It is that time again. My daughter has to go back to the hospital and I’m scared. In a couple of weeks, she will be back in Ann Arbor to have her yearly MRI. For those of you that haven’t been following me on this site, at two years old my daughter got really sick. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor. We found it by accident, and luckily it was treatable. She had a successful surgery to remove the tumor. Since then she has been fine. If you want to read the story you can read it here.

Why am I scared?

Back to me being scared. You see, once every year my daughter has to go back for an MRI. They look for any signs that the tumor may have returned. She is put under to do the scan and she wakes up groggy and a little grumpy. That is all she knows of these trips and she isn’t scared of the scan. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, she is fine with doctors and most procedures. I’m not scared of the scan. Much like my daughter I am pretty used to being around hospitals and sitting in waiting rooms. It isn’t the anesthesia that scares me. It is the results.

What scares me is what the results could be. Most likely there will be nothing. The type of tumor she had doesn’t tend to come back, but it can. Most likely they won’t see anything on the scan, but they could. That is what scares me. I am afraid the tumor could come back and that this time, the outcome could be different.

[tweetthis]Most Likely there will be nothing…[/tweetthis]

When I think about her having the tumor, it’s in the past. She beat it. I am not scared of that tumor anymore. I can talk about it, tell the story of how we found it, how she fought it, and how she recovered. I can talk about the doctors and the hospital. It’s in the past. It’s over. Unless it’s not.

I still remember

When the doctor gives us the diagnosis, I am always transported back to when we first heard she had a tumor. So far every MRI has been good news, but this one could be different. This one could be bad. They could see signs of the tumor returning. That might mean another surgery. Or this time, it could be somewhere else. Maybe this time, in a location they can’t get to it. Maybe that means chemotherapy, radiation, or both. Maybe it means she won’t be able to beat it this time.

I don’t tell my daughter I’m scared. I don’t make a big deal about it. But I am scared. Each time she has it done, I am scared. I probably will be scared for the rest of my life. For now, it is in the past, and let’s hope that when she has her scan later this month it stays that way.

Photo From –Pedro Ribeiro Simões – Flickr.com – CC

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