Rylie was diagnosed with osteosarcoma at 15 years old.
What’s one thing you wish you had known in those first 48 hours?
“To build up support quicker and speak up more.”
What helped you the most in those first 48 hours?
“My husband.”
What’s is one moment in those first 48 hours that you’ll never forget?
“Calling my husband in tears right after they said the word tumor. They still had to do a biopsy but I knew then in my gut it was cancer.”
If you could go back, what’s one thing you’d tell yourself?
“I would tell myself to be prepared for anything and do not blame yourself. The first few days felt like an absolute nightmare. It didn’t seem real at all. I blamed myself for not getting him in sooner, for shrugging it off like it was just growing pains. I would have never thought it could be cancer. Thinking back to those moments still makes me sad. Sad of life not going the way we had planned it in our minds. No one can be prepared enough for those moments. Those words. Those hospital rooms. That diagnosis. Your child. The guilt of seeing people you love lose their babies fighting alongside you. Seeing the smallest babies hooked up to poles. The cries of kids way too small to understand being stabbed over and over. Nothing prepares you for that. It’s just something you have no choice but to fight and battle. For your child. For yourself. For your family and your other small children. In the aftermath I ended up getting pregnant and creating new life. We named him “Levi” which means joined attached or united. Scramble his letters and it spells LIVE. You do whatever it takes to live and your child to live in the unimaginable.”
This First 48 story was submitted by Missy.