A Son Scare

After all of the health issues we've had, both scares and reality, we haven't had the "C" word yet. As I write this, I feel like I'm jinxing us with a near future diagnosis of cancer. Andrew has a lung cancer scare that involved a lung biopsy. I've had breast and thyroid cancer scares - though not quite as frightening as Andrew's biopsy. Everything has come back fine after testing, but the wait was always a challenge.
I'm sure I'm not alone in playing the "what if" game because we aren't exempt from cancer. No one is. It strikes anyone at any time.
When blood work is done, I know that is part of a basic panel. If the blood work is off, it could be an indicator of something brewing in someone's system. I don't get worked up about blood work, ever. I'm more anxious about MRIs and sedation than the routine blood panel.
That strong stance changed when we took Alexander to an orthopedist. Alex was diagnosed with chiari like his brother a couple months ago We need to follow-up with specialists other than the neurosurgeon before we discuss brain surgery with the neurosurgeon. In an effort to rule other things out that are causing his increasing pain, we are meeting with several doctors.
The orthopedist found no abnormalities in Alex's legs. He doesn't think Alex has EDS, the awful disease his neurosurgeon is concerned about, but he also didn't think Alex needed a geneticist to diagnose EDS. I've read that EDS is only diagnosed through a genetic test. I'm unsure what to think about that portion of the appointment but I'll set that aside for now.
The orthopedist said that he was suspicious of leukemia.
WHAT?!!! Wait.... that was NOT on my radar at all. Indicating that leukemia is rare did not help me. We deal with rare in our house every day. We aren't free of rare diseases here.
He discussed the symptoms of leukemia and how Alex fit the symptoms. Fatigue, bloody nose, joint pain, lethargy, and more... pretty much everything but the bloody gums fit. When I asked if we could wait for blood work during the January 20th rheumatology appointment, the orthopedist made it clear that testing needed to be done immediately. (Oh, he was serious about this "C" word)
I had to contact our doctor to have the blood work done.
In the meantime, we met with the neurosurgeon for Gabriel. The NS asked how Alex is doing and when we mentioned the leukemia concern, I honestly thought that he would dismiss it. Instead, he said, "that is a possibility with all of the different acute leukemia."
Oh.... crap. This is even more serious than I thought. So my brain goes to the "what if's" Andrew grew up with a friend who fought and beat leukemia. Surely Alex could fight this too. What if he doesn't win? What if he has an awful cancer making him lethargic and what if we don't catch it in time? What if he loses his hair during treatment? How will my heart survive this trauma on top of the the rest of these problems?
I will need to find strength from the reserves I didn't know existed.
While we waited for days for the blood work results to come back, the "what ifs" circled my head. When Alex got a bloody nose or cried in pain while getting dressed, my heart sank. 

 
Eventually we got the call from the nurse and Alex's blood work is NOT indicative of any problems. It took me a minute to process that we received good news. We hear bad, awful news more than once a year. Not this time - not this problem - it's not ours... I wish it wasn't anyone's battle. I wish those words were wiped out from our vocabulary and from anyone having to hear them.