I spent a lot of time waiting on doctors today.

Something I’m pretty used to doing.

Before I was the “coma mom” or the “wheelchair mom”,  I was always the “cancer mom”.

I had two healthy legs and two healthy arms and if THIS is the price I pay for my daughter’s healthy body, I’ll gladly pay it.

Remembering back to the day when I would lay by her side, crying out my every dream, promising and swearing anything if she could just be alright.

And today proves she is.

The papers with her CBC counts tell us what we want wanted to know most.

She is healthy.  She’s alright.

And if I’m not right now, that’s what I always said would be the price I’d pay with thanks.  It helps to think that there’s a reason for what we’ve all gone through.

My daughter.

She’s well worth the price.

It’s been a year.

A year since I handed Peyton her last dose of chemotherapy medicine and she downed it like a champ.

A year since the clock started ticking….the one that counts off the days to five years.

She’s finally gotten to the age where she’s got more days off-chemo than on-chemo in her lifetime.  It was a bitter imbalance there for a while.

For four years and 364 days we say Peyton’s “off-treatment”.

Then with a flurry of fairy dust and magical unicorns, she wakes up on that five year mark and she’s “cured”.

THEN we can SAY she’s cured.  Of cancer.

But today when I got those numbers in my hand and saw how good they are, I couldn’t stop myself from dancing in my heart that for another two months she’s cured in my mind.

Year one down, baby girl.

Just four more to go.

The girls got their hair cut today.

Tomorrow’s picture day at school…sort of a big deal.

One that Peyton will miss.

Again.

I can’t even tell you how much that sucks.

Instead, we’ll be going for an eye exam with an ophthalmologist.

Peyton has eye problems? You might ask.

No. Peyton has headaches. She has what she describes as “tingling” in her head. She has suspicious crap going on in her noggin.

And that means I get to drink the crazy kool-aid.

Big, gulping swallows of it.

Our new doctor at Children’s Healthcare of ATL should be known as Dr. Crazy. Because that’s what he deals with all day.  More crazy walks in his door every day than Dr. Phil ever dreamed of.

Dr. Crazy listened to my recitation of Peyton’s issues….me thinking I was doing a pretty decent job of being not-insane about it…but Dr. Crazy’s specialty is Leukemia Relapse and Long-Term Survivorship.  What a great bi-polar job to have.

He can smell my brand of crazy from a mile away.

After checking Peyton from head-to-toe, going over all the random weirdness again, he said the best thing EVER.

” I believe everything is fine…” <—that’s not it

“…but I can see you’re worried…” <—nope, still not it

“…so we’re going to run some tests and if we can’t figure out what it is, at least we’ll know what it isn’t.” <—officially nominated best doctor in the world

He GETS it.

On a level that most people, even doctors, just don’t understand.

I don’t need you to tell me she’s fine.  I give myself pep talks all the time.

I need proof.

And Dr. Crazy can give me that.

So, over the next few weeks, we’ll be checking for different things.

Tomorrow we’ll go check her eyes….we’ll be able to see if there seems to be any abnormal pressure that would speak of any not-supposed-to-be-there-things going on.  Or maybe she just needs glasses.

She’ll be having a CT scan sometime in the next week.

And? A spinal tap during our next appointment.

It’s a search for things that hopefully won’t be there.

Pressure in the brain.

Anything resembling a tumor.

Return of the cancer.

Things I don’t want to think about, but have to rule out.

*sigh*

But her hair looks really cute, right?

There are times I have to switch my hats so fast it gives me whiplash.

Just hours into my time in North Carolina at the Type-A Mom Conference, I got a call that shook me to my core.

A call that left me crying in the bathroom.

A call with news that made my heart ache and bleed.

A call that nearly saw me get back in the car and drive straight to be with my friend as she dealt with terrifying unknowns and doors she isn’t prepared to open.

But, I put on my game face and pushed it deep down so that I wouldn’t think about it during this work time.  I laughed and joked, shook hands and wore my professional hat.  If a little askew, as always.

It was hard to be there, though.

Listening to people take jabs at each other…hearing the same tired arguments…watching people get so worked up over things that seemed  important before the call…it all shrunk in the knowledge that none of it mattered anymore.

SERIOUSLY.

IT.DOES.NOT.MATTER.

If the worst thing that happens in your day is that someone sends you an ugly email, try waiting for a call from the doctor to give you results you’re pretty sure you don’t want to hear.

If you’re going to argue about who makes money and if they’re doing it right, you’ve never sat in front of your checkbook and wondered what you weren’t going to pay so that you can afford to give your child the treatments they need AND keep a roof over their head.

If you can talk about your mafia, feel slighted because you weren’t the center of attention, or fret about your PR connections, you’ve never had to sit and contemplate the moment when they cut into your child’s brain to see what the tumors are doing.

I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t there to work and build my business…but I am, unfortunately, all too aware how quickly it can change, transform, disappear. It stops meaning anything.  It ceases to be the most important thing.

Tuesday I’ll be putting on my cancer mom hat that never leaves my side for long and take my daughter to the hospital.  I will have a stone in the pit of my stomach waiting for those all-encompassing counts to come. Praying they are what they should be.

Everything else will fade into the background.

And I will be neck-deep in what’s important.