Chapter 4: Tumor

Disclaimer: This chapter contains colorful language

Housekeeping note: Medulloblastoma, pronounced 'mej-u-lo-blastoma'

Day 40, January 10th. I was on the road to the hospital with Emmett by 5:30am, in what was likely the worst snow storm I've ever driven in. It took us just over two hours to get from Judique to Antigonish. On a piece of paper, I had everything written down from the last ten days that Emmett had been experiencing for symptoms, what he was eating and drinking, what activities he participated in and how long he slept. I was prepared to be whoever I needed to be to get an answer, and was really hoping it wouldn't come to turning in to the female version of "The Hulk".

We arrived at the hospital at 7:40am, and I immediately carried him into the emergency room. As I carried him, he started vomiting into his bag. When he pulled his face away, he had blood in the corner of his lips. The triage nurse took one look at him, then at me with tears streaming down my face, and didn't say a word. She opened the door and we were taken straight into a room. The doctor came in, and when he asked what was going on, I gave him the story, and at the end of the story I said "I cannot help him anymore, and I am not taking him home. He is going to die if something isn't done to fix him". At this point he had visibly lost so much weight, and couldn't afford to lose any more. The doctor left and called the paediatrician on-call.

Roughly 20-30 minutes later, in walks our angel, Dr. Eileen McBride. I instantly loved her, and felt comforted by her presence. I told her his story, and then she gave him an all over examination. He was clearly dehydrated, and we needed to get some bloodwork done. For Emmett, that was absolutely not happening.

He kicked, punched, screamed and refused to stay still for the technician to get blood from his arm. Trying to do this was causing him so much distress, that he had to be sedated. They gave him a liquid that he had to sniff up his nose, and within a few minutes it started to take affect. It was awful. He was completely limp, but still relatively aware. We got the bloodwork done, and then he was sent for another x ray.

Once we got back to his room, he slept for an hour or so until Dr. McBride came in to discuss results. The x ray, as expected, was clear. His bloodwork showed he was dehydrated, but that was it. Everything else looked fine, again, as expected. The next test Dr. McBride wanted to do was an anxiety test. Inside, I could feel my body getting hot. I was instantly enraged that that was the avenue we were taking next. I told her, in a confident but soft manner "Emmett does not have anxiety. Does he hate bloodwork? Absolutely. But he isn't anxious". I calmed myself down and realized that this is the first time she has ever laid eyes on him, and to allow her to do what she feels is imporant. So we did the test.

She was asking him questions like "Do you get anxious when you don't see Mom or Dad in the house?", to myself I'm thinking "Emmett being alone? That's his favourite thing". He replies "No". Almost every question was met with "no" or "not really". After all the questions, it was determined that Emmett was not anxious. He continued to vomit off and on, and she helped him learn to control it with breathing excercises. Dr. McBride excused herself, and Emmett fell back asleep.

As I was sitting in the room, I was texting with a friend who is a nurse. She said to me "I don't mean to scare you, but have they checked for a brain tumor?". To date, other than that one doctor who brought up a brain tumor the week before, there was never any mention of it. I sat there going over the last two weeks in my head, trying so hard to think about something we may have missed. And I was brought back to exactly a week previous. Jared and Emmett were fooling around in the kitchen, and Jared picked Emmett up around the waist/stomach and flipped him over. As Emmett landed on his feet, he lifted his head up, stumbled backward, and immediately vomited. We figured because of his stomach issues, that the pressure on his stomach from the flip made him sick, and never thought much more about it after that. There were a few times over the course of the week as well that Emmett would walk and stumble to the side a bit, and I would jokingly ask him "Emmett are you drunk dude?", and he would always reply with a laugh. And lastly, there was one day he was watching his iPad, and he told me that the words on the screen sometimes blurred and "bunched together". We knew from previous visits to the eye doctor that he was on the verge of needing glasses, so just like the stomach flip, never really gave it another thought. My take away: Emmett is a clumsy eight year old who needs glasses. All those small details that once felt irrelevant, suddenly had relevance. When Dr. McBride came back in, I took out my piece of paper with all my notes, and read it out to her. Then at the end, added in the flip, the stumbling and the "bunched together" words. I saw her demeanour change. She left the room, and came back in roughly thirty minutes later, and told us that Emmett would be having an MRI. FINALLY, a test we haven't done yet. A test that might give us an answer.

Dr. McBride came back in and told us that it was likely he wouldn't have the MRI for a couple of days, but that he would be admitted to help treat his symptoms and keep him properly hydrated. It was music to my ears. By this time it was roughly 4:30pm. Someone came to the room we were in in the ER to take us to our room on the Paediatric unit, and as we were leaving, the technician who operates the MRI machine came in and said "we have some time, so we'll do his MRI right now". They prepped him for the MRI and told him he had to stay perfectly still, and allowed me to go into the room with him. Thank God for ear plugs. An hour later, he was all done, and we were taken to the unit.

Dr Mc.Bride came in, and saw that we were settling in our room. She told us that she would be back in the morning and we would go over the results of the MRI. I ordered Emmett some food, and started to get our clothes settled. Roughly ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Dr. McBride came back in, and had two nurses with her. She looked at Emmett and said "Emmett, this lovely nurse is going to sit with you while I take Mom into the next room to talk to her okay?". My heart was racing so fast I thought I was going to faint. My entire body, from head to toe, was scalding hot. I gave Emmett his iPad, and went into the next room. Dr. McBride sat in front of me and took my shaking hands in hers and said "it's not good". I instantly had tears streaming down my face. She continuted saying "Emmett has a lesion at the back of his brain....", she said more, but after that, I heard nothing. I was having a complete out of body experience. I dropped into her lap, and in an instant felt nothing but anger. I started screaming "I fucking knew it. I knew it. No one listened to me and I fucking knew it". Whatever was in my grasp, I threw it around the room. Dr. McBride let me get it out, and she validated my every emotion. Every time I screamed "I fucking knew" she said "I know you did". I was hyperventilating, trying anything to gather myself together enough to have some semblance of conversation. It wasn't until Dr. McBride grabbed my face and said "I am also an Oncologist. I need you to listen to me and remember something - curable", that I managed to catch my breath and slow my breathing. Once I did that, she explained to me that an ambulance would be picking us up within the hour to take us to the IWK, and that she had already been in touch with the Nerosurgical team and they would meet with us upon arrival. She then asked "who do you need to call?".

I went into the room where Emmett was to check on him, and he was sitting in the chair watching his iPad and eating a burger. Not at all like a child with a brain lesion that was causing him to vomit and walk funny. I went back into the other room and sat down on a chair, and contemplated my order of phone calls. Jared was at home with the girls, and in my mind, I needed someone to be on their way to pick up the girls before I called and told him the news. I called my sister - no answer. I called her again - no answer. Then I called my brother in law, Ryan. I told him the news, and without hesitation he jumped up from his desk and drove to Judique from Antigonish to pick them up. Then, I called Jared. I told him, word for word, through the tears, what we found out and what the plan was. He immediately started to make arrangements with neighbours, and prepared the farm to leave and meet us first thing in the morning. Then, I tried to call my sister again - no answer. So, I called my Mom. She was in Florida at her winter home, and when I told her, there was a three hour window between answering my phone call, packing and getting on a plane to fly back to Nova Scotia. She called my Dad, because that's a phone call I would have never been able to get through. Then, I called my sister again - no answer. At this point I'm just angry that Brittany would have the audacity to be treating a client, when she should have telepathically known that I needed her.

This next part of the story, looking back, is a little funny. My dilemma was who in the little town of Louisdale to call to drive down to her spa, bang on the walls, and get her to call me. It needed to be someone who I wouldn't have to explain myself to, who wouldn't panic and who would just do it without asking any questions. I decided to call the infamous Margaret Landry. She answered the phone, and could tell by the tone of my voice that it was very important. I asked her to go down to the spa and get Brittany to call me even if she had to bang on windows and doors. She replied "okay, I'm going". Only she didn't have a car at home because her husband, Terry, was gone with it. But, her neighbour who had just moved into town was over visiting, so she asked him to go. For anyone who knows Brittany, you know that she scares easily, and from what I understand, this man she sent to the spa is a large man, who Brittany has never laid eyes on before. He bangs on the doors, as instructed, and Brittany comes around the corner, nervously, to this mystery man standing in the window. She reluctantly opens the door, and he tells her "you need to call your sister". The message was delivered, and Britt called me right away. She went home and prepared for Ryan to arrive with the girls.

Once I got a hold of who I needed to for the time being, I went back into the room with Emmett, because they needed to start an IV on him before being loaded in the ambulance. Dr. McBride sat down and explained to him that we found something in his brain, and he needed to go back to the hospital in Halifax to get it taken care of. After some tears and hesitation, the IV got put in, and the ambulance arrived to pick us up. We walked out of the room, and the feeling in the hallway was tense and somber. As we walked closer to the emergency room, nurses were looking at us with tears in their eyes. Most have seen us in and out of there for the better part of a month, and now here we were, with our answer. The worst answer we could have ever asked for.

They loaded him up in the ambulance, burger in hand. We were on the road by 7:10pm. I made more phone calls in the ambulance, and to be honest, it's mostly a blurr for me. I couldn't tell you who I talked to, what we talked about, whether they called me or if I called them.

By the end of my phone calls, my phone was so hot I couldn't physically hold it. I put it down, and looked over at a sleeping Emmett. My mind started to spiral into a very dark place. I kept picturing this infiltrator inside his head, that I knew was trying to take him from me. Then, as much as I tried not to let it, it went even darker. I started to plan his funeral. Do we bury him in Judique? Or do we take him back to Castor? Would he want to be buried where he was born? His urn or casket could be painted after his favourite superhero, Spiderman. How would we explain this to the girls? How can I go back into the house and see all of his things, and still survive? How can I possibly live in a world without him? It went on like this for the better part of an hour. All of a sudden, I felt his hand grab mine. I looked down at him and he had a faint smile on his face as he looked up at me, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep. No one can pick up on my moods more than Emmett - we feed off each others emotions. He knew I was not doing well, and in true Emmett form, he comforted me in a time when I should have been comforting him. But oddly enough, I felt better. My mind needed to get those dark thoughts out of the way in order to see light again. I plummeted down into the darkness, but I didn't stay long. His touch pulled me back out - he was still here, living and breathing right in front of me.

We arrived at the hospital around 9:30pm, and thankfully my cousin Danielle (a.k.a Dunny) was there to meet us. We were brought up to the seventh floor, and put into room 712. A resident Neurosurgeon came in almost immediately, and sat down to talk to me. Her first words were "it's not good news", to which I replied "can you elaborate on that?", and she said "we'll be able to have a more in depth conversation tomorrow with the two lead Neurosurgeons after Emmetts MRI". That brief conversation didn't need to be had, and I told the nurses that her saying nothing would have been more constructive. I digress. Emmett watched his iPad, and Dunny and I sat and talked. We cried, and I even allowed myself to laugh briefly. Emmett went to sleep, and I laid down on Dunny's lap, falling into a dark place again, and cried myself to sleep. She slept beside me upright in a chair the entire night, doing her damnedest to console me during the worst moment of my life.

The next morning, the nurse came in with a steroid to help relieve the pressure on Emmett's brain, which in turn took away the vomiting. It was amazing to see his demeanour change knowing that he wouldn't have to worry about vomiting up his meals. He ate more that day than we had seen him eat in well over a month.

Jared arrived at the hospital, followed by my mother and father. Not long after, my sister arrived to Halifax with the girls. I went down for an MRI with Emmett at 10:00am, and we were back in the room by 11:30. Seeing everyone for the first time was incredibly emotional, but it was important to let out our emotions away from Emmett. The truth was, we still didn't know exactly what we were dealing with - the unknown was our daunting reality in that moment.

A couple of hours later, the lead Neurosurgeon, we'll call him Dr. M, came into the room and asked to meet with Jared and I. The nurse sat with Emmett, and we went into another room. Dr. M pulled up an MRI of Emmett's brain, and we were absolutely floored.

There was this mass, just sitting there. The cause for all the problems. Before Dr. M could elaborate on what exactly it was, Jared says "Are we dealing with Medulloblastoma?". My head whipped around to Jared with disbelief, and and even more so when Dr. M replied "yes, I think we are. But we won't know for absolutely certain until we get it out". Jared, unbeknownst to me, spent the entire night researching childhood tumors, and with that research, found that Medulloblastoma was one of the most common. (Side note: to this day, I have not googled even one single thing as it pertains to Emmett's diagnosis). Dr. M explained that the tumor was sitting between his brain stem and cerebellum, and blocking the flow of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) from his brain to his spine, which was causing the fluid to build up around his brain (the black line between his brain and skull). That pressure was the source of the vomiting and most recently, the neurological symptoms. At this point, removing the tumor was the absolute top priority, and would be done within the next 24 hours. It would be an 8-10 hour surgery, and Emmett would be taken to the ICU post operation. He warned us of what we could expect to see as far as Emmett's appearance, that being a shaved head and lots of tubes. I asked him the question that was the elephant in the room - if he believed the tumor was cancerous, and he said "Yes, I believe it is, but again, we won't know for sure until we take the tumor out". He told us that some of these tumors turn out to be benign, but he wasn't confident in that in Emmett's case. He left us with that information, and Jared and I hugged and cried until we were stable enough to go back into the room with Emmett. My heart had never felt more shattered in my entire life. This was a level of sadness that I didn't know was possible to feel. I closed my eyes on more than one occasion that day and prayed that when I opened them again, I would wake up from the nightmare. This only happens to other people - it doesn't happen to us.

The only shred of comfort from that day was the fact that we had a plan. We would get the tumor out, assess the situation from there, then develop the next plan. I had to accept that - I had no choice. It was the one thing I held on to in an effort to keep my head above water, because if not for that, I was drowning. So I threw all my trust into the process, and focused on one hurdle at a time.

Explaining to Emmett what was about to happen was tough. We told him that he would be getting an operation to remove the tumor, which we named "Bertchrum". Although he was looking forward to not vomiting anymore, he was still incredibly nervous.

We kept his mind occupied for the rest of the day. We played lots of Yahtzee, UNO and watched movies. He wanted a cheeseburger happy meal with fries for supper, so that's what he got. Before long, it was bed time. We tucked him in, kissed him extra long and hugged him extra hard. We went to bed, knowing full well what tomorrow would bring. I sat up beside him for the majority of the night, watching his chest go up and down with each breath, praying to God to bring him back to me. Praying to whomever I could, to guide the hands of those surgons as they worked to save the life of one of the most precious parts of my existence. I fell asleep, and woke up the next morning to what would forever be known, as the longest day of my life.

Up Next - Chapter 5: The Longest Day