day 3

October 31, 2010
Hallowe'en


We woke up this morning in our own beds, and I have never appreciated it more.  Waking up and seeing not only Paul, but our daughter snuggled up between us in bed.  It was perfect.  But all too quickly reality flooded my brain and I was forced to remember that we were due back at the hospital before noon.  We enjoyed our breakfast, packed up our bags and drove back to SickKids.


We settled back into our room, and were told Opthamology was expecting us.  We were taken down to the department, eerily quiet given it was a Sunday.  We waited in the hallway for the On Call doctor to arrive.  I have no idea how to administer an eye exam to a 6 month old, but clearly they have their ways.  Evelyn was checked out, and we returned back to our room.  The Oncologist came back for a brief visit to explain we would meet her team on Monday or Tuesday.  She was no longer under the primary care of the Neuro-Surgeons as her tumour was decided to be inoperable.  Removing it would surely result in damage to her vision, if nothing else.   Evie was now under the primary care of Neuro-Oncologists.   This team would be able to give us more information about her case.  He also granted us another leave so we could again go home, and take Evelyn out for her first Hallowe'en.  Thankful doesnt begin to describe how happy we were.  We took off faster than the day previous.  We knew all too well they would want us back soon, in fact they wanted us back that night as she was scheduled for tests early Monday morning.


Once we were home we again tried to put everything out of our minds and focus on Hallowe'en.  We carved our pumpkins and made a special baby pumpkin for Evie.  After dinner we got all dressed up to trick or treat....Isabelle was Dorothy, Evie was the Lion and Daddy the Tin Man - together they were adorable.  It was uncharacteristically warm that evening, and walking up and down the street, seeing our neighbours was a strange feeling.  In the back of my mind, I couldnt stop thinking about how drastically our lives had changed in the past 2 days, and yet they all have NO idea.  Here we are trick or treating, making idle conversation, like nothing had happened.  It was as though we got to pretend for a little while longer.  Before long we were leaving Isabelle at home with her Grandma, and heading back to the Hospital.  Not the 1st Hallowe'en we imagined, but Paul and I are grateful we got to take both of our girls out together.  It was becoming more and more evident that the small things really are what matters, take away everything else, and we still have the memories and the experiences with our family, you cant take those away from us.