Is this real?

Sometimes this all feels like a dream, like this isn’t really our life and this isn’t really happening. She seems fine and healthy…Our daughter can’t be sick…I can’t actually lose her…can I? Then I see a group of teenagers and it hits me that I won’t ever know her like that. She won’t go to prom or graduate high school. A little girl born to be a mommy won’t ever get that chance…This doesn’t mean I have lost hope, but it does mean that I need to be realistic about what’s happening here. Tony tended towards being more overprotective than me of her physically when she was little. I clearly remember telling him our job wasn’t to keep her from getting hurt it was to keep her alive. So if she fell off the play structure and broke her arm that was ok….For some reason I thought of that again today and it hurt so much… I am scared for our future. For how we will all survive this. Will I really have to live 50 more years after her? How will I ever be a good mom again to my other 3…and not always ache for my Jennifer. How will I be at their graduations and weddings? Will I cry for the one my heart is missing? How will they feel? I am so scared of how we are going to make it through all of this without falling apart forever.

Today and right now is hard. But she is here.. I wish it wasn’t her…I wish I could take it all away…I wish my family never had to be split up… Next week with radiation it all changes for her. She will know that we are fighting something really bad. She already knows something big is up, but she isn’t quite sure what is going on. I think with our escape to the beach house we all got lost in being away and forgot. Driving home was like coming back into a reality none of us want to be in. And next week we will talk more about what we are doing and what lies ahead. I wish I could load us all up and drive away from all of this…like if we keep moving fast enough cancer can’t catch us. I am going to miss all my boys. But I am so grateful that I will be getting some time with Jennifer alone (ok Charlotte will be there too) but mostly just me and the one who made me a mom. I have it so much easier than Tony who has to return to work on Monday. I appreciate him and what he sacrifices for us more than I can explain. Tomorrow we move in with my parents for the duration of her radiation. So 6 weeks. It will be good for the boys to have the stability. But it’s hard to leave the safety of our home. Oh and we got a letter from our insurance saying there isn’t enough proof that Jennifer needs radiation for it to be covered…we need to supply more info. Delightful. I wrote to our social worker for guidance on that…and will sort it out on Monday.