for the CT scan, my mind playing with me - "It's nothing, something is the matter, it's nothing, there's definitely something going on, stop worrying, Carolyn, it is going to be just fine." I can definitely say that while I worried that Rosalie could have a brain tumor from the research I had done on the internet, I also had absolutely NO IDEA what we were in store for on that Friday afternoon. If you had told me that day that my daughter had a brain tumor, it was malignant, she would need surgery, four months of chemotherapy, thirty sessions of radiation under anesthesia, another eight months of chemotherapy, countless scans and spinal taps, and by the way - she won't be able to walk (or swallow, talk, etc . . ) I probably would have flatlined. But I think it is a credit to all the professionals at UCSF who gave us the news in pieces, incrementally, knowing that some news is just too much to bear all at once. I'm not implying that any information was withheld from us at any point. I just mean that when a piece of bad news came our way they didn't get down to the nitty gritty right away. They gave us time to process the information, and then gave us the opportunity to come back and face any decisions we needed to make. I've learned from meeting other families in the hospital that though we were faced with some bad news, we were lucky in a sense that Rosalie's diagnosis was very clear cut. Some families have to wait much longer to find out the diagnosis, and some cancers are actually never identified.

It is pretty emotional for me to see how far we have come in a year. And while it has obviously been a very challenging year for Rosalie and our entire family, I have to say that in the moment to moment, Rosalie has been a happy person. I know that part of it is the age, but part of it is that the treatment becomes routine, it's just part of the day. And it goes to show that humans have the capacity to change and grow and rise when presented with obstacles. For our family, this year has been humbling, educational, sobering, tiring, but most of all it has been really fulfilling. When you are faced with a moment in time when you think that your child might not actually live - and then she does - it just makes every day so much more special. And yeah, when Rosalie was in surgery I made a pact to never get frustrated when she threw a tantrum. That pact is broken for sure - now that we are back in the swing of everyday life I can still let the little things get to me. But we have definitely learned that life should never, ever be taken for granted.

Here's to being one year out!