Way back when my Littles were actually still little, a very most favorite book of ours to read aloud was That's Good! That's Bad!
- a tale of a precocious little boy who loses his parents in a zoo, and has harrowing adventures and misadventures involving animals of all kinds as he attempts to return to his parents. Along the way, the repetitive chorus "Oh, that's GOOD...no, that's BAD!" in variant form plays with the idea that not all initially perceived fortune is indeed fortunate, and not all trouble brings troublesome outcome. Reminiscent of the old Chinese parable which cautions against quick evaluation of any circumstance, echoes of this book have been clattering through my brain for the past many months.Let me back up. Clearly some time has passed since my last post - even more than I fully realized as I dusted the cobwebs off this old bloggety this morning and attempted to recall my password for entry. Shortly after I'd last written, the very day the movers were packing up our things in the truck for cross country transport, we received the phone call that cancer was again visible in Eric's scans. The doctors changed their recommendation and urged us to stay put, only to receive Eric's response of "I'm afraid that ship has sailed, my friend!" As we drove to our new midwest destination, I worked the phones and (truly miraculously) had an appointment with the lead GI oncologist at a top tier hospital lined up within the week. Eric has been fighting ever since.
We have had many short spurts of hopeful reprieve, followed by the frustrations of "this one tiny spot" demanding further surgical or chemical treatment. Through it all, Eric has continued to work, love, and live with an energy and vitality most healthy humans never attain. More recently, although still bewilderingly tiny in total mass, disease has shown up and the tone of doctor's predictions have changed. We are running out of standard care methods, and most trials require either more disease, different forms of disease, or a genetic marker/makeup that is not Eric's. Early this spring we were told that he likely has maybe a year, possibly two. The grueling and terrible regimen he was put on (to combat TWO CENTIMETERS in total of visible cancer in my six foot eight superhuman husband!) eventually rendered eating nearly impossible, and he decided to take a reprieve to pause and be more present through a family Florida vacation.
This week, immediately after returning, he had blood work, new PET scans, and we go in this morning to learn the results. I feel as if dread lurks around every corner, and am in all honesty bucking practices that I know will bring peace. It is such an awkward walk tiptoeing through what feels like a minefield containing both hope and disaster. I want to cling to the possibility of healing, I KNOW that full and complete healing is still possible, in fact no less possible than on the day of diagnosis. Yet I also would be remiss to not take in to account the possibility that our outcome may be otherwise.
This is where I hear our old favorite - "That's BAD...no, wait, that's GOOD!" We wait for test results that feel so final, but oddly, an easily resectable tumor could possibly gain entrance to an effective trial. Or it could just mean more cancer. And through it all, possibly due to my restless wandering where I have not yet engraved my pathway within His and keep fighting for my own, God continues His refrain of "Trust Me, Today."
