This is heartbreak

I need to get this all out somewhere, so this will definitely not be a cheery post and don't read if you're in an otherwise good mood...that's the disclaimer I guess.

Until this week I did not know that you could physically feel heartbreak. Even as I sit here right now, I feel this aching in my chest. I have to stop myself and tell myself to take some deep breaths, to relax.

It really came out of nowhere. I mean, we knew that Keagen has cancer, that he's in the ICU, that he's not out of the woods yet, but he was improving! Improving.

Monday night I laid down to sleep around 9:30. I must have fallen asleep quickly because the phone ringing startled me. It took me a few seconds to figure out what that sound was, then to get out of bed and answer the phone. It was my mom. She said "Keagen isn't doing very well...I'm not sure if we should go up or not." We went back and forth for a minute. How did we know what to do? There have been many times before that Keagen hasn't been doing well, and he's always pulled through. Frequently I'll call Laura and ask if she wants me to come and she'll usually say "no, I think I'm okay." That night, when Mom called her back, she said yes, we should come.

I threw my clothes back on and my glasses (didn't even comb my hair come to think of it). Hopped in the car and drove to my Grams'. My mom met us there and the three of us left for Madison. We got to the hospital around 11:45ish, the drive seemed to take forever. We got there and they were set up in a consult room: Laura, Dewayne, Craig, Emily, Nurse Angie, and Lauren (another cancer mom). The three of us piled in and gave hugs all around and sat. Laura and Dewayne started explaining to us when the doctor came in. I can't really remember what he said but the gist of it was "we've tried this, we've tried this, we've tried this and he gets better for a few seconds and then goes right back to where he was..." I remember him saying "I just don't see any way that he's going to come out of this." In other words, there is no hope. And then I remember Laura sobbing. All of us sobbing, I guess. and in my head I just prayed. I told God, just one miracle. Would that be too much to ask. Please save Keagen. Please give us a miracle tonight.

Never once did I think that it was time, that I should pray for God to grant us peace and strength. We just weren't ready.

The doctor told Laura and Dewayne that they would keep working on Keagen. They would take the night 2 minutes at a time, until Laura told them to stop. How do I make that decision? She asked. We all thought it.

Laura and Dewayne got to go in and see him. It had been 3 hours since Laura had been kicked out. Since she'd called Dewayne to come up. Since the doctors had started working on Keagen. Several minutes later the doctor came in and said that a couple more of us could go. Mom and I went first.

The second I saw him, I knew. I knew that no prayers for miracles were going to be answered tonight. I held Laura and we stroked his head while the doctors and nurses and therapists bagged him to give him air and injected medicines in through his ports. I held Laura and I whisipered to her "he's already gone." I know. But still, how do you make the words come out of your mouth to tell them to stop. We're going to try one more thing. My mom left to let Grams come in, but Laura asked me to stay. I waited for Laura to tell the doctor that they could stop. I think she waited for herself to say it too. The doctor had us leave to do a chest x-ray, after he looked at it he came in and said "there's just no air in his lungs, there's nothing for us to suck out" there's nothing we can do.

It's okay to stop. No doubt the hardest words that Laura will ever say. But we knew, he was already gone. Laura looked at the clock...it was after 12. He's going to die on our anniversary.

They gave him something to help him sleep and decided to keep him on the ventilator so that, the doctor said, if he tried to breathe, he wouldn't struggle to do so. If he tried. They brought in a double rocker, wrapped him up like a little burrito baby in a white blanket, and laid him on Laura and Dewayne. Laura kissed his head, we all sobbed.

I sat on the couch behind the rocker and prayed. I just prayed for God to get us through this night. Mostly I prayed for my sister. For the pain she was going through, for the strength to get through the night, and the next night, and the one after that. My thoughts wavered between being thankful that he was out of pain. He would never need another IV, he would never spend all night throwing up, or hooked up to a breathing machine. And being so Goddamned mad. Asking why? Why us? Why Keagen?

After a time, after mom's phone rang (carry on my wayward son) many times. I called my baby sister Shalyn. She had been texting us all all night, wondering if we were at the hospital and what was going on. I called her and I said "he's gone, Shay." What?!? "I'm sorry, honey, he's gone." Hearing her sobs through the phone broke my heart just a little bit more. I wanted to be there with her to hold her. Instead, I just told her to breathe, that it would be okay, that he was in a better place.

I went to get my phone, in case. I updated his carepage. I called home. And when I went back in, Keagen was laying on the bed. Everyone was loading up all of Laura and Keagen's things onto carts. We talked about who would drive what vehicles home, so that Laura and Dewayne wouldn't have to drive. We went through the motions, all around Keagen. I rubbed his head and kissed it. We love you so much Keagen. See you on the flip side, I said.

Then we drove home. We got to Laura's around 3:30am. Talked for a few minutes, cried. And drove the rest of the way home. Into bed, but sleep wouldn't come.

It is hard to sleep when your heart is broken.

I know that Keagen is better now. He's running around, laughing, throwing balls with Grandpa. Keagen doesn't have cancer anymore, he is finally better. I am so happy about that.

But my heart is broken for those of us still here. We miss you so much Keagen. Keags. Keagie. Keagers. Always will.

See you in St. Louis!

This week is our trip to St. Louis! We are going on the Amtrak train from WI Dells to St. Louis. We leave on Thursday and come back next Monday. I am soooo excited. How I will get through three days of work this week, I do not know! This is going to be our first trip with Heidi, our first trip on the train, our first time to St. Louis, so hopefully it all goes as planned.

We are staying at a hotel that has very good reviews, and it's only about a block from the Arch. Josh's parents are going with us, so we ended up getting a two-room suite so that Heidi will hopefully fall asleep in the hotel (her track record with hotels is not good, at all). We're not sure exactly what we're going to do while we're in town, but we're planning on going to the Arch (of course), the St. Louis Zoo and the museum that's over in Forrest Park. We're also hoping to go to the Budweiser brewery, possibly the Botanical gardens, and do some shopping at Union Station. It's going to take a little bit of planning since we won't have a rental car, so we're going to take the train or buses to all of our stops (a couple are within walking distance, though).

Of course, we're kind of most excited about taking Heidi swimming in the pool :)

Send us some good thoughts on Thursday that the train ride goes smoothly and Heidi Jean is a good traveler :) I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to show upon return!

Oh yeah, and also send good weather thoughts, right now they are predicting rain!

Tweet

I am now tweeting on Twitter. Just in case you're dying to know what I'm doing every second of the day (who isn't?)...

My twitter name is Bassettmama...original, I know.

Josh will be thrilled I'm sure that I have another website to visit constantly.

I live to please.

New and Improved

My bathroom! Some things new, overall look: improved!

Here is before (light green beadbord, turtle wallpaper border, white walls, dark green shower curtain):

And here is after (light purple walls, white beadboard, pretty shower curtain!). We also have two small white shelves above the toilet now and the shelf is back up above the washer and dryer.

I love it. I think Heidi is a fan, too.

Her holiday...

She is my "jelly bean" after all ;)




The Easter Bunny brought Heidi a little bit of loot, not too much since she really could care less either way. Here she is on Easter morning with her basket and new turtle toy.

She did eventually dig into her basket and found some goodies (a book, a handpuppet, a vibrating chick, etc.)...and then she found the motherload:

The chocolate bunny was a big hit, even if she didn't get to eat it all in one sitting. The girl definitely got her mother's sweet tooth.

Then we went to Grams' to do some Easter egg hunting. Heidi was not so sure about this. She found it much more exciting to eat leaves and pine needles, watch cars going by, and look at the other kids. She had no interest in any sort of plastic egg. In fact, she seemed to be purposefully avoiding making any sort of eye contact with it...

After Grams' we went out to Uncle Cory and Aunt Kim's house to look for eggs out there. She still did not care about the eggs, but the trampoline was a big hit:

Overall, it was a great first Easter. I look forward to when she can get excited about her basket and about finding eggs and all that goes along with it. This year, I just shed a few tears about how my baby girl turned into this big girl so quickly...

She'll always be my Heidi Jean, my jelly bean...

My whole life

Now you're my whole life, now you're my whole world...

I just can't believe the way I feel about you girl...

Like a river meets the sea, stronger than it's ever been...

We've come so far since that day, and I thought I loved you then...

Don't tell the paparazzi

This is my undercover look:

shh...

Hope

Keagen's current status on his carepage is something to the effect of: In times of uncertainty, there is nothing wrong with hope. Since I knew that my status on facebook didn't need to say that I was praying for Keagen (they all should know by now), I changed my status to the saying about hope.

As we've gotten further and further into this whole fighting cancer thing, it's gotten so much harder for me to stay hopeful. It seems like every complication that Keagen can have, every infection that he can get, every fever, every bug, every hole in the line, every bad side effect of chemo...he's gotten it. Did we expect the stem cell transplant to be any different...we hoped.

Now I find myself just leaning on prayers and hope and optimism to get through this tough time. My sister is amazing, how she stays so positive, I do not know. I don't think I could. Just thinking about going through what she is going through right now makes me want to weep and sob, and yet she's had to deal with it daily for the last 7+ months. I don't know how she does it. When I talked with her on the phone last night, she basically said "I don't have any other choice, Ashley, I have to believe that he's going to make it, that he's going to beat this like he has all of those other obstacles that have been thrown at him."

Hope.