So how does one (or two) live with the threat of a major unwanted life-change hanging inside one's head for a year and a half? It's been 19 months since that first day of the rest of our lives. I haven't been very good at writing about it. It's different for each of us. It's different for our children.
One day last Spring on a cool morning I looked out the kitchen window and saw Michael sitting in our back porch quiet place, one of the several prayer blankets we've been given around his shoulders. He was staring up at the big oak tree between our house and the church next door. It's leaves were fresh and green except for the large bare branch that needed to be cut out. He later told me he and the tree were having a conversation. (Didn't surprise me. On our first date he stopped to talk to a lamp post on a Cairo street. And trees in Dembi Dollo answered him back ... he said.) They had something in common - something dead inside each of them that needed to be cut out. And he talked to God about it, too. It was from that moment that Michael felt the assurance of God's peace about whatever happened. All fear vanished from his mind and heart. He felt the warmth of the blanket around his shoulders as if God had put it there and embraced him.
I am not nearly so spiritual or romantic as Michael. Way too pragmatic, probably. I have always dealt with each of life's turns navigating each pothole as necessary and looking for the straight-aways before accelerating. With each chemo treatment and each MRI, I paid attention to see what the side-effects and the report was going to be before getting anxious. And each month the MRI reports were good and the chemo was manageable by not planning too much and sleeping a lot for a week or so. I grew up knowing that my life was in God's hands and I just expect it to stay there no matter what happens. Fear has never been a very active part of my emotional make up.
Sadness, though, is something else. The thought of a life-change that involves significant loss makes both of us sad. Never, however, at the same time. We feel it in different ways, at different times, and, of course, about the prospect of different losses. Over the months we have both had days where we just sit and cry even though there's nothing to cry about ... yet. And we wonder about the future.
Last week Michael took his last trial vaccination at the Duke Brain Cancer Center in Durham, NC. And two weeks before that he took the last of his chemo treatments. On March 1st he'll have his "end of treatment" MRI. And we will wait to see how long the treatment will hold. The Physician's Assistant who examined him last week, encouraged us by letting us know that there are those who have survived a couple decades. And we know one person who lived 14 years.
As we drove back up the mountains from Durham, Michael committed to hanging on to that Hope. With no monthly interruption that will knock him out of commission for several days, we can anticipate and plan to do interesting and fun things on days off. We're even working on planning a vacation! That will have to be done between MRIs, which we anticipate to be scheduled every 6 or 8 weeks; but that's plannable.
We Hope that each day we have together will be memorable and will be the beginning of many good things.
It is a great pleasure to have you on this journey with us. Thanks for the prayers and love that you have shown us in so many ways.
