Our New Normal

I tried to live a "normal" Tuesday today, but it felt anything but normal. I took Wyatt with me to the gym where I swam laps (if you know how much I hate to exercise this may come as a surprise, but trust me I only joined after Levi's diagnosis as preemptive stress management), we went to Art Adventures at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum and, because I haven't been to enough medical appointments lately, I took both kids to their annual eye exams.

This may sound like a normal Tuesday, but while I was going about a typical day, my husband was having his second day of chemo, which is nothing close to normal. His mom accompanied him today, and his dad and friends will be with him tomorrow and Thursday while I try to maintain a sense of normalcy for our kids and try to have some cancer/life balance.

It's difficult to feel needed in so many places and carry the burden to care for so many people at once. I'm incredibly grateful to not be doing this alone, and our community of friends and family have made it so that it isn't guilt I feel for not being with Levi but rather a sense of wishing I could (or sometimes should) be in multiple places at once.

As King Solomon talks about in Ecclesiastes there is a season for everything in life. Perhaps you could replace the word "season" with "cycle" in our family's life. At various times we have gotten used to Levi working a 4-day nights cycle, a shift work days cycle, most recently a 12-day/24 hrs. per day cycle, and now we're settling in to a new 21-day chemo cycle. Pray for us as we enter into this new season that we would have peace, balance and endurance for however long it lasts.