living with it

It didn’t turn out as we had hoped.  The cancer is still growing, there are seven measurable tumors now in Andy’s lungs.   

We are two months shy of the three year mark of his diagnosis.  Three years living with cancer.  When it all began I couldn’t imagine carrying on with our every day lives.  Mostly we didn’t.  My mom picked up groceries for us (I couldn’t chance the storm of tears every time I ran into someone I knew at the grocery), she ran the girls to music and dance…our friends stepped in with homeschool lessons, I stayed home from work, time stopped.  If I wasn’t actually curled up in a fetal ball, I was wishing I could be.  The news was so devastating I wasn’t sure how to function.  All I knew was that I needed to be close to Andy every moment. 

Andy still has cancer but many things have changed.  We have changed.  Together we have grown stronger, we have learned to be present in the beauty of now.  We have told the terrifying story of cancer to ourselves so many times that it’s lost a tiny bit of its punch.  We have held each other up in moments of deep despair enough times that we can feel the other’s arms around us even when we are alone.  We have learned to go back to work, the grocery, the dentist.  We have learned how to talk about our life in ways that are honest but also protective of our emotions.  There are still days when I can’t get out from under the fear.  Andy has metastatic cancer.  He might beat it, he might not.  We have no way to know.  How have we learned to live with this knowledge?  Day by day, with no choice but to wake up each morning and get out of bed (that waking moment of remembering hasn’t gotten easier and sometimes the biggest effort is just to admit we must face it another day).  Some days are more peaceful, some are more graceful, and some are full of exhaustion, anger, fear and sadness in all the not-so-lovely ways these emotions show themselves.  But how can I even begin to explain how precious each day now is?

We came home from Mayo and had to tell the girls what nobody wanted to hear:  Papa is going to start treatment again.  They had lots of questions that we can’t yet answer.  (“Will he throw up?”,  highest among the concerns). There are several options on the table, a few of them clinical trials, one of which requires distant travel.  We are working hard to gather information, ask questions, weigh details, consider advice and make the best decision possible.  None of the options make promises, all of them will make him sick.  Thankfully we don’t feel an urgent rush.  The weeks to come will help us sort out what is the right decision and then we’ll move on that.  And we’ll do it together, one day at a time.