Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop swearing….

I’ve been trying really hard lately to stop using curse words. I’ve done lots of wrong things in my life but I’m convinced that my on-going usage of expletives will be my ultimate downfall. I will try to abstain from usage here in my post.

F*%$.

Sorry. See, I’m sitting here, typing, listening to my son play a video game in the background. He occasionally makes comments, like  “darn it” or “Awww!”. I can tell by these comments that he’s struggling with a particular passage in his video game. I’m sure that he will ultimately inherit my potty mouth someday.

I just learned a couple of hours ago that my son, Ben, has a mass growing behind his heart, under his scapula, near a rib. His oncologist, Dr. Greffe, says that it may be recurring neuroblastoma. Then again, it might not. We won’t know until a biopsy is completed. We just heard from the surgeon about 20 minutes ago and Ben is scheduled for biopsy tomorrow evening at approximately 7 PM. They ain’t playin’ around with this. The surgeon who reviewed Ben’s CT scan said that the mass may have some bone involvement. This is not good news. However, I’m hoping for the best. I have to admit though, I’m kinda losing my faith here. Just when I need it most.

My daughter is currently staring at me. “Mommy. Your eyes are all red.” Because I’ve been crying hysterically for the past few hours and dodging the “What’s wrong, mommy?” questions. If we have to go through this again, if we have to restart treatment, we’re probably looking at having to travel to other hospitals. Most likely, we’ll end up going to Sloan-Kettering in NYC. I know, I’m jumping ahead, but I am trying to sort all of this out in my head. Of course, my old “followers” of the original “Ben Update” knows that I find writing like this quite cathartic (in conjunction with a string of expletives). I’ll post daily what’s going on in our lives – good, bad, and ugly. I’m kinda hoping that I can just go back to writing about what National holiday it is.

What am I going to do? How will I explain this to Ben? Why did I say things like “Ben, we don’t have to come back to the hospital for another year.” WHY??? We bought an ice cream cake to celebrate. It’s sitting on the counter melting. I was so flipping confident today. I wholeheartedly believed that Ben would be declared to have no evidence of disease (NED is the acronym for this). The preliminary reports were positive. I was just waiting for the official “good news”. I clearly didn’t see this coming. I got kung-fu’d right in the head.

How do I look into those big brown eyes and tell my son that a surgeon is going to dig into his back tomorrow? That they’re trying to rule out recurrent cancer? How do I leave my daughter with other families because she cannot stay with us at the hospital? Where am I going to find these families? Knowing what I know now, well, what can I say?

F*#%.

I know you’re all praying for Ben. Please pray for me, too, because I’m just not finding the strength to do it right now.