Icy cold fear

I understand why they call fear "cold." It is. Occasionally, I think about what is happening tomorrow, and I feel streams of ice-cold adrenaline shoot through my veins. Forget freon, you could run a fridge off a liter of my blood right now.

But today had a lovely start. Little Warrior loves eggy and toast -- strips of crisp buttered toast dunked into a salted soft-boiled egg. Because of being immuno-compromised, we haven't allowed her to have any. We explained why, but she was sad.

Then --duh! I thought of pasteurized eggs. After searching several stores, I found some this weekend. Score!

Last night, I told her that she could have eggy and toast for breakfast when she woke up. Her face lit up.

"Is cancer over???" she squealed.

Ow. "No, honey. But Mama found some special eggs and got them just for you! They're safe, so you can have a soft egg!"

This morning, she climbed on me, not-so-gently patting me. "You gotta get up! You gotta get up and make eggy toast! See! The sun is up! Day is here!"

Last night, The Husband put up our cheapy screened tent-gazebo. Hey, as long as it makes it through October. Little Warrior put the bread in the toaster and pushed the lever down. I cooked three perfect 4 minute eggs for Bo Peep and us.

We took it all outside and free from mosquitos, enjoyed our breakfast. You would have thought a soft-boiled egg was ambrosia, with the look of bliss on LW's face, as she ate delicate spoonfuls with the silver demitasse spoons we use just for this. We listened to the birds sing.

Lovely.

Tomorrow morning, not so much. LW and I will leave the house by 6:00, to get to the hospital by 7:15. She will drink glass after glass of contrast and (for the first time), we will attempt to get a CT scan without anesthesia. Today, she and I will practice holding still for 10 minutes at a time.

As of right now, our hope is that LW is cancer-free. That the surgery removed it all. That we are doing chemo and radiation in case there's any stray cells that escaped.

There is an inverse risk/result ratio going on. The risk that tumors will have developed while she is getting these high-powered chemos is small. But if they have developed, then the result is very, very bad. Because it will mean that they are so aggressive, getting chemo didn't slow them down.

Icy. Cold. Fear.