Saturday June 6, 2020

We have been absent from our family blog for one month exactly as our son Thomas was diagnosed with cancer. We were publishing over at CaringBridge (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/thomaslauer/), but are now going to try to bring the two together seamlessly in order to continue the family blog I have written for 14 years. This blog post is copied from CaringBridge and is being published retroactively.

Chris and I think maybe it was a little gift from God to give us the weekend to get slightly more accustomed to the situation. Had the doctor been able to fit us in for a CT scan on Friday, surgery may have followed immediately and our heads would have been spinning even more.

As it was, we are having a very lovely weekend of some normalcy, interspersed by tears (ours and the older children's), especially flowing at night when the distractions were lessened. 

SATURDAY

After three months stuck at home on coronavirus lockdown, we are just starting to get out! (It occurs to me that this may be getting one gasp of air before we plunge back down into lockdown due to chemotherapy and radiation.) On Saturday morning, I took Margaret to a three-months belated birthday outing: painting pottery with her dear friend.

In the afternoon, our whole family joined another large family for a whole afternoon of refreshing outdoor fun, a shared meal, and performing poetry and music for each other. Even Thomas recited with great enthusiasm two poems!

https://youtu.be/rKrSlVhOVVI

I showed Thomas several times videos designed for children to prepare for a CT scan and we practice him lying on his back, arms over his head, and briefly holding his breath. He thought it was great fun. He knows he has to fast before the CT scan, so he is planning carefully the restaurant he wants to visit for his breakfast afterward!

https://youtu.be/KsUEicrPB4g https://youtu.be/dTuqfWpWmuk
At the end of our very long day of fun and bath times for all the wee ones, I crawled into bed and connected over Facebook with another mother who went through her four-year-old son having a Wilms tumor, discovered actually almost two years to the day from now. I scrolled through her entire two years of Facebook feed and wept and wept because there were so many aspects of surgery and treatment that I had no clue about, had not even occurred to me to wonder. Even though this cancer has a generally high rate of cure, barring complications, I am watching that every aspect of our lives is going to change and be very difficult for a long time.

I am watching the control I thought I had crumble away, as it was always just a veneer. I learned that, if this is confirmed as a Wilms tumor, it began with his embryological kidney cells never "turning off" and has been growing since he was in my womb, the safest place on earth. God always knew, but we did not know.

God, please walk with us for every single step! 
Specific prayer request: that Thomas' cancer has not spread.