Dash of Reality

Today is Brooklyn Toews’s first birthday, the day of the 2016 Winter Classic, and a party for the birthday girl. The last four and a half months have been really rough. And it all started that late August day when Jon left to pick up Patrick Kane from the airport for a boy’s weekend in Winnipeg.

*Flashback*
I had Brooklyn in her playpen in the family room while I prepped for dinner around two. I was making a lasagna with garlic bread. I was about halfway done preparing the seven layer lasagna when Brooklyn erupted into screams. These weren’t normal screams for attention, so I quickly stopped cooking and washed my hands to go check on her. When I got there, she was still screaming and her face was really red. I put a hand to her forehead and immediately found her to be super hot. I picked her up and cradled her to me. She still didn’t stop screaming and wailing. I went to the medicine cabinet closest to the kitchen and found it equipped with a thermometer. I quickly got it set, while she struggled in my arms, and got a temperature reading. She was at an alarming one hundred and four. That freaked me out and so I went back to the kitchen, turned off the oven, and picked up my phone to call my sister.
“Hey, thought I would just see you later?” Abby answered. Then I heard an “oh,” as she must have heard the wailing little girl in my arms.
“She has a 104 degree fever, is that high enough to go to the hospital?” I was quick to spit that information out and wasn’t quite sure if she understood me. She might be a mom of two, but me being that snippy is unusual.
“Yeah, you should take her. How long has she had it?” She was almost screaming at me, but she had to so I could hear her over Brooklyn. I was rocking the little girl the entire time, but it was no help at all.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get her up this morning, but she was asleep in her playpen from the time her dad left to about twenty minutes ago. She then started wailing like this about two minutes before I called.”
“Take her to the hospital closest to your place, Seven Oaks, I think. I will leave Pat with the girls and I’ll be there as soon as I can. Traffic is going to suck from this side of the city, but I’ll be there. Do you want me to try calling Jon?”
“That would be great, he probably won’t answer the first call. You can try Kane too, they are probably on the ice by now. I’ll see you at Seven Oaks.”

*End Flashback*

That was the day that Jon found out his daughter had leukemia. As Brooklyn’s nanny, the news was really hard on me too. But Jon essentially fell apart.

*Flashback*

When the pathologist and pediatrician came back to Brooklyn’s room, we knew the moment we saw their faces. We left Patrick Kane and Abby Sharp, my sister, with Brooklyn in the room in the pediatric wing of the hospital and followed the doctors to a conference room. Jon practically dragged me with him, I wasn’t originally going to go with him, but he took hold of my hand and didn’t let go.
When we were seated in the conference room, Jon still clenched my hand and tears were streaming down his face. I was attempting to hold strong, but my resolve as slipping too as I looked at the man I have admired for so long. I knew that he had been going through a rough year, hell, he started the year with a brand new baby and a wife that passed away giving birth to the little girl. He deserves a good cry as we deal with this news. But he has always been the definition of a rock, even if that’s not who he is today.
“I’m sorry, Mr. T oews. But we have diagnosed Brooklyn with standard-risk Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The good news is that we caught it very early on, she’s only eight months old. That’s the good news. However, it also is not so good news because there are a lot of regulations for what we, as doctors, can do before she turns one. Most of the treatment options are not permitted under Canadian guidelines until a child turns one. We are going to get you in touch with the pediatric oncologist that is recommended by the hospital, but what questions do you have?” This is the first doctor, the pediatrician. The doctor’s face was very stoic and conservative, like this was news that had to be told to parents, or the parent and nanny, every day.
“How likely is it that my daughter will die? What are her odds?”
“Seeing as neither of us are specialists in this area, we are only estimating here, but we would say that she has pretty good odds of making it through this and being a fighter. If we hadn’t found this until she was 18 months old, then we would be having a different discussion. But she’s not even one and we can get ahead of the cancer. It’s possible. So don’t go down that dark road. You have a long road ahead, so don’t go dark this early.” This time, it was the pathologist who did the bone marrow aspiration and biopsy.

*End Flashback*

As for today, we are counting the blessings that we have been given to get Brooklyn to her first birthday. The FDA regulations were very restrictive just like the Canadian guidelines, so there wasn’t a lot of things we could do. However, the pediatric oncologist here in Chicago has found many ways to work around the system and handle things legally.
Jon has been so over-run since hockey started too. He gave up being the captain, as hard as it was, but his daughter came first. Meanwhile, I have been crazy running around taking Brooklyn to and from the doctor’s appointments and treatment sessions. The fall had been horrible, I had attempted to go to classes at UIC but midterms and finals ended up going horribly even though I did well throughout the semester. I had to petition for the courses to be dropped from my transcripts as to not ruin my GPA because of the extreme circumstances. It was a rough battle that I finally got settled last week.
Abby has been a god-send. She will take Brooklyn any time that I just need an hour to myself, which I hope I am not over-using. But it is a lot for a graduate student to try and get a cancer-striken little girl to the hospital a few days a week. With Jon trying to be there for as much as he can, he often misses optional practices and sometimes the required ones.
We are both so tired most nights that I have resorted to having a cook come in. Jon and I discussed it before coming back from Canada, especially since I was going to school for the fall. We hired a chef right round the beginning of pre-season for the Hawks. Her name is Izzy, she emigrated from Italy about two years ago and is the best chef. I thought I was pretty good until I had her cooking. She is around today, too, for the food that we will share with family and friends on Brooklyn’s first birthday.
Brooklyn has been such a trooper through all of this too. She doesn’t have a lot of energy to do much, but she almost always wears a smile when we aren’t in the hospital. She, however, hasn’t learned to walk yet, even though that is something babies her age do right about now. She can barely stand by herself, let alone pull herself up. And she’s grown, taller and skinnier. There is absolutely no meat on her bones because the treatment that is killing her cancer makes her sick and she doesn’t eat much. The doctor is worried about that, if she doesn’t start eating soon, she might have to get a feeding tube.
Overall, it has been a fight. One that we are prepared to go the distance in. We have every ounce of the fight needed to beat this cancer. We are definitely going to make Brooklyn survive.