Back At It

On my own assessment, I've got a pretty decent brave face - I don't think the nausea inducing anxiety shows.  Jonah's not worried at all, and as he was wheeled into the MRI was telling the team how much he loves MRIs. I think it's the sleepy medicine that he loves, but it's all the same to him.

It's easiest to hid the teary eyes by turning the worry into love and pouring it all out.

It's that time again - another surveillance MRI.  They're every 4 months now, so they're spacing out a bit.  I haven't obsessed over this one, nor been very vocal about it because I'm tired of the rollercoaster and expect everyone else is as well.  I just want to go about living our normal life, concerned about our normal life kind of things - I don't want to do this anymore.

This far out from treatment, it's actually easy to be lulled into assuming that everything is going to be fine because it was fine last time.  Because he's doing so well.  Because I can't stand for the results to be anything other than fine.  And then I remember the scare we had in April.  But surely if we've already had our scare we'll be in the clear right?

The impact of Jonah's cancer treatment is in-your-face obvious everyday with the walker, hearing aides, facial palsy, etc, etc.  It makes it easy after this amount of time to accept this as the new normal and only look forward.  It's easy to forget that he's not out of the woods yet.  The first 2 years out of treatment (that will be May 2018 for us) is the period of time mostly likely for recurrence, but there are 5 year survival stats for a reason.  The fear of recurrence is always there.  Then of course, there's the risk of secondary cancers. It's a cruel irony, that the treatment to cure the original cancer puts Jonah at decent risk for a number of secondary cancers that usually present after the 5 year mark.  He will never really be out of the woods.

We will see the team tomorrow for follow up and go from there.  For now there is nothing to do but breath.  Nothing but to trust that the God who showed up in the midst of the storm is also present on this cloudy day in our story.  All of my worry won't change the MRI results - good or bad and so for today I'm back to focusing on breathing.