Mexico

We had planned a trip to Mexico the week after Reagan’s EMU Study to celebrate the end of 9 months of intense Epilepsy testing.  I don’t even want to go on the trip any more.  It was to celebrate the END of testing.  We are nowhere near the end.  In fact, we are back at the beginning, of an even bigger and scarier beast.  Blake won’t let me cancel.

We fly out on Thursday.  We have to go to work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before we can run away.  I can’t talk about the tumor.  I feel the tears behind my eyes all the time, just waiting to pour out.  Friends ask me how the EMU Study went.  “Good.  She only has one type of seizure and it’s a very distinct, clear pattern every time.”  I can’t tell them about the tumor.  I can’t talk about it.  I’m not ready.

Blake is so much braver than me.  He tells people at his office.  He gets teary eyed and tells them the entire story.  We send each other grieving emails and texts throughout those three days.  We are both zombies at work.  Our minds on the little beast in Reagan’s head.  We come in late, we leave early.  We are frozen.  Frozen in this new reality were our daughter has a tumor.  Something that could be life threatening.

Finally Thursday comes.  I still don’t want to go.  We pack the night before and head out to the airport.  As any travel with a toddler goes, it’s stressful in the airport and the plane and the shuttle.  She’s restless and sick of being confined.  We finally get there.  It’s getting late so we head to dinner.  Then Blake spots them, hermit crabs.  No father/daughter duo has ever been more excited about hermit crabs.

The next day we venture out to the pool and beach.  She can’t get enough of the water and sand.

 

By the third day she doesn’t want to wear her floats anymore.  She would sink like a rock without the floats, but she doesn’t care.  She naps in the hammocks and then swims some more.  She’s so happy.

 

We are coping.  There were tears and really emotional moments on the trip.  But there were also amazing moments and times where we forgot about her beast and just enjoyed us.  Blake was right, cancelling that trip would have been a mistake.