All's Good

So we took Kiki to KC on Thursday, and the short story is: all her blood panels were normal. Yay!!

Now I've been a big city girl my whole life, so the fact that we had to drive 4 and half hours one way to see a specialist gave me a special kind of thrill. I felt like Laura Ingalls or something. I know that sounds grossly and spectacularly ignorant, but it's true. I swear, if I had to drive 6 hours to buy some special electronic doohickey we couldn't live without, I'd be beside myself with glee. Of course, since the Internet is everywhere, and yes, Virgina, we have Best Buy here in town, that's highly unlikely, but still.

Anyway, I discovered something last night about my communication (lack thereof) with my husband.

Okay, when the doctor first contacted us to tell us Kiki's blood tests were abnormal, and referred us to the hemotologist in KC (who was awesome by the way, and Mercy Children's Hospital -- I think they should decorate adult hospitals whimsically too, honestly. As we were leaving, we actually heard a little girl saying she wasn't ready to go home yet.)

I digress. When the doc told me Kiki's white cells and lymphocytes were high, she didn't tell me in so many words what that could mean. I automatically assumed leukemia, but I didn't ask (denial? probably). And I dutifully repeated to Kipp everything she had told me, but I neglected to add my suspicion that they suspected leukemia. He even asked me what it was they were specifically testing for, what the symptoms added up to, and I told him I didn't know. I mean technically, I didn't know because again, I didn't ask.

So when we get to KC, the first thing the hemotologist asks is what Kiki's doctor had told us. I repeated all the stuff about the blood. He nodded and said, "But do you know why you're here today?"

And I replied, "I assumed it was to test for leukemia." Which he immediately confirmed.

Now I had been talking to YarnHacker the night before, and talking about the symptoms of leukemia, and how I'd been watching for them. Kipp had kind of overheard it, but then didn't follow up on it. But it turns out, the thought of leukemia had never even crossed his mind, and the night before our trip to KC was the first indication he'd gotten that it was a possibility.

So he started asking me questions about what I knew about leukemia while we were waiting for Kiki's test results. I'd never seen him look so grim and tense while he was listening, and I thought at the time that it was odd that he'd waited until the day of the tests to ask me these kinds of questions, but I just went along with it.

And I found out for the first time last night, while we were relaying the story to some friends that he didn't even know leukemia was a possibility until the hemotologist said so.

I'm not sure why I just assumed he'd make the same logical conclusion I did; I obviously have more information and experience re: the blood stuff than he does, and I should have realized that. I guess I just didn't want to say it out loud. And in fact, I was sure I'd hinted around it the first day, but he just didn't pick up on it.

I think the problem is that denial about dire things is tripping up our normally pretty clear communication channels. Going to have to watch out for that pitfall, because that could get scary ugly fast.

Well, I'm just rambling at this point. Main news: the baby is healthy! She's had her flu shot (which she hated), and she's got a slight heart murmur (nothing to be worried about), and she's healthy and happy, and God, I am so grateful for that. Thank you. Amen.