So, I am going to give a brief synopsis of this horrible day. It all began last night at 8 pm when I was brushing Nya's teeth (just like every other night). I noticed that one of her tonsils was HUGE! She has always had large tonsils but this one looked different, it looked more defined and circular. They normally just look swollen and red when she had an ear infection or something. I freaked out and then confirmed my worst fears by going on the computer. I read something that said "in rare cases, an enlarged tonsil can be a sign of lymphoma". Well, that was all I needed to cause complete hysteria. I started thinking that maybe all these months when she has told me that she had a stomach ache that maybe it was really something more than "gas pain" or eating too much candy. I thought that when she told me that her legs were sore that maybe it was not just growing pains or a bump from the playground. I started freaking out completely. I would read a new symptom of lymphoma and then go upstairs, while she slept, and check her for that symptom. Such as other swollen glands (like I even knew what those looked or felt like) or "night sweats" (which she did NOT have on any of the 3 occasions last night when I checked her). The other signs were loss of appetite (she would eat 12 meals a day if I would let her), fatigue (yea right, she is like an energizer bunny), weakness (not at all), weight loss (HA, she out weighs her classmate by 10+ lbs) and unexplained bruising (she has none and I check every night when I lotion her up after the bath). She did have 2 of the other odd symptoms though, "skin itchiness" and "inconsistent stomach pain". Well, needless to say, she was at the pediatrician at 9:30 am this morning for a full look over. I was hoping that the ped would look at me like a nut and tell me she was fine and that I had nothing to worry about. INSTEAD, he found 4 other swollen glands in her neck. At that point, I was in total shock. Someone could have stabbed me in the hand and I would not have felt it. He then told us that we should go to Arnold Palmer for blood work. I left the office, in a daze, and dropped Nya off at school so that I could be hysterical in my car before I took her to get her blood drawn. I composed myself long enough to go into Target and buy her a nerf gun, special yo-yo, gummi fish, a care bears movie and a strawberry shortcake puzzle. I put it all in a purple gift bag with tissue paper and was going to give it to her after she did a good job getting her "blood shot". My mom, thankfully, left work early so that she could keep Iyla while I took Nya to AP. She was super brave and I just distracted her and hoped that we would get perfect results. I called the ped and left 2 messages to tell him to please call me when the results came in. I was sure I would not hear from him until tomorrow. Well, much to my surprise, he called tonight around 5 pm to tell me that everything was PERFECT!!! He said that maybe she had fought off something already and the lymphnodes are still just swollen from that. All the other tests were clear but most importantly LYMPHOMA was not a possibility at all. He said it could have been something as minor as a scratch that we never even saw. He said that all of the results were within the "normal range" and there is NOTHING (especially cancer) to worry about. I felt like I could take my first real breath of the day. Oh my god, what a relief. It has put a lot into perspective for me. Now, when she asks to play that extra round of Go FIsh or a couple more minutes of "dollhouse" that I can do it and be grateful that I have a happy, healthy child that actually wants to play with me still. This was a horrible, horrible day, with a WONDERFUL ENDING! Thanks mom for helping me with Iyla and for having us over for dinner. It was a nice distraction from the obvious. PHEW, off to do a puzzle with my peanut!
