Last Wednesday, we finished all the diagnostics and Aidan took his first dose of chemotherapy to begin to actually treat the cancer.
I expected to feel relieved, even thankful that we were on the road to remission. Instead I had to leave the room for a minute because I could barely keep it together. Aidan, of course, was fine. I think he played his Nintendo 3DS the entire time.
Up until that point, I think I had held onto some small sliver of hope that the oncologists would tell us they misdiagnosed him, that the biopsy samples got mixed up in the lab, or that I'd wake up in my own bed, shake Jamie awake, and upon telling her all the details receive a comforting hug as she told me it was just an AWFUL nightmare. When he started chemotherapy, that hope (however slim it was) was shattered. It was official, Aidan was a cancer patient.
It also didn't help that the nurse giving the chemo was dressed like she was from a hazmat team on the scene to clean up some horrendous chemical spill. She came into his room covered in a huge plastic apron, safety goggles, latex gloves, and ran the scene like she was orchestrating a military exercise. She wouldn't even take the medicine out of the plastic bag to put in on the pump. This stuff is apparently so dangerous that we can't risk it dripping on the floor or coming in contact with human skin, yet we are pumping it directly into my son's heart to be distributed throughout his bloodstream.
After verbally confirming that he was the correct patient and he was about to receive the correct medication, she turned on the pump and we watched a deep red substance that looked more like kool aid than medication slowly fill up his picc line. 30 minutes later, it was done.
Last Wednesday Aidan got his first dose of the medications he needs to be cured, and it broke my heart.
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