After the storm hit.

On May 6, 2017, in other words my birthday, I had a dream so realistic, that when I woke up, I woke up screaming and crying. I felt so guilty, that I asked myself, “Am I a bad mother for dreaming about my child’s death?”. After Dr. P gave us Erick’s diagnosis, I felt like my dream had become reality and that one way or another, that dream had been a warning for me. After we were told, I remember holding Luis’ hand, and seeing his tears rolling down his face; Jesus (my brother-in-law) was holding his hand, my sister and her husband started hugging Erick, and I saw my mom’s worst fears come alive. For her, it was deja vu all over again; I could see the pain that she once had 23 years ago, all that pain and anger was in her face, and at the same time, I was scared to talk to her.

The last thing Dr. P said was, “ On the internet, there is a lot of articles and information about leukemia, and I want you guys to do me a favor. Please don’t search anything about it. You will know what I know, and as of right now, I don’t know what type of leukemia he has. You guys will be in my thoughts.” And to be honest, I didn’t have the courage to investigate anything, all I wanted to do is hug Erick and wish that this was a bad dream, and hope that tomorrow the same doctor would come back and tell us that she was wrong. Shortly after, the nurses came to take Erick to another room to get an IV started. For a good solid hour, or possibly longer, they tried to get an IV started, but his blood was so thin that it would push the IV out. Erick cried and cried, and all we could tell him was to calm down, that everything was going to be ok. Everything was so confusing, it was like time was moving fast but at the same time, time had paused. I don’t know if you can understand what I am trying to say, and if I am being honest, I still don’t understand that evening.

When we came back to the room, I finally had the guts to talk to my mother, so I asked her to step outside the room and that is where I let out all of my tears, everything, we hugged and she finally said, “ Naty, you have to be strong, you have to be stronger than before, your son is going to need you like no other, and you need to be strong so you can be there for him. If you ever need to cry, do it, but to yourself, he can’t see you cry, you have to be strong for him. And I will always be there for you.” Totally different reaction that I expected. I was expecting blame, anger, or even “it’s your fault”, but that wasn’t the case. Instead I had my mother there to love me and care for me.

Time kept on moving and it was eventually night time, everyone started leaving and promising to come back and eventually it was just us three again, and we just hugged each other. After Erick fell asleep, me and Luis had time to analyze what we had experienced and we just broke down and cried. Eventually, we stopped and prayed. Prayed that everything was going to be ok, prayed so that we would be strong enough to overcome this storm because it was coming in strong. That night, we didn’t get much sleep, the nurses and CNAs came in to check his vital signs and give him tylenol because his fever didn’t want to go away. I was also too afraid to sleep, because I didn't want to wake up to something worse. My worst nightmare had become reality.