Standing in front of two doors…
On the edge of a cliff…
Holding life with open hands… all these metaphors and so many more come to mind (and have come to life on these pages) as I consider another MRI in the morning.
By my very rough count, Chase has lay in “the tube” and been scanned over 20 times, and on the one hand, preparing for the experience feels almost as routine as running to the store for milk, and on the other… well, really, really not routine.
Chase stayed home from church today in order to protect him from any germs that might interfere with sedation tomorrow and for a minute, we sat in the sun on the back porch with the blooming trees all around us and I asked him what to write and what he’d want to say. He shrugged and said “I don’t need to say anything. You can say it, Mom. Just write about cancer and my baseball and the MRI – that I would be brave and not be afraid.” So there it is… Please pray for Chase to be brave and not be afraid as he goes in tomorrow.
Despite all the experience, tomorrow will still be a first. At the suggestion of his doctors, to reduce stress and the hours spent with no food or water, we are going to attempt an MRI at an outpatient facility (his first full scan not done in the hospital), using sedation instead of general anesthesia. Our hope and prayer is that his little body will take to the new medicines well and that he’ll be able to fall into a deep sleep and stay there for upwards of two hours. We were told that there are only a small percentage of children who don’t take well to the procedure and need to be transferred back to the main hospital for future scans, but as ATRT parents, we eat “small percentage” for breakfast every morning, so it really didn’t come across quite as comforting as we know the nurse meant it to be. Also, it’s Chase… 🙂
So, as always, we go forward …
Moment by moment.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11
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