Shape Shifting

We are back at the corner of Sunset + Vermont. I wish I could tell you we're here catching a Red Line train, or climbing the hill at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Hollyhock House. I wish I could tell you we're here cos Pablo forgot his favorite book when we were here yesterday. I wish I wasn't tapping my thumbs on my Blackberry, inside a cramped exam room in the CHLA ER. But I am. And wishing won't do me no good.

We're here because Pablo got fevered up this afternoon. That, together with the fact that P woke this morning coughing and clearing his throat persistently, is a one-way ticket to this oft-visited address.

The X-ray showed roughly 25% more fluid in Pablo's right lung. Jo Ann and I are pretty good at spying the X-ray monitors. We generally know what we're looking for, in broad strokes. Tonight, we nudged our way into the tech room in the radiology lab, and the tech brought up the images on his black and white monitor. It was evident to us that the foggy fluid image was covering well over half the right lung. Yesterday and three weeks ago it was clouding well under half the lung. More than half is easy to see, and it is an easy culprit for our little boy's coughing and unease.

On the way here Jo Ann wondered aloud if the coughing could be a cold. I don't recall responding. But I know I laughed inside, diverting my mind with thoughts of a cold, or summertime sports injury, measles, a burn (I had one when I was his age), or a plain old broken arm from falling out of a tree house. All of those diagnoses were falling out of a mental file labeled 'Not A Big Deal.' That file is growing, and it's located between my ears.

It would be shocking if Jo Ann and I hadn't thought about or talked about every possible way in which everything else in life - any kooky / krazee thing life could throw at a person, a family, a community - is not a big deal compared to the severity and longevity of Pablo's fight with this double-crossing disease.

I'm not sure that we feel double-crossed. As we sit here in our cramped ER room, we are breathing breaths of intention, looking at one another with hopeful eyes, and retaining an air of confidence and forward momentum. Those are the only things that matter. How many times I've written such a thing on this blog, I don't know. But it's never not true.

Pablo's I.V. antibiotic is finished. We're outta here. This dude wants to fall out and he wants to do it in Mommy + Papa's bed. That's one of his fave spots in the world. And it's certainly ours.

The goal (to be confirmed first thing tomorrow morning) is to bump our chemo to tomorrow from Friday. Dr M is convinced that Pablo will be responsive to another round of chemo, as he was with the first one.

This is where we need you to fling your faith toward Pablo.