This became the beginning of our family’s journey in dealing with childhood cancer. The wait in the cold, empty waiting room became the longest for 2 and a half hour wait of my life. Looking back, I don’t know how I was so strong watching them prepare my baby girl, and take her down that long foreboding corridor and into surgery. Armed with her Pooh Bear, blanket, and Winnie the Pooh movie, Celeste waited for her surgery. I was emotionally exhausted before I even stepped into her room, yet adrenaline and focusing on what needed to be done kept me marching on. They hadn’t told Celeste yet, because they didn’t want to worry her until they knew exactly what was going on. The surgery would relieve the pressure building up on her brain, causing the headaches and double vision, and hopefully they could get a sample to run a biopsy. When I arrived at the hospital a few hours before her surgery, her father broke the news that they had discovered a golf ball size tumour under her pineo gland, but they didn’t know if it was cancerous or benign. She was scheduled to go into surgery for 9:30 that night. They did a CAT scan and an MRI was scheduled. He immediately sent Celeste over to the emergency department.

Michelle, a neurology resident, took Celeste to see her doctor that day. We had a doctor’s appointment coming, but that morning she started developing double vision. “Celeste has to have emergency neuro surgery tonight.”Ĭeleste had been having bad headaches.

She hurriedly informed me that Celeste, my 12-year-old daughter, was in the emergency department of the Children’s Hospital in London, Ontario. It was Michelle, my children’s stepmother. Climbing back into our car, I scrambled to grab my ringing cell phone. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon on Thursday, February 24, 2011, my husband, Matt, and I had just picked up our 6-year-old son, Grayson, from school.

Two Mothers, One Prayer by Laura Lane