I’m going to use this opportunity as a new blogger to share about my daughter’s new diagnosis. My 9-year-old Olivia was born with a severe heart condition and required many open heart surgeries that inevitably led her to a heart transplant. It was her 5^th open heart surgery and one that has changed the course of her life.

It’s such a funny thing, all that has happened over the past 30 days. It seems unreal, too unrealistic. Even the best screenplay writers couldn’t come up with this stuff.  It’s all been too much.

My beloved step-father rapidly started to decline Christmas night. I made plans to fly home to say goodbye.  A few days after Christmas I jumped on a plane with my 3 children. My middle child, my heart baby, Olivia, had been “sick” since moving to El Paso back in October. But her symptoms the month of December were alarming to me and my husband; I spent weeks taking her to one doctor after another. No one knew. No one could have predicted what was looming.

We arrived Monday. By Tuesday evening I was done. I took her to the emergency room at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. All her doctors were there and all her records. I felt relieved the moment I stepped in. After an x-ray and an ultrasound Olivia’s cardiologist was notified, and she “just so happened” to be on call that night so she had her admitted under her service. The next day Olivia had a CT scan. Wednesday my husband arrived and Olivia underwent a biopsy of one of her lymph nodes.  We waited through the weekend for results.

We have waited before. Only 7 years ago we found ourselves at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital spending New Year’s Eve with our baby girl waiting on a new heart. This waiting was different.

Monday night, a week after arriving in Nashville, Olivia was officially diagnosis with PTLD, Post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease.

We knew this was possible. We were told; we signed documents proving we understood the risks. We knew that her heart transplant was an exchange of one set of issues for another. We also knew Olivia needed a new heart. We made the choice. We signed the dotted line. We knew but we had no other choice.

PTLD is a form of lymphoma that occurs after organ transplant due to the antirejection medication that is required to maintain the graft. But it is an immune suppressant drug and directly affects the lymphatic system.

Olivia had her first round of chemo on Wednesday. My wonderful step-father left the world on Thursday night. We buried him Friday.

This is how I know God. If my father had not been ill, I would have never gotten on the plane. I would have never gotten Olivia to the ER. He laid out a path at my feet and escorted me through it. Except it wasn’t so eloquent. I had known for months that something dire was happening to my child and couldn’t get her help. I fought God tooth and nail on why He put us in a city that could not help her. But when it came down to it, she was placed in the perfect situation where everyone that needed to be there was there. The universe was aligned and His plan executed.

This is how I know God. People, His people, Christ’s people came to our aid. They provided comfort to our family and my extended family that had been spread too thin between my father’s passing and Olivia’s diagnosis.

There are many unknowns. What I know is that Olivia is mad. Her dad and I are mad and her big sister is mad. We hate cancer, also a fact.  Another truth: no child/children should have to understand his or her mortality in the way that my children do at this very moment. Death is not natural. It was never meant to be this way. Decay is sin. Body and spirit separated by death, sin. Jesus, come quickly.

One last truth: God is good. He was good before my father passed and He is still good. He was good before Olivia received her news and He will remain good through treatment. And if He decides to take my baby girl home, He will still be good.

Sarah Apa