July 2010- Diagnosis

Well I am going to sort of brief everyone from the beginning.  In June Brynn was a perfectly happy healthy 10 yr old.  She was busy in swim club which is her favorite and was competing in the home swim meet.  One day after swimming she was sitting on the couch reading when she noticed a bump on the bottom of her foot right in the arch about the size of my thumb nail.  She called me to look at it.  I felt it and it didn't hurt at all so I thought it must just be from her shoes or something.  Brynn is a bit of a worry wart though (thank goodness) so a couple days later she asked if I had called the doctor yet and I hadn't.  I called that day and made an appointment but the soonest that was available was in two weeks.  My oldest daughter Sadie happened to have an appointment the next day so while I was there I mentioned to Dr. Torrie ( good friend from High School) that I would be coming to see him again in a couple of weeks because Brynn was worried about a bump on her foot.  He told me I should bring her in that day and that I didn't have to wait for my appointment in two weeks.  I really thought he was being over cautious but I reluctantly drove Sadie home and picked Brynn up and brought her right in.  He looked and immediatly called and booked a CT scan for the next morning and a MRI for 2 days later.  My biggest worry was that we might miss some swim meets while we had this syst removed! The day of the MRI was the awards day for the end of the school year and we made it back just in time for them to start the Grade 5 awards.  Brynn won the award for Citizenship and always being kind to everyone- I was so proud of her and told her that was way more important to me than any scholastic award.  The next week Dr. Torrie said the results were inconclusive so he was sending us up to Calgary to get a biopsy done.  When we met with the one doctor he sent us to another and we were told it was probably nothing to worry about since it was circular and didn't hurt to touch it, but they would just make sure.  We went home feeling fine about things.  I will never forget July 2, 2010.  Kevin was away working up north, my sister ( and best friend) was away on a holiday to the states, and my mom was in Lethbridge with Sadie and her cousins and my sister-in-law shopping.  I was home alone with our youngest daugheter Reese who is 3.  Brynn and her 6 year old brother Kade were riding their bikes to the library.  I recieved a phone call from the Children's Hospital and by the sound of his voice I could tell something was wrong.  He said they had some bad news and that Brynn had rhabdomyosarcoma.  I said what's that?  He replied that it was cancer and she would need to start chemotherapy right away.  I don't remember anything else about our conversation.  I felt numb and began to shake and couldn't even talk.  I called Kevin immediatly and told him through sobs and he packed and left for home immediatly.  A few minutes later my daughter who I thought was perfectly healthy came riding up on her bike and I had to sit down and tell her!  She cried of course and we held eachother.  I'll never forget how she asked if she would lose her hair and then a few minutes later stopped crying and said " Can a get a blond wig?"  After that she went out and jumped on the trampoline and I tried to not cry in front of her.  I didn't sleep for about a week and felt like I could hardly function.  I don't even know how Kevin and I got through those first few days!