Balance

There is always someone trying to walk on a wire across some big open space.  Grand Canyon, the quad at U of W ( I go there you know), or just between a building or two.

We ooh and awww and we are amazed all holding our breath lest they plummet to their death.  We are so impressed with their strength and determination and their ability to concentrate so so much that they don't fall.  They have to breathe so we hold our breath for them in support.

We Cancer World people live on that wire and we hold our breath all the time.  We try so so hard to make it across to the other side. 

"Your child has cancer.  Here is the plan.  You have two years and 14 days to suffer."  They mention secondary cancers and other such stuff but you focus on "getting to the other side."  We mostly get to the other side.

Remember the movie Holes, well after you live on the wire for a what seems like a million years, you find the "other side"  is not inviting.

There are Holes, and dangerous animals and scary twists and turns.  There is no way to prepare for anything but as Paul Schliep put it.... Surprises.

Pick an organ, any organ. Cancer treatment can effect it... If not now, in the future.  It took 5 years for Mary-Elizabeth's thyroid to die.  Her kidney's are not so forgiving this time.  Total Body Radiation, pages of meds, months of steroids and well...... 

Kidney's are sick.  They are tired of filtering and doing their job.  They are going to have hissy fits and not do their job very well.  They don't regenerate like their neighbor the liver.  My brain is not big enough to wrap around this issue. 

 I do know the answer is not a Kidney "transplant". OMG.  Everyone this is not television medicine.  Transplants are the last resort.  They are the worst thing that can happen to someone.  Needing a transplant is like having a tiny bottle of air and having to make it until next Tuesday for the Russian capsule to bring some more!   Now, not that I am not grateful for the fact they are even available but this is a terrible experience.  It is not Jump out of the twin towers or die in the flames bad, but it is close.  She had to jump and hope they built the net in time. 

I am hoping we make it across the abyss.