It was just a few weeks ago - probably mid to late November that I was driving along and thinking about my family and about how nothing really bad had ever happened to me or my immediate family. My father died in 1986. It was definitely bad and I miss him every day of my life. However, he’d had a couple heart attacks before his death, and had had bypass heart surgery. So, although his death was sudden, at age 67 and after his heart history, it wasn’t completely unexpected. And it was 22 years ago. Since then I’ve had 22 years of pretty smooth sailing in terms of really bad things. Yes, there have been a couple other hard and heart-breaking times during those 22 years. However, nothing life-threatening.

The thought I had that day as I drove along is that my luck in life was bound to change - and that every day I lived I came closer to the time of that change. Yes, I was being morbid - but I frequently am. So that’s nothing new. Also, Lily had been experiencing pains in her back and in her legs. Her description of the pain reminded me of a friend of mine years ago whose son was later diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. His primary symptoms were excruciating pain in his legs. So, yes, the thought of cancer crossed my mind more than once before Lily’s diagnosis. Her paleness, the bruises, the pains. However, as is our nature, we push those thoughts away. It couldn’t be cancer. I was just being paranoid. She just had the flu or a nasty lingering infection. After all, she’d been to the pediatrician several times, and nothing serious had been found.

So, I wondered those few weeks ago, what would be the first really bad thing to happen to our family. The thought must have made an impression on me at the time because I know exactly where I was when I thought about it - the road and the exact location on that road. I thought at the time that it would probably be the death of either myself or one of my siblings. Several of us have had some minor health problems - not life-threatening, but not a walk in the park either. We’re all in our fifties or sixties - most of us are overweight and don’t exercise enough. The law of averages is not on our side.

Then December 1, 2008 arrived, and Lily was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia, and the first really bad thing to happen to me in 22 years arrived. I look at the main photo of Lily on her CaringBridge site, and I remember that I took that picture. It was in the fall - mid October, I believe, and we had gone to Pinkerton Park in Franklin for a picnic - PaPa, Lily, Sophie and me. I had taken my camera and I took lots of pictures that day. I wonder now if the leukemia was already in her at that time. It very well could have been - or perhaps that was one of her last pre-leukemia days. Her serious symptoms started about a month later, and she was diagnosed about 6 weeks after that photo was taken. What caused her cells to suddenly stop maturing properly. What was the catalyst that caused the leukemia to begin? Those answers we’ll never know.

There are defining dates in each person’s life. There are many happy dates, of course, but there are also those dates when something life-changingly bad happend. For me there are two dates that will be forever etched in my mind: December 3, 1986 when my father died, and December 1, 2008 when Lily was diagnosed with ALL.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 2:11 am and is filed under Lily's Leukemia Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.