two in two million

Mr. 1inamillion's first sarcoma was diagnosed roughly four months after we married and moved to Indiana. I remember the first visit to IU Med Center as the longest day of our life. (note, I was in labor with 9.5 lb Thing 1 for nearly 2 days before the emergency c-section. That still comes in second to this day at IU.) We saw a parade of doctors while sitting in a small exam room. Each one wanted to press on his belly because although the tumor was the size of a soccer ball, you couldn't see or feel it externally. At the end of all of that, they performed a needle biopsy.

He was put in a recovery room after the biopsy with another patient. I remember just resonating on our differences. We were approaching our first holiday season as newlyweds. The couple on the other side of the curtain clearly was not. I don't think we ever knew why he was in there but I remember hearing the patient's wife and grown daughter talking about the impacts of this hospital stay. They were going to need to change from their Thanksgiving traditions for the first time in many years.

I remember being the first ones into the waiting room during his first surgery, and the last ones out. I also recall that I was the youngest one there. We were always the youngest. Excluding the rare presence of a pediatric patient, the patients surrounding us then were old. Thirteen years later, they are still older. The support groups tend to be full of women with grown children, lifetimes of memories accumulated. Also their cancers are very different. People haven't heard of or understand sarcoma. We have simply faced and accepted the fact that one in a million is lonely.

I never really realized how lonely it was until it wasn't. Two weeks ago I received a Facebook message with the subject title "You don't know me, but we have at least one thing in common". She spotted my Facebook profile picture on the Sarcoma Foundation's page, a picture of Lucy and I. I cried as I read that we had more than just one thing in common. Her things 1 & 2 are ages four and two, her husband has liposarcoma, has completed 28 treatments of radiation and they are approaching his first surgery. His radiation oncologist is even the doctor Dane saw when we lived in Florida. I cry again as I write this. Tears of joy and relief that someone else knows and understands this experience; and tears of grief that someone else must also endure this experience.

I have been trying to recall the feelings and thoughts they must be having so that I could perhaps offer a bit of comfort. His surgery is tomorrow, the sarcoma they are removing is near his spine.

Dane's first surgery was frightening. It was long and difficult. He took every pint of A negative they had on hand. He was puffed up a bit like the Michelin man from all the fluids afterwards and they kept him sedated and in ICU through the following day. That all might not sound comforting, but to me it is. Each surgery since, we have had that hard fought victory under our belt. The power of prayer had been proven, our fears diminished.

I ask that you please pray with us for the Howard family and their surgeon, Dr. Scarborough. (My mom always said to pray for the doctors, too.) The most powerful thing I can offer is the sharing of our family's prayer warriors. You all have such a proven track record!

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

"But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8