I Worried About...

(in no order of importance or chronology, and there are many more that I'll think of in the middle of the night tonight)

-what in heaven's name was wrong with my child, before the diagnosis
-the diagnosis...CANCER
-whether my child would die
-whether I would be able to go on living if she did
-insurance coverage
-living on one income
-all the tests and biopsies to determine the most effective treatment
-what the chemotherapy drugs would do to her
-whether they would actually work
-whether they would make her sick
-whether she would ever eat anything other than clementines again because she had lost her appetite and so much weight
-how she would feel each time her hair fell out, each of the three times it did
-whether the wig tape would hold so that her hair wouldn't fly off in a big wind and embarrass her
-what the drugs would do to her heart, kidneys, etc. due to the toxicity
-whether she would ever be able to have children because of drug toxicity
-how strictly she should follow the prescribed low bacteria diet
-how she would ever make it through 10 months of 14 in-patient cycles of chemo
-how she would handle going to chemo 5 days a week, every 3rd week during the first semester of senior year after school and get up and go to school again the next day
-how home care could work, getting chemo after school at the house
-coordinating everything every day
-whether we would have good nurses
-whether we had the best doctors
-whether I was a good mother
-how I could keep getting up each day
-how to function on less sleep
-lab results
-neutropenia
-low hemoglobin
-low platelets
-germs everywhere
-whether we should get a dog
-whether she would get germs from the dog
-infections
-the leg surgery
-the lung surgery
-the brain tumor surgery
-whether they would try to drag me out of adult ICU after the brain tumor surgery
-transfusions
-the unexplained cough she continued to have for months, even before there were tumors in her lungs
-how she would stay caught up in school
-how she would get her drivers license
-whether her friends would remember she existed
-whether people would make fun of her limp or lack of hair or scars
-whether all the radiation would blow a hole in her somewhere
-how she would cope with never being able to play volleyball again
-whether I would faint when I saw the size of the chest tubes when they pulled them out of her after her lung surgery
-whether she would fall down the stairs at school while wearing her stupid flip flops or birks instead of sensible shoes
-whether she would slip and fall on the ice and snow
-whether she would dislocate her hip
-whether her muscles would adhere properly to her new "femur"
-whether she was doing her PT properly so her muscles would become stronger
-whether I would be able to give her a shot properly
-whether I would be able to run her IV properly
-whether we should take an out-of-town vacation, what if something happened?
-whether I should work while she was sick
-bone scan results, many times
-chest CT results, many times
-MRI results, many times
-PET scan results, not as many times
-whether we should change hospitals for treatment
-whether she would graduate from high school on time
-whether she would go to prom
-whether her friends would call her after all the graduation parties were over
-whether her chemo schedule was going to conflict with important events in her life
-whether the bottom would drop out before she started college
-whether she should start college in spite of the bottom dropping out
-whether she could manage college and really wicked chemo
-whether she should move into college with a fever of 101
-whether she could continue to commute from home after moving back
-whether she would make new friends in college
-whether she would have pain
-once she did have pain, how we would control it quickly
-whether she would get into a car accident with low platelet counts
-whether we should go to the state volleyball final when we had a pretty good idea she had a brain tumor
-my sanity
-whether we were making the best decisions
-whether I could settle her if she became afraid
-not having the answers to her questions
-whether I was doing everything I possibly could to make things better or easier for her
-SO MANY things during the final three weeks of her life that I will not list here
-whether the whole family would be with her when she died

On December 18, 2009 at 4:40PM I stopped worrying. Every ounce of my being KNEW she went straight to heaven.

Now, I really don't worry about much of anything, and I wonder a lot about the things other people do worry about.