I wanted to create a blog because i wanted a place that other people can come, sit quietly and read. I also independently run the “Danny’s Warriors” page on facebook, but i needed somewhere else away from facebook, away from all the noise. I have had a million different feelings since beginning this journey, and if even just one person reads this and finds a connection or feels that they can relate, then i feel like i have accomplished the task im reaching for.

To start out, i want to take you to the beginning. The first handful of posts are going to be extremely difficult for me to get through. I apologize now if they seem scattered. I have to dig deep down into a place that i buried in my memories because it was a place in my memories that i never wanted to revisit again.

June 2013. I made a decision to leave my job and spend the summer with my boys. They were both in daycare while i worked 4 short days a week. This was the last summer we had before Danny was going to start kindergarten. I knew once “real school” started, there would be no more spontaneous outings during the week. Our lives would be changing. I would no longer be dropping both boys off to daycare. Now Matthew would be going to daycare and Danny would be going off to school. I wanted to make the summer special and spend as much time as i could with them.

Danny started kindergarten that September, and he loved it. He had many new friends, great teachers, he loved the bus, and he loved recess time. He would come home after school and fall asleep on the couch for about an hour. He was so wiped out from his busy days.

October 19th 2013. We were at the park, one of the many parks that we frequently visited. Soaking in one of the last few warm days of the year. The boys were running around playing. Climbing, jumping, and yelling as always. Danny came down the slide, ran by me and around to the latter to climb back up so he could slide down again. His foot slipped and he bumped his head on the ladder. Immediately he cried, and as usual he was too busy to let me fully asses him before he ran off again. There was a tiny bump right above his eye. And he was back to playing with all the kids. Even when the boys were little, they never let anything bother them, they were always too busy to care.

October 20 2013. Danny began tilting his head to the right when he was looking at something. The closer he got, the more he turned it.

October 21 2013. We took him  to the hospital after he complained of a headache when he woke up. He was still tilting his head. After spending the day at the hospital they told us he was fine and to follow up with an eye doctor for vision issues.

October 22 2013. Eye doctor appointment early in the morning. No complaints of a head ache. The doctor said he had perfect vision and thought that he developed a habit and told us to help him correct it by reminding him to turn his head back straight. It just didnt seem right to us. But we had nothing to worry about so we trusted him.

October 23 2013. Danny woke up and told Dan(his dad) and his nana (my mom) that he was seeing 2 of everything that he looked at and that he had a really bad headache. We decided to make the hike into Boston and go to the childrens hospital. We spent the day in the emergency room with many doctors coming in and out looking at him. They send us up to see an eye doctor. Finally they said they wanted to give him an MRI to look inside but they couldnt that day sso they wanted us to stay over night and do an MRI first thing in the morning.

October 24 2013. My mom and sister met us at the hospital. We waited in the waiting room of the MRI office. It was finally his turn. He was then sedated so he would be perfectly still so they could get perfect images. Having his sedated was terrifying but i knew it was best for the images and for him. We took a walk and got food. We had an hour and 30 minutes to wait till he was done. We went back and sat in the waiting room and we were finally called into this little tiny room in a back hallway. There sat a team of 5 people, a doctor, a psychologist, a fellow doctor, a neurologist and another fellow. Before the door could close the little man sitting in the front said “he has a brain tumor”. My body went numb. I never in my life expected to hear those words. All i could ever imagine was that he had a concussion from bumping his head but i kept telling myself he only bumped it lightly. I never imagined there was a tumor growing inside his head. I was completely shocked. I remember my legs shaking. I started running. No physically, but mentally. I began asking a million questions. Anything that i could think of. How? Why? When? Why? why? why? They told me i would soon have a meeting with another team, but first they wanted to move us to a room upstairs. I just wanted to see my baby. I needed to touch him.

They brought me to the recover room where he was still asleep on a bed behind a curtain in a room with many other children and nurses bustling around. I stared at him trying to figure out how this monster was inside of him. I touched him. I kissed his face. I didnt want to wake him up or bother him. Suddenly nausea kicked him. I wanted to throw up everything that i had ever eaten in my life. I was so shocked and confused. My fingers tingled. I alternated between sitting and staring at him, to standing over him. I had to continuously repeat to myself, hes right here, hes alive, hes mine, hes coming home with me, hes right here, hes beautiful, hes ok, hes going to be ok, hes right here in front of me.

I decided that very second and told everyone around me, we are not going to let him see us crying or scared. When he opens his eyes we will smile at him. We will reassure him that everything is ok. We will never let him see the amount of fear that we all have right now. I dried my eyes, and i waited patiently for him to wake up. So i could finally squeeze him and kiss his cheeks as hard as i needed to, instead of the feather light kisses i left all over his face and hands.