This week we traveled to St. Louis for Dane's scans and chemo treatment. Good news. His scans were stable and he will continue on the same regimen. Dane has been on this schedule for quite a while so there are several familiar faces.
A sense of community is nice, but it is tough to make friends at a cancer center. Cancers are incredibly different, treatments vary greatly and so do the outcomes. You may get to know some who are blessed with remission and get to ring the bell and run free. I'd be lying if I said there isn't a twinge of bitterness. We applaud when the bell rings and cheer, seeing that it is possible but still long for it to be Dane. Making friends with others whose news is worse...sucks. What do you say? When what you are really honestly thinking is thank God it's you and not me. And please, God, don't ever let it be me.
A couple with whom we have spent some time in treatment got bad news this week. He had some new growth and they were told one to two years. It sucks. It sucks. It sucks.
Thing 1 was with us on this trip and he asked what was wrong after the wife had parted from the waiting room. I told him her husband got bad news that his cancer had grown. Gabe got frustrated and said he hated that all he can do was a stupid bear drive. The bear drives he has done with school both in Douglass and Mulvane for Victory in the Valley are not in the least bit stupid, and I am so proud and overwhelmed by his kind, tender heart. Cancer is so out of our control and it sucks. We want so badly to do SOMETHING, anything, to help the ones we love and those we see suffering.
We pray. It is the most powerful thing we can do and I have seen God respond in amazing ways. Still, we long to do more, any little thing we can to make a difference. So I am running a half marathon as part of my company's national DetermiNation team for the American Cancer Society and Thing 1 promised this week to help with the fundraising. It is a tiny effort and it sucks that it's all we can do. After three days at a cancer center, I am so grateful for my ability to walk and run, slow and painful that it may be. I am also so grateful for our answered prayers and our kind hearted Thing 1, excited to make a difference.
I am right there with your little man. Every time I hear someone else has cancer...I am frustrated and I want to do "something" to make it better, make them better, make cancer non-existent. And I am with you....every time one of my tests come back with good news (especially with my family history) I can't help but rejoice and thank God, because if not for the grace of God....there go I.
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