Strange, perhaps, but in the interest of having a single and complete log of our journey, I have decided to compile journal entries and emails from the very beginning. Here's Day 1, a FaceBook post:
"Please keep us in your thoughts. We just found out that our daughter Lauren has a bone tumor on her left leg. We fly to Kapiolani Children's Hospital tomorrow. Universe? No more emergencies, please."
I remember that the kids and I had on our skate gear. We were getting ready to Malama Park. It was late in the afternoon, early evening in Hilo. The sun was still up, but the heat had dissapated. Perfect skating weather. Then the phone rang and I saw Todd talking to someone. After only a minute, he looked at me--through me, really--with a stunned look on his face. He can't hear and he's trying to concentrate, I thought.
That was just two days after Lauren's birthday. Our house was full of kids on roller skates, barking dogs, and summer craziness. "What? ... What?" Todd says into the phone, one of many competing noises in the house. Then he motions to me, we move into our bedroom, and he gives me news that will change my life forever.
Lauren had been complaining of knee pain for some time, but she had started roller derby and the kids had been practicing falls to the knees. All the girls were complaining of knee pain. And then there was the growth spurt. I wasn't thinking cancer. I wasn't thinking tumor. I was thinking growing, healthy child. How was I to know what was to come.
Strange that I wrote that because this was my first post of the day. Strange and eerie bit of foreshadowing:
"- wading through shark-infested waters today. So: "Here's to swimming with bowlegged women." --Sam Quint, Jaws"
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