relentless fear

"Is this *'s mother?" Asks a slightly familiar voice on the other end of the line.

"this is her."I confirm.

"This is doctor *** who did the eye exam on your son a while back and, I have spoken to a specialist about his case."

- "A specialist? why, I thought they were sure there was nothing wrong with him." Why do we need a specialist all of a sudden? My thoughts are chasing each other like those dark dirty clouds which sometimes blows in from the sea to block out the sunlight with in seconds. Except this time they're just forming one vile word across the blue happy skys... cancer...

"The doctor recommended that we examine him again as soon as possible just to make sure that we didn't miss any signs of Retinoblastoma and, we'd like him to be sedated during the procedure." Her efficient professional voice continues, unaware of that every word is crushing into my world like a zunami and, that suddenly I'm drowning in memories of a little tiny body, straining with one febal attempt to live, before it relaxed and went to sleep forever.

- "He can't have the Retinoblastoma! You said there were no signs of tumors in his eyes! That there was no reason to worry... And sedated at 5 months?!" I want to scream at her.
"Babies die from such procedures. Doctors make mistakes... And babies die! He's too little, you can't do it yet... don't you understand that I can't live without him?!"

We're just now getting into a little bit safer teritory, so that I don't have to hold my panic at bay by making sure that he's breathing every other minute.

Most cases of sudden infant death syndrom happens when the baby is 3 to 4 months old. And he is finally almost 5... Almost...

'it doesn't matter that
i know that
i don't haveany more reason to worry about SIDS than any other parent of a premature baby.'i'll always worry now... Cause now i know that babies die.

We all know that of course. But it's because we saw it on tv, read it in a book, or because it happened to a friend of a friend. For the compassionate ones it's reason enough to shed a couple of tears and, offer their condoleances, the rest look the other way and say nothing at all...

For me, it also use to be reason enough to check on Alex quite often too make sure that he was breathing. But
i never really let it in. But perhaps that's just not possible until one has felt the body of one's child turn cold and, been forced to realise that no matter what one did, nothing could be done to keep him warm. No matter how I prayed for a miracle...

But of course I say nothing of this... I just ask her when we should schedule the procedure and, she tells me that a nurse will contact me to set it up with in a month.

We hang up and, I hold my sleeping little miracle closer. And I cry...