A Christmas Surprise

The phone call came on a Tuesday morning in August 2014. I had been home for only six weeks, from my summer trip to Rochester, to visit my family.

“Mom,” Michelle starts with a quavering voice, “Alicia wanted me to call you because she couldn’t handle talking about it yet.”

“What? What couldn’t she handle talking about?” My stomach flipped. “What’s going on?”

“They got the results back from Cooper’s blood test this morning.”

“But they got those back on Friday while they were away for the weekend. I thought he was just anemic and they were going to put him on some iron.”

“Yeah, well, apparently the lab technician couldn’t stop thinking about Cooper's sample over the weekend. When he went to work on Monday, he suggested to the doctor that they do more tests. So, Alicia and Brad took Cooper in today.”

“And?”

“It confirmed that he has ALL, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.” Her voice breaks.

“What? I, I… don’t understand,” my mind is reeling. I do understand, of course, it just doesn’t make sense. “But he’s only four years old.” I cry. “NO! NO! NO!”

We are silent for a moment as I scramble to sort out my feelings. I hear birds twittering back and forth cheerfully outside, as if a nightmare, a long one, has not just begun.

“But he’s so afraid of needles,” I say quietly, as I imagine that his life for the next few years will be full of unwanted needles. Surely, this fact alone should absolve him from a serious illness.

Now Michelle and I are both crying quietly.

“I want to fly back right away,” I tell Alicia when she calls me later that day.

“Cooper was admitted to the hospital today, Mom, right after we got the news. They’re going to start him on an intense month-long protocol of daily steroids and chemo.”

“Oh,” lost for words, I have no idea how all this works.

“They are allowing me to stay in his hospital room with him around the clock, but no other visitors – because of what it will do to his immune system.”

“Ok, well, I’m six weeks into teaching a new 10-week class, can I come when I’m done?”

“Sure,” Alicia sounds numb. I don’t take her lack of enthusiasm personally. I’m as worried for her as I am for Cooper.

I keep my shit together because somebody has to. Alicia is teetering on the brink of losing hers but must keep it together for Cooper—an unspeakable chain of command.

I got on a plane four hours after my last class finished in September. I’m armed with a delicate, professionally rendered, clay orchid that must be lovingly, hand-carried through three airports, for my flower-loving grandson.

            When I arrive at their house, I hand the orchid to Cooper as I struggle to hold back my tears. My beautiful, shiny-haired, healthy, bouncy four-year-old grandson sits at their kitchen counter. He isn’t bald yet, but he will be soon. He’s holding his round, puffy-faced head in his hands because he doesn’t have the strength to hold it up naturally, and stares vacantly at the countertop. How could this all have happened in just four weeks? I walk into the living room to cry quietly and pull myself together.

            When I return to the kitchen, Brad is opening a large bucket of modeling clay that his son has requested. Cooper’s artistic gift, which belies his age, reaches through his fog to find inspiration in the clay orchid. After examining it from several angles, the most interest he has shown in anything since his diagnosis, he is weakly, with one hand, attempting his own version. During the next several weeks he will perfect his technique – pushing past his exhaustion, with a strong will, that will serve him in many ways in the days to come. Cooper’s art, in several disciplines, will save his sanity over the next three years of daily treatments, home quarantine, and restricted physical activity.

Coopers first clay orchid - 4 years old

Cooper - 7 years old

            I returned home after two weeks, but I was aching to see him again by mid-December. The toll on the whole family, including his older brother Alex, is unimaginable.

            “Alicia, how would you like me to come back for Christmas? I’m thinking I’d like to surprise the boys.”

            “In two weeks? Oh, Mom, that would be amazing. It would mean so much to all of us.”

            “Great, I’m booking a ticket as soon as we hang up. We’ll figure out the details later.”

            I arrive late, in the dark, on Christmas Eve. There’s snow on the ground, and Rochester is as cold as I remember, but I welcome the familiarity. I take the escalator down to baggage claim, turn a corner, and almost walk into the astonished face of my 12-year-old grandson Alex.

            “Nana?” After a moment's hesitation, perhaps wondering if I’m a mirage, he throws his arms around me.

In bewilderment, he turns to his father. “But what about the package for work, Dad?”

            Brad and I laugh at the ruse that Alex isn’t ready to let go of yet. His brain is still working to put all the pieces together.

            Cooper is sleeping when I arrive at the house; Alicia details the plan for the morning.

            “Cooper just finished a five-day pulse of steroids. His moods and sleep cycles can be unpredictable. Since it’s Christmas, we’re just going to go with it, and when he wakes up, we wake up. He’s already been through so much, and to have started this round of chemo the week of Christmas sucks. We’re gonna let him have this one.”

            “Of course, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, he won’t be the only child waking his whole family up, earlier than usual, tomorrow morning.”

I sleep that night on the couch, next to the Christmas tree, generously heaped with colorful boxes. At three a.m. I’m awoken from a deep sleep by Alex.

“Cooper’s up,” he says with a smile.

I look at the time, “Whew, your mom wasn’t kidding.” I laugh. Alex retreats upstairs.

I shake sleep from my brain, knowing I have about two minutes. I roll off the couch still in my pajamas, put on a Santa hat, sit cross-legged under the tree, and wait.

            “I wonder what it is?” I hear Alicia first.

“I’ll just have to wait and see,” a high-pitched little voice precedes feet coming down the stairs. Alicia’s legs appear with Cooper on the other side. Then his little face is peeking around her.

            “It’s NANA!” he cries, with a big smile. He carefully navigates the last few stairs, then drops his mom’s hand and runs a little stiffly towards me, after a few steps he raises his hand and waves, “Hi Nana!” My heart breaks a little. He falls into my arms.

Buoyed by Christmas Spirit and heart-wrenching love, we all welcome this brief respite from the daily challenges our little boy is facing.

            Alicia will later tell me it’s the first time he’s run since he was diagnosed four months ago.

            Cooper will undergo a daily treatment protocol for three years. But we are encouraged, during this time, by the doctors ensuring us that it was almost impossible for them to catch it as early as they did, at a routine yearly checkup. Nothing short of a miracle. We have the lab technician to thank for that – and possibly one of Cooper’s angels whispering in his ear.

            And here we are, six years and counting, clear of cancer. Cooper is on the Varsity swim team (a year early) and is running cross-country. After five years clear, they consider it a cure, so we are all immensely, optimistically grateful for the medical team and life’s little miracles.