Lionfish

Tate has had a pretty good couple of weeks. He fought off a cold without complication, dove into a Stephen King book, went to therapy, and got to hang out with his brother, which is his favorite.

Tate’s physical therapist Duane is always pushing him to get out of the house and “do stuff,” so when Tate is well enough to leave but still resists, I remind him that Duane says it’s really important for his recovery. Pulling the Duane card really works! I suggested we go to the zoo to see the giant tortoises like we used to do all the time when he was little. Tate wasn’t keen on spending much time in bright sunlight (duh, I don’t know why I didn’t consider that), but he agreed to go to the OdySea Aquarium. The first exhibit we came to was full of turtles. Tate took pictures of all of them.

We toured the whole place, and while admittedly it’s not very big, Tate only used his wheelchair once. After we went on the OdySea Voyager, a seated “ride” that slowly spins the platform everyone is sitting on past four big tanks full of various sea creatures, Tate said, “All I need to see now are Lionfish.” We looked up and saw a huge Lionfish exhibit.

Then he said, “I wish they had jellyfish.” Boom! Suddenly we were looking at jellyfish.

Tate has a big week coming up. Monday he has a cello lesson, Tuesday he has an appointment to be cleared for a spinal tap with intrathecal chemotherapy, and Thursday he will be going under general anesthesia for treatment. He will begin a 5-day steroid pulse Thursday, too. I have become friendly with a mom whose son Zac is also a teenage a Leukemia patient. Tate and Zac have had vastly different struggles during treatment, but they agree steroid weeks are the worst.

When I started The Daily Dwayne last year, I thought I would be telling Tate’s story from his perspective. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Those of you who know Tate know that he’s not exactly forthcoming and might not share anything even if you ask, and he has spent weeks at a time so sick he could barely lift his head off his pillow and unable to share anything. With the exception of the two posts Greg wrote, one about the benefit soccer tournament and the other explaining what he called “the sciency stuff,” the story is about Tate, but it’s also my own. Thank you for taking time to read the words of a mom with a breaking heart who is both hopeful and exhausted; a person who has needed a lot of help but barely been able to give any back.