I had one of my worst panic attacks yesterday. It left me shaky and took me the rest of the day to feel semi-normal again. For a few terrifying minutes I thought, no not thought, I was positive that Isabel's leukemia had returned. It was a moment of sheer terror. Turns out she has the stomach flu which she has never had in her life, and it sent me spiraling.

We left Saturday to visit our friends who moved away in December. It's a three hour drive and the kids were very excited to see their best buddies who we've missed dearly. When we arrived, Isabel was doing fine and it was a fun night filled with laughter and manic little kids running around their big home, overjoyed to be together again. They ended up in a pile of sleeping bags and blankets, all nestled together for the night.

In the early morning Isabel woke up flushed and miserable, complaining that her head hurt. I wasn't too worried and did the normal mom stuff for a sick kid. Then she found me a bit later on, looking even more sick with glassy eyes and cheeks that looked like they had a bad sunburn. She told me her legs ached and that was the trigger for me. In that instant I knew what she was feeling. Cancer relapse. The headache, the high fever, the ache in her legs. I started shaking and I gave Alan a look which held all my racing thoughts. His expression was one of fear also. Isabel sensed it and asked why I was so worried. Alan tried shielding her from my panic and started guiding her out of the room. I stopped them and told them not to leave me alone, that I was really scared and needed them to help get it under control. We sat Isabel down and had her go over all her symptoms. We pulled up her pant's leg and asked her to show us exactly where the pain was, what it felt like and how intense it was. Isabel looked at me with scared eyes and kept asking "why, mama? Why are you so worried?" She knew. I knew she knew. She wanted me to say it. I looked her right in the eyes and said "I don't like when you get sick. It scares me. I want it to be something that goes away. I don't want it to be anything serious. I don't ever want your cancer to come back...and if it does (I had to say this because I really thought it was back) we'll deal with it and get through it like we always do and you'll be fine, but I just really, really don't want to go through it again, understand? So I need you to tell me everything so we can figure this out." She then told us it was just one leg and the pain was subsiding, it wasn't a deep ache. After a bit we set her up on the couch with her friends under a blanket to watch a movie. Alan went into the back room with me and did what he does best, reassure me and tell me the things I need to hear. I tried to get my heart to stop racing and kept taking deep breaths. I started putting on my make-up doing the one thing I learned after my mom's death - do things that help you feel normal when nothing in the world is normal. I started putting on my mascara and Alan murmured "babe, you're shaking". I certainly was shaking and my heart was pounding, I could hear it in my ears, feel it knocking against my chest. I just kept breathing, blinking away tears to apply a coat of brown mascara to my lashes. We talked some more and he told me the moment he heard that her legs hurt he had the same thought.

Finally I curled up on the couch with Isabel, still shaky and coming off the rush of adrenaline. Alan went fishing with our friend and later on Isabel started vomiting which, funny enough, reassured me more than anything. "Oh good!" I thought when she suddenly started. I felt a rush of relief and was overjoyed that she apparently caught the stomach flu that has been going around her school for the past month.

It took me all day to calm myself down. After she fell into a feverish sleep, I went out with Alan to the fishing spot and stayed there for hours with him, not talking much, just watching the water and commenting on the beautiful surroundings. Once we got back, Isabel was up and feeling much better. Good enough to play a board game and interact with her friends. I was okay by the time I went to sleep but this morning I had yet another jolt of fear when Isabel complained of a headache. The acetaminophen we gave her did nothing to relieve her pain and that in itself worried me. I started thinking she relapsed in her central nervous system, which would cause vomiting and headaches. We left our friends' home to make the trek back, Isabel sitting with a garbage bag on her lap in case she needed to vomit again. We stopped by a local store and bought some Motrin which did the trick. My sigh of relief lasted for the rest of the drive.

I knew I had a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but the force of my panic and the way I shot into terror like that really showed me just how damaged I am. I was just boasting about how I rarely think about relapse anymore. How I used to think about it daily and now I can go weeks, months even without giving it thought. This taught me that the fear will never really be gone. I am okay now. Now that I've calmed down, I again feel confident her leukemia is in the past....but wow, I just didn't realize how deep the trauma of her cancer goes for me. It really was terrifying. I was right there, in a spit second, thinking of relapse protocols, knowing the survival statistics, the grim reality of a bone marrow transplant. I had us back in the hospital conferring with the oncologist within a second of Isabel complaining about her legs.

Isabel took a bath while we were there, which really helped to calm her down and warm her up. I hung about the bathroom while she was soaking and apologized for scaring her. I told her I didn't really think her cancer will ever come back but I guess I'm still scared from everything we've been through. She understood. She told me about a friend from camp who is in the middle of chemotherapy treatment for relapse. Isabel said she felt badly for her because it must be twice as hard to do it for the second time, since you know what you're in for. I agreed and told her that her friend beat it once and will most likely beat it again. I told her that she had complained about her legs before we knew she had leukemia and I hadn't paid it any mind. I had totally brushed off her complaints and I haven't really forgiven myself for it. Isabel shook her head at me and said "but you didn't know, mama. You can't blame yourself for not knowing". We ended up laughing over the fact that I am so determined to take every one of her complaints seriously I end up giving myself panic attacks!

Oh boy. What a trip. We're going to try again in the spring and this time we'll be out in a boat enjoying the sunshine instead of in the bath talking about cancer!