my big girl

Since you've seen me last, Annabelle has earned a new nickname. I'm not really sure how it came about, but lately I've been calling her my "little baby big big." This morphs easily into simply "Big big" or, simply, "Big." When I write it out, it looks even sillier.

My big big girl has very bad arthritis in her left elbow. Bad arthritis in her right elbow, but REALLY bad in her left. This diagnosis became the lesser of two evils, the other evil being bone cancer. During that time I kept telling myself that it can't be cancer, it can't be cancer. Arthritis we can deal with. We can manage that pain. We can't manage the pain of bone cancer.

And it's true, we can manage this pain. But because of the way I learned about this diagnosis, I trained myself to think of it as not so bad, really. Not life-threatening, obviously. But it is incredibly painful for my baby. I'm begining to think she's had elbow dysplasia her whole life, that she was born with an elbow out of whack; this would explain the on-and-off limping after running really hard. She's only 7 1/2 and her arthritis isn't going to get any better. It's breaking my heart.

The fear of that cancer diagnosis prevented me from understanding the seriousness of this diagnosis. And I knew that even when I was saying to anyone who would listen that arthritis, we can deal with. Cancer not so much.

Nothing I wouldn't do for that girl. My little baby big big.