Take Everything but Leave the Kid

"Brooklyn's test results are consistent with Leukemia." This is how the news was delivered to us... and I want to document this, get it down in writing, because I fear that this is something that I might one day forget. Words that were delivered with such ease that the actual event of receiving said news was almost anticlimactic. In the beginning of all of this I had briefly wondered  how on earth you drop such a substantial bomb on a parent and now I know. I wish I didn't, but I do.

So now my kid has cancer. She's two, and she has cancer. I'm not entirely sure what kind of force out there is running the show but it has got one fucked up sense of social justice. For the most part, it still doesn't feel real. It's as if every day I wake up and need to remind myself that my daughter is sick. The most difficult part to grapple with is the fact that as a parent you wish that the universe would make this battle yours and not your kids. Never in my life could I imagine my daughter fighting for hers.

So here we are, closing out week 1 of an apparently intense and grueling five week treatment program known as "Induction" or "Phase 1". I have yet to see any really bad side effects from the chemo in Brooklyn except for the fact that her temperament is just a bit more "colorful" than normal and she sleeps a little more.

My daughter hasn't ever been anything other than brilliantly fearless and I have no doubts that she will beat this thing, but I'm still terrified.