Scariest day of my life...

Yesterday morning, after breakfast, I went to clean off Michael's face and he fought me. I figured it was his typical two year old self pitching a fit and I didn't think anything of it. A little while later, I grabbed his face to give him kisses like I always do, and there was a HUGE knot under the skin around the very back of his jaw bone. I pulled him away from me and saw that there was a LOT of swelling (no idea how I missed this...) on the lower right side of his face. I immediately ran him across the street to my neighbor and resident nurse and she said that he needed to be seen right away. I figured as much.

So  I got the boys dressed (ZoeJane was already at school) and we loaded up to take Dayton to work and head to the pediatric ER. Luckily, they got us back immediately. We didn't sit in the waiting room for anymore than 2 minutes, at most. Once we got back, the dr was in really fast. She immediately started checking other lymph nodes. Nothing. She checked inside his mouth. Nothing. No fever. She also confirmed my assumption that if something had happened where he had been hurt, there would be bruising. No bruising. She told me that she needed to go through her head for a minute and figure out what to do next, and she stepped out.

About 5 minutes later, she walked back in. She asked if we had a young cat...yes. She asked if Michael played with her a lot...yes. She said that was good. That with that being considered, this could be cat scratch fever, and that is is much more common than you would think. She said it could also be a viral infection. Then, she explained that the reason she immediately check his other lymph nodes was because anytime a child comes in with lymph node swelling this bad, they immediately check the others as a precaution to check for cancer. CANCER. The big C. I tried not to panic. She said it was a good sign that none of the others were swollen. She also said that since this seemed to come out of nowhere (didn't develop slowly over time) and that he still had an appetite and no weight loss, we had good reason to believe this wasn't cancer (that ugly word again). She decided to do some blood work (which he took like a CHAMP...didn't even flinch), though she said she expected the results we would get back the same day would be fine. What we're really waiting on is the test for cat scratch fever, which will take a few days. In the meantime, she gave him a prescription for Bactrim (pretty strong antibiotics) and said we'd start that in the meantime, and while we won't see immediate results, if it IS a viral infection or CSF, we will notice the knot going down. However, if in a few weeks, it's still there...we will probably need to get a biopsy to check for cancer. The good news is that his immediate results came back fine. Everything looks normal. But again, it's those longer results that we really need to see.

This woman was talking to me about cancer, in reference to my child. My 2 year old little boy. My vibrant, active, midst-of-the-terrible-two's little boy. I know that I should be focusing on all the reasons she said we had to believe that this WASN'T cancer. But how can I? As a mother, that awful word is stuck in my head. And of course, once I got home, I did the most idiotic thing I could do--I consulted Dr. Google. First result for "swollen lymph node with no other symptoms"? Lymphoma. In fact, every time I searched ANYTHING related to swollen lymph nodes, the results came back with cancer somewhere in the mix.

Terrified is an understatement. We started the Bactrim last night and so far, it's taking a toll on his tummy, which we expected. We (Dayton and I) are chomping at the bit waiting to see SOME sign of improvement. SOMETHING to give us a little bit of hope. PLEASE, someone tell me that you've gone through something like this!