Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh...by Jessica Warren

Zaynes story continues…This takes place about 2 weeks after diagnosis. Everything became a hustle and bustle after hearing that chemo was needed for Zayne. Thank Goodness for family. I can’t tell you how many times my Mom cleaned my house and watched Ayden for us. She took upon herself to give him a little taste of normalcy while his parents went a little nuts running Zayne to this doctor and that doctor, which I was beyond thankful for. It helped knowing that even though I couldn’t be there for him my mom could count it as quality time with Nonnie! My aunt Karen came out only 3 days after finding out about the tumor with enough food for us to last through the weekend and balloons for my boys! She also brought her son’s old punching bag for me to hang in my basement! She was truly a God send. My dad’s wife Chris had picked up pizza and dropped off much needed dessert all through-out the next couple weeks! She was always at our door with something J It was amazing! Jake and I wanted to get a couple different opinions to make sure this was the route we were supposed to take. We talked with the neuro-surgeon at U of M and talked with the chemo doctors at Devoss in Grand Rapids. Reba had called and told me about a man she cleans houses for that is a Neuro-Opthamologist at OSU. I had been talking to him on the phone. My sister ended up making a trip to Jackson with scans and reports from the MRI, giving it to a doctor we knew through our cousin Katie. We were running ourselves ragged trying to find out the right path for Zayne. It was about this point that I found I had to go to wal-mart for groceries. Of course my sister accompanied Zayne and I. I don’t think she left my side for the first 2 weeks. I felt as though I was on auto-pilot walking through the store and I couldn’t even tell you if I got things that I needed. Whatever looked good, I got which was mostly in the candy isle ;) Jamie was planning to go to OH the next morning and was shopping for her trip. She kept trying to convince me to go with her. It sounded insane to me and like a lot of work with my dis-functioning brain. I finished shopping and only had 3 bags to show for it and one of them was filled with chocolate. I texted Jamie telling her we would be waiting for her at the front of the store. I sat down on the bench beside the salon watching people in the checkout lines. Zayne was running around in front of me having a blast looking at the $5 bins. I sat there feeling utterly drained. Exhausted. I didn’t know when the last time was that I slept through the night. And now with all this news and trying to find the right doctor for my son had caught up to me. I saw Jamie in one of the lines she caught my eye and the look on her face was that of concern. I almost would say she looked at me wondering if I needed medication. Some people walked by me and gave me an odd look too. I tried to remember if I had even brushed my hair when I woke up. I did put a bra on. Why was everyone looking at me like I had a sign on me. I looked over at Zayne who had made his way up on the bench next to me. When I saw what he was doing it all made sense. My frizzy bed head child had both hands plastered to the window and was licking it like it was sprinkled with candy. He was so intense that his nose was dragging and bouncing off the glass as he went. I didn’t even react. I took in the sight of him and looked back at the people who were probably wondering what kind of mother I was, and shrugged my shoulders and said to myself, “He has a brain tumor.” After that I couldn’t think of a better idea than go to OH with her. Might as well, what did we have to lose. Sleep? That was already lost. It was 4 pm when we got home from the store. I told her I was gonna throw some clothes in a bag and be to her house within 15 min. And that’s exactly what we did. We loaded our car with 6 kids 2 suitcases and 2 crazy moms and we were on our way 30 min after leaving the store!! Half-way down there Zayne started to get a headache. And it was a rotten one. All of a sudden we hear Kate “Ewwww…he’s puking…Aunt Jessie Zayne is puking!!” I pull off on the very next exit, and surveyed the damage. Oh yeah, those are French fries and some teddy grams and everything else he had for lunch. In my mind I was wondering what germs he had contracted from that window he was licking earlier, only to come to the conclusion that it was just that bad of a migraine for him. Jamie helped me by scrapping out his seat and lining it with a trash bag while I stripped Zayne of all his clothes and changed his diaper. Thirty min. later we were back on the road and Zayne was laughing and talking to Kate, who at this point was keeping her distance. We stopped one more time at a McDonalds for a potty and coffee break. Jamie made a trip in with Bo as I did with my 2 boys and the rest would fend for themselves. We all loaded back up and hit the highway again. About 5 min. down the road Jamie was throwing snack bags back to the big boys. “Josh…Bo…Timmy…” she said methodically. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Josh and Bo lean up to grab their bags. “Timmy….Timmy?” Jamie called. I couldn’t, however see Timmy’s head at all. Then I had this awful feeling and remembered him going into the bathroom but didn’t remember seeing him return. “I don’t see Timmy Jamie.” She flipped her head around and hollered with that tone that every child knows to answer. “TIMMY!” And up he popped from his video game he was so enthralled in, “What?” He said wondering what all the panic was about. Jamie and I looked at each other and tried to carefully pull ourselves back from all the dark places we had just gone in our heads. Did we leave him? Is he already kidnapped? Is he already being tortured? We barely made it to Reba’s sane. We called her ahead of time to make sure she had a cure for a rough trip…chocolate. And sure enough she had just pulled a pan of Ghirardelli brownies out of the oven. We all arrived smelling of puke and insanity had pretty much made itself nice and cozy in our minds but we made it. It is days like these I am reminded of the seen in overboard when "Annie" is sitting on the couch going, "buh buh buh buh buh."