Two Worlds

So there is a big movie coming out this summer. "The Fault is in Our Stars".  Young adults, cancer, love, death. 

Cancer just keeps popping up and I feel like I am playing gofer game.  We see it all around us.

You can't ever win. They are everywhere and there are more and more of them coming.  I am sure the Hem/Onc docs and researchers feel the same. Just as they solve one problem, another pops up.  No matter how prepared you are, they keep coming back.  Never ending. 

As many many know a number of us are working on founding a Non-Profit named the Wishing Rock Project.  It is mixed group.  Friends, relatives, neighbors, Cancer Moms.  All working to make a connection to the new families.  I was meeting with one of the moms tomorrow.  I received a message from her apologizing she could not meet.  Scans were done last week and they found cancer again.  Again. Again. Oh Crap.... Again. 

It took my breath away.  A moment of terror.  Then I realized I need to send one of the Wishing Rock Bags to her.  Sometimes it is all you can do.  Reach out, let them know you are listening and try to give them a place to leave a bit of the pain and fear and endless anxiety. 

Here is a family trying to regain traction in the "real world".  Moving forward, working on catching up and trying not to look back too much.  Starting to think it was over.  And then....  It has been my experience that no matter how much time has passed and no matter how good things appear a bit of you remains in Cancer World.  Just a tiny finger or a wrinkle or a bit of gray hair.  It remains.  It is stretchy and can seem to be a very very very long tether but a tether it is. No matter what, it is there. It may be invisible to the "real world" eye but it is there.  

Given this is our dual reality, we are going to pull at the tether a bit.  I am amazed that ME is willing to go the distance.  She was not even willing to go to Eugene until Dr. Belle promised to be there, just in case.  Some how she is at a place she is willing to test the tether.  We are headed to places with no doctors, no internet and no good coffee.  It will be a challenge. We are taking a book to read on the road.  I hope to be able to needlepoint for a few days. 

We both understand this is only a temporary escape but we are going to find a bit of respite. A bit of joy, a bit of adventure and a bit of fun.  We expect to find these guys. 

Promise, I am leaving the mallet home.