The Scare

My boss' daughter got good news today. The biopsy of the lump in her breast came out negative. My boss said she is going to pray more often since her prayers worked..... My experiences have been different than that. I prayed a lot after Jeff's "accident" and before we were told he died...



I want to write about the scare. For some reason, it seems important for me to remember as many of the details of “the scare” as of Jeff’s death. I am not sure why.

At the end of February, 2007, I noticed that there was a raised area under Jeff’s eye – kind of in the middle of his cheek bone. At first, I thought that he had gotten hit with a lacrosse stick, so I didn’t think much of it. But it remained on his face for a number of weeks until finally I asked him about it. He said that he too had noticed it and no he hadn’t gotten hit with a stick. So I continued to keep an eye on it until I really couldn’t ignore it any longer. I talked to Jim about it and decided that it was probably something related to his teeth and that I would take him in to see the dentist.

I did. The dentist checked it out and thought that perhaps it was some kind of an infection. He put Jeff on antibiotics. It didn’t go down at all. So I made an appointment with the pediatrician next. I brought him to the pediatrician not thinking much of it. The pediatrician felt it, took a number of tests, and left the room. The pediatrician consulted with another pediatrician and came back to the room saying “Well, we can rule out leukemia, at least.” My first thought was “well I never ruled leukemia in, so I don’t need to rule it out.” The pediatrician suggested that I see the Ear Nose and Throat Doctor. My worrying increased. I spoke to Jim again who told me about several people he had known who had died recently of cancer of the salivary glands. I waited another week and a half, and it still had not gone down. I checked with people at work – at the Medical Society – about who the best Ear Nose and Throat doctor was and it ended up being Dr. Coniglio. It was a Friday late afternoon when we went into see Dr. Coniglio. Jeff had lacrosse practice and he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to go to it – it being Friday he wanted to since he wouldn’t have practice for the next two days. Dr. Coniglio took a biopsy of this raised area. Dr. C. later told me that he remembered Jeff because it wasn’t often that a kid didn’t flinch when he had a needle stuck into his cheek. Coniglio said that he would call me as soon as the results came in. The weekend came and went. The results came back and it was palpable, Coniglio said, but they could not rule out “something more serious”. So he ordered a CT scan and he wanted it done right away. Of course my anxiety level shot up like a pop up. I had to take Jeff to get a CT scan. I explained to him what would happen and showed him a picture. He was going to have to lie down on a gurney. They would push the gurney into a big hole and take pictures of his face. I told him that I was going to be with him when he went in. He was quite the trooper. We went in, and they told him to go in and change which he did. Jeff seemed fine. I was petrified for him. When we went into the room with the machine, they went over to Jeff and explained to him what they were going to do. Then I noticed the mask, the cage. “I didn’t tell him about that, shit. Why didn’t I think of it?” In my mind, I reprimanded myself. They were going to put this cage like contraption over Jeff’s head. There was a place for Jeff’s neck. They gave him something to cushion the space between his ear and the outer part of the cage – to keep the sound down. It had a place for him to see out off – a little hole in the cage where his eyes were and a small mirror attached to the hole in such a way that by looking up at the mirror Jeff could see down around his feet. They told me where I could stand – of course he was lying flat on a gurney with the cage like mask snapped on his head. They put something around his body to hold his arms in place. And they told him that he wouldn’t be able to move at all. (This being told to a young boy who sat upside down on the couch while I quizzed him on his spelling words each week.)

I was petrified. I stood at his feet with my hand on his leg right above his ankle. I tried to have my hand by reassuring. My other hand was resting on the hand that was on Jeff’s leg and this second hand was squeezing the first real tightly while the whole thing was going on. I could see his eyes. It took so long – or so I thought. It was loud. They would take a picture or reading or whatever and it would be loud for a minute or two, then they would stop. Stop for a minute then start again for say 3-4 minutes. Each time they would tell him to be very still. I kept on looking at his eyes. They were a gorgeous blue. At times, he would close them, but when they were opened they were just looking out –patiently. After what seemed like hours, they finally stopped. Pulled the gurney out – took off the caged mask.

He got dressed quickly. As I drove home, I asked him how he was doing – he said that he was ok. I told him that I wanted to take him out to get a sub from subway before he went back to school. As we were getting the sub, I began talking to the girl waiting on us. I told her about the CT scan. She proceeded to tell us about how she had had many a CT scans as she was diagnosed with some type of cancer a year or a year and a half before that. I hated to hear her talk. It made me and could not have possibly NOT made Jeff more fearful as to what would lie ahead for us. It was a painfully long weekend and a number of days passed. Finally, Dr. Coniglio called me with the results. It was negative. Jeff, Doug and I celebrated. After about a month of fearing for the worse, Jeff was “cancer free”. I was blessed!

I felt like celebrating big time even at work. On Friday of that week, I stopped at Wegman’s before I got to work and bought muffins and donuts and scones. We partied at work that morning, because I/we had dodged the bullet. Jeff was cancer free. My beautiful blue eyed boy was poised to live a life full of many many years and much more happiness.

Less than three weeks later, Jeff was dead.