The worst news

It was just about 6:30 p.m. I was doing some mindless Web surfing and thinking that I really should be filling out my time sheet so I could get out the door on time and not be late home.

That’s when my cell phone rang. I figured it was Kris, but it was mom, which is unusual because she doesn’t call my cell very often. When I answered she called me Tim.

“No, Chris,” I said.

She corrected herself and told me she had just got off the phone with my brother Tim. I could tell her voice didn’t sound right and she told me she had bad news.

“Patrick is in the hospital,” she said. “They think he has leukemia.”

Leukemia. I hate that word.

For those of you who don’t know, my very good friend Mike died of complications from leukemia two years ago. His death capped what was probably the worst summer of my life. It followed my father’s passing about six weeks earlier and my first dog’s death about month before that.

And now it was all rushing back. I almost dropped the phone out of my hand.

Patrick is the oldest son of my sister Mary Ellen. He’ll turn 16 years old next month. Apparently he’s been having some pain in his joints and has been very fatigued lately. No one thought a lot of it. After all, he’s on both the football and soccer teams at school.

Patrick is one of the star players on his soccer team, but the last few games he’s been asking his coach to pull him from the game early. Last night his coach had enough and yelled at him – accusing him of having a bad attitude and not wanting to play.

So with that, Mary Ellen knew something must be wrong and took him to the doctor this morning. If anything, they figured it might be mononucleosis. It wasn’t mono. That afternoon, after the blood work came back, the doctor called Mary Ellen and her husband in and gave them the news no parent ever wants to hear.

Patrick is in the hospital right now – about a 40-minute drive away from their house. He’s going to start treatment tomorrow. I don’t know yet what sort of chemotherapy he’ll be receiving.

On the phone with mom, my initial shock eventually wore off, and my tone started to become more clinical as I told her about what type of leukemia Mike had, how his treatments worked, how long he was in remission, etc. I knew that I was definitely late leaving work now and after about 10 minutes I finally realized there was no reason why couldn’t be walking out to my car while I was talking to mom.

I reached the car just as we wrapped up our conversation. When I hung up the phone, my cool, clinical demeanor disappeared and I was right back where I started. I literally threw my bags into the car and then started pounding the roof, on the verge of tears.

Normally I call Kris when I’m going to be late, but I didn’t want to tell her about this on the phone. I’d let her be annoyed at me for being late. She would understand once I told her why. I spent the car ride home trying to figure out how to tell her. She was very close with Mike, so I worried this news would hit her hard too. But when I got home, she already knew. My other sister, Annie, had called her about the same time mom called me.

Patrick and his family are in for a long haul. I don’t mean to go all biblical on you, but I’m going to ask everyone reading this for a favor – please pray for Patrick. Pray for his whole family. I wish I could be there for them, but they live in Kentucky. So right now prayers are probably the best I can do. This is something I believe in – and the more prayers the better.

I’m pulling for you Patrick. We all are.