What a day can bring.

So I woke up. The day looked bright. A workout, an hour at smalls school meeting his teacher and seeing last years buds before he started tomorrow. Exchanging some shinguards. Putting the finishing touches on planning tonights soccer practice. Picking up name tags for the kids because I'm not good at names and 7 little girls seemed scary. A shower. Small life stuff, right. K.

At breakfast I felt the bump. I've been monitoring the bump for a couple of days, because it was weird. On his jaw, really hard, and not where other "normal" weird 'kind you get used to lymph node or bruise sort of' bumps are. Today, it was suddenly …..red? raised? hard to explain if you hadn't been looking at it….. in addition to being weirdly placed and oddly hard. Showed the weird bump to Nate. Agreed that it was time to call the Pediatrician. Called, got the 2 PM time slot. Perfect. Went on with the day. Had a great body combat class because I was in my own head about the bump and had to get out of it. Punching: good. Went to school with kid with bump. Noticed how kid with bump was biggest in class by inches. Kid looks so healthy. Kid housed huge lunch post school. Started to write up review of some clothes. Doesn't matter.

Did exchange. Took kid with bump out for ice cream because: last day of summer and also because: trying not to think about bump. Went to pediatrician.

Ended up in hospital. Kid with bump on my lap as tears silently dripped onto his head (because rule #1 of being in hospital with any kid: don't cry in front of kid. crying silently on top of kids head is fine, if it takes downloading a game onto phone even if you are a Mom who doesn't "do" games on phone so that you can silently cry onto kids head? Thats okay.) Call husband home from golf course to pick up bigs from bus. Shower? Name tags? Forget about it.

Watch kid with bump have blood drawn, when nurses tell you to wrap his legs so he doesn't kick and brace his head and bolt his arm, yet see your kid take it tearlessly while you shed some more? Be unsure whether to be proud of him or take it as a weird sign that he is somehow too good for this Earth (then kick yourself for being melodramatic). Sit in X-ray room in leaden dress while kid with bump stands like an adult, stock still, for more x-rays, while you think about the organic food and the radiation being pumped into his head. Watch child and again wonder if this is just the first of a long process of terrible processes…….then again, kick self. Wait. Hear Dr's report that you need more x-rays. Try to not imagine that its because they saw bad things, because you know how still your child was for the first set. See them x-ray different parts. Die inside.

Race home to grab other children, find out that your Pedi had gotten the report on the way to first practice as a coach, and that he needs to evaluate it and will call you right back. (4:45). Greet team with a big smile and cell phone in pocket (5). Coach, while dying inside. Get call at 5:30. Call a water break while you talk to Dr. Continue practice.

Long story short? Don't know. Know its soft tissue. Know his blood work looks good. Know that I have to call CHOP tomorrow. ENT and pediatric plastic and facial reconstructive surgery doctors at CHOP. Know that it may be nothing. Or it may be something. Know that being a Mom is the best thing ever. Know also that loving a person more than you love life can tear at your heart in ways that people who don't have children will simply never know. Know that I have an amazing son. Know that my husband and girlfriends and family who were there (and are always there) at a phone call are the best. Know that freaking out won't do anything.

Know that worrying about all of the things falls away at a moment when you are told to go to the hospital. Know that you just go, and you just are, and if you ever want to experience living in the moment, you be with your child in a hospital feeling scared and uncertain. THAT is being fully present. Watching a lab tech x-ray your child or draw their blood? You are in the moment in a way that all of the meditation or the yoga or the blogging in the world can't capture. Nothing matters but your child and their eyes and their breath and that needle, and that word of encouragement, right then.

I know that tomorrow I will send that child off to school, sweetly oblivious, while I deal with setting up further testing. Then I will go teach a class. And The Things will go on, for now. And for now, if you have an ounce of goodness in you, you will send up a little light in the bumps direction. In my direction. In Nate's direction. In the Kids direction. Because while we will go to work and make the calls and teach the class we will have giant bumps in our hearts and in out throats and in our minds. We will be one  big walking, raw bump, until we figure out what this little fucker is and deal with it.

So, thanks.