So.

Cancer.

Infantile fibrosarcoma, which is, of course, extremely rare.
But also highly treatable, usually with chemotherapy followed by surgery. Full pathology results will be done in a couple of days and we will be making treatment plans early next week.

That's the affected shoulder, slung so casually over the armrest. Reuben reached six months on Monday, and I'm copying Elise (except with a wilde animal--thanks, Grandma & Grandpa Goates!--and, alas!, I didn't catch on until month #2).

This will be a very long story and, I hope, one that I will take the time to tell. Nathan has been encouraging me to write more and certainly I will need such self therapy. My head is spinning with so much information and emotion, but tonight? Tonight I can only come up with choppy sentences and a cautious optimism.

If you're the praying sort, we'll accept them, of any kind. If you're the good thoughts sort, I'm a believer, too. My personal theology doesn't look for a why; I just think these things are, and we work from there. I am spending the evening feeling a tremendous amount of empathy and love for this drugged up little boy on the couch next to me. "He's a keeper," I've been saying for months. We'll do our best.

Oh, and we're moving tomorrow. And it's Audrey's birthday--my beloved oldest will be eleven!