By Ashley Cornia

The diagnosis that completely crippled me, brought me to my knees in panic, rage, and fear. The worst part, it wasn’t even mine. How did I not see it? My little two year old baby girl not wanting to eat…. but toddlers go in spurts right? Eat your house clean, to squishing their face up in disgust at everything you place in front of them. We work hard, we play hard, that’s surely why she is so exhausted. How did I not see my little two year old slowly dwindling away right in front of my eyes? How come it took falling off a countertop onto her head for me to finally see her suffering?
On June 3rd of 2020, Swayzee was climbing up the bathroom counter when she fell off and landed on her head. Her father knew right when he saw her that this was an emergency. A scary ambulance ride told paramedics that she definitely needed life-flighted to Primary Children’s. Due to the new pandemic this world was facing, mom and dad not only couldn’t go with her in life flight, but had to split up once at the hospital. Only one parent was allowed to go into the hospital. My husband sat outside the hospital doors in the dark, on a bench, not knowing what to do or what was going on with our daughter, frantically awaiting news I would have to relay to him.
I made it to the PICU alone, my sweet Swayzee, eyes closed, laid out with a neck brace, intubated, cords and needles being attached to her from every direction, monitors going off, doctors and nurses asking me questions and telling me things that made no sense at all and all I could think was, “Is this real, is this real life, am I dreaming?” I know now what a blessing it was for her to have fallen off that countertop and crack the back of her skull. How lucky we were that that was the area that got an x-ray so that they could tell me what I had been missing all along. A tumor. A tumor that had grown large enough in the middle of her brain that blocked the flow of her brain fluid. Did she just fall? Or, had that overly exhausted little body finally given out and sent her crashing.
A plan in place for surgery in the morning to place a shunt and get a biopsy of the mass that had grown inside her tiny little head. How was I to make it through the night? Feeling so alone and so helpless, guilty, shocked, my mind all over the place. How is this real? This can’t be real. She is two years old, how did she grow a tumor that large in only two years of her life? What have I exposed her to? Did I do something or was I around something while she was in the womb? I mean I did do cow vaccines that one day and painted a wall another. What have I done to my perfect baby girl? Mom guilt was hardcore.
As I sat in a chair on the side of my daughter’s bed I would doze off with thoughts running wild in my head, but like clockwork I would wake every hour on the hour. I must have dozed off into a deep enough sleep on one of those hours to have woke up in a complete panic! I woke not knowing where I was or what was going on, where am I? I looked over at my sweet child laying there and that is when I truly realized how real this really was. I play it tough most of the time, and right then, I broke. Trembling, embarrassed by tears that rolled down my face hiding myself away from the two nurses that sat at the doorway of my daughters room to watch her continually until she had her surgery, I broke. Right then is when it happened, my body was overcome with a burning sensation that covered me completely like a fiery blanket. Every cell, every nerve, on fire, I had never felt this before. What was happening? When I thought I literally just might start on fire, it went away. Then as soon as it went away it came again and by that time my heart was starting to tell me what was happening. It went away once more and right then I knew what was happening. I begged for the feeling to return a third time and then it did. I knew, I knew then it was an angel, an angel of a family member who was holding me tight in their arms, letting me know I was not alone. I was never alone. Angels filled that room. Jesus walks those halls. My Heavenly Father is and was aware of me, he is aware and loves my sweet Swayzee. Not knowing the outcome or the path this journey was going to take us, right then I chose that I wasn’t going to walk it alone. We will fight and on the days she doesn’t have the strength, I will give her mine, and on the days I don’t have the strength I will ask of my Heavenly Father. We are going to take every day and find the rainbow, because where there are rainbows, there are unicorns and Swayzee loves unicorns!