Day 1

Written on Friday, August 3 at 4 am.

Today was a God awful day. I don't mean that the newborn didn't sleep or that the toddler threw a tantrum. I mean today was one of those days you have nightmares about. It was an OCD fear coming true.

In case I never explained it before, my OCD isn't of the maniacal hand washing variety. My OCD revolves squarely around one thing, something bad happening to those I love most. I've envisioned myself tripping down the stairs while holding the baby. I've envisioned my daughter getting into a car accident every time she leaves the house without me. I worry every time my husband leaves for Manhattan that a terrorist is going to blow up the Lincoln tunnel. These thoughts are obsessive and debilitating, and at first I had rituals that I felt warded off these terrible things. I sought therapy, and they helped me cope to the point of being able to keep the rituals in check. Except today, one of those bad things happened.

After the nug happily trotted off to the Crayola factory with her Grandma and Aunt, the hubs and I decided to take little dude out for a quick lunch. We enjoyed a new "healthy" fast food type place that just opened, and headed home. We had planned to get some stuff done around the house since Cam wasn't home, but the hubs suggested we nap instead (even though Ben is a rock star sleeper, he is still up every 2 hours eating). We both dozed off quickly, but I was jolted awake to a different world...

Next to me on the couch, my husband, my best friend since I was 17, the love of my life, was seizing. I've never seen a seizure before except on TV. In a panic, I ran to call 911. A minute seemed like an hour as I begged the responder on the other end to hurry up. His body jerking uncontrollably, his lips turning blue, I stood so unbelievably frustrated that I couldn't do anything to help him. As the seizure wore off, my husband looking directly at me, terrified, unable to speak, I knew our lives as we knew them were gone.

Those two minutes seemed like an eternity. For the first minute I was terrified he was going to die, and when I saw him breathing I wondered who was coming back to me. Did he know who I was? Did he know who HE was? It was literally the scariest moment of my life; I'm sweating and shaking just recounting it; and if you thought that was the worst part of the day, you'd be mistaken...

It barely registered with me at that moment that we had a 9 day old in the swing just feet away from where this was happening. What did register was that my 2.5 year old was on her way to our house at that moment, and I didn't want her seeing Daddy that way. Since he was now alert and able to speak, and confirmed he knew he and I were, I called his mom to let her know what happened. The medics said he was, overall, okay; but needed to go to the hospital. I scrambled from there- this was unknown territory for me and at this point, realized the 7lb elephant in the room- I couldn't bring the baby on the ambulance, but felt strongly about being with my husband. Thankfully, Kenny's mom had the wherewithal (since I certainly did not by then) to call a friend to come to my house to watch Ben until they arrived. I quickly nursed him while I waited, and did my best to avoid the nosy neighbors standing around trying to find out what happened.

Once at the hospital, we all started pondering at what happened. The hubs had been complaining for almost a year about panic attacks; he'd even gone to 3 different doctors (including a therapist) to see if he could figure out what was happening. Although in retrospect you'd think one of the 3 doctors might have guessed at something neurological, none of them did.

Finally, after 3 hours and a few tests, the on call doctor told us he had results. We expected to hear something along the lines of epilepsy or some other seizure disorder, but instead, he informed us that my 31 year old, otherwise healthy husband has a tumor on his brain. There were four of us listening, Kenny's mother and father, and Kenny and I; and I don't think any of us took in a single breath for a good 15 seconds as we absorbed the shock of what he was saying.

I'd been holding in tears all day. The sight of my best friend in the world convulsing was enough to give me nightmares for the rest of my life; but this? This was too much. This couldn't be happening. We just had a baby last week. He just had a physical in February. He's too good a guy for this. The minute his mom reached to hug me, the tears ran, and haven't really stopped running.

When I ran home at 9pm (6 hours after I left), it felt weird to be there. Everything looked the same, but everything felt different. The blissfully mundane life I had when I woke up this morning had vanished. It felt like I didn't belong in my house anymore. All the happy, normal, boring things we talked about all morning...oh God how I wish I could go back there now. Chatting about a sip and see party we wanted for Benjamin and who won the gold last night...you have no idea what I'd give to be talking about that shit right now. Now we are talking about tumor shrinking and neurosurgery. Instead of pinning blue cake pops on Pinterest I'm trying to wrap my head around helping my husband fight a brain tumor. And my kids...what do you tell a 2.5 year old about this?? Just hearing her ask for Daddy made my stomach want to flip inside out.

So here I am, at 4 am by his bedside at a local hospital I'm not at all comfortable with him being at, thinking a lot of shit and steering my mind as best I can from even scarier shit. I'm just trying to breath. Trying to take every minute as it comes. Trying to keep my tears at bay and focus on the tasks at hand.

You might be wondering why I'm even writing this right now. Because writing is just what I know to do. When I feel helpless, when I have no control, when I feel the walls around me are crumbling, I write.  I've tried crying about it, reasoning with God about it, I even tried cursing at it- as if saying "Fuck this shit" enough would make it go away.

For now I'm going to watch him sleep...something he was scared to do since he was sleeping when this all started.  I'm going to get up tomorrow (I'm not actually going to sleep, it's just not going to happen), and figure out what the Hell we're going to do next.  I'm going to hug my husband, and make sure he knows that whatever they say, it's going to be okay.  Because it is.  Because it has to be.