…or lack there of.

I took BamBam for his abdominal ultrasound early this morning.

It was such a strange thing to have him on the table, seeing the insides of his little belly on the screen. Just 3 years ago, he was growing inside me and we were looking at those same little organs. At one point, he looked up at me and asked to hold my hand. It flashed me back to being in the exact same position, reaching for my husband’s hand. Scared because they were trying to figure out why I was suddenly bleeding and having contractions. What a trip.

I didn’t have any expectations of learning anything from the ultrasound tech. I know how it works. They’re not allowed to say anything. You wait until the doctor receives the results and they get back to you. Today, not so true.

All was going well. She was showing him his heartbeat and pointing out certain things.

Then she went all serious and quiet on us.

She asked if he had been complaining of any abdominal pain recently. Yes, actually. There were a couple of times the last few weeks when he held his belly and told me he had an ow ow. Each time he had a massive bowel movement shortly afterwards and the pain seemed to go away.

She then asked if this was his first abdominal ultrasound. Yep. As she probed a bit deeper, BamBam started crying…ow ow, Mommy, ow ow.

She finished up and said that she wanted to consult with the doctor to make sure he didn’t need anything else. Yeah, riiiight. She was trying to sound cool, like this was standard operating procedure, but was a bit distracted and acting…well, very uncool.

She walked out of the room and I just thought oh crap. To myself, of course, because I was busy trying to keep BamBam smiling despite the fact that he was starting to get hungry and was begging for yum yums. He wasn’t able to eat this morning prior to the ultrasound and didn’t have an appetite for dinner last night. The last snack he ate was at 3:30 yesterday afternoon.

After an agonizing 60 10 minutes, she came back…with the doctor. He told me that he just got off the phone with BamBam’s doctor and they would like for me to call them in a couple of hours. It would take that long for them to get all the files. He said that the lymph nodes around his appendix were noticeably swollen, but that his appendix was in tact and nothing indicated appendicitis. His primary doctor would advise us what direction to go at this point.

So, I took BamBam to breakfast and spoiled him rotten…we shared a Belgium waffle with strawberries, bananas and whipped cream. Yum, yum.

I called the doctor and had to leave a message. They got back to me about an hour and half later and said that they haven’t received all of the results yet. They would also like to wait to see the results from rest of his blood work, which should all be back tomorrow morning. She rattled off the list of results they were awaiting: Epstein Barr is the only one I remember?

We do have to go back tomorrow afternoon for them to look at his TB test on his arm. It’s fine, no swelling or anything. I requested a copy of all of his lab work. My sister is a lab tech and my MIL is a retired critical care nurse. They keep asking for specific numbers and I don’t have answers for them. I can pick those up tomorrow as well.

So I did what any concerned mother would do…I poked around online to see what I could learn about swollen lymph nodes near the appendix. Not a great idea. Could be anything from a simple viral reaction to lymphoma.

Yep, lymphoma = cancer. I’m not allowing myself to even entertain this as an option. It hasn’t even been a year since I donated peripheral stem cells to a 21 year old girl with leukemia, a complete stranger. Fate/Karma/The universe couldn’t possibly be that cruel, right?

All this waiting really sucks. I’m exhausted.

To add insult to injury, Starbucks discontinued their Pumpkin Spice latte.

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