Faux Pas

I threw up at Christmas dinner yesterday. Major party foul, right? Don’t worry, though, it wasn’t all over the nicely set table or anything like that. No, I made my way to the bathroom in plenty of time. Unfortunately for everyone else, though, the bathroom is attached to the kitchen, so they got to hear the entire show and exchange what I’m sure were very sympathetic glances and quietly whisper about “poor Levi”.

I committed another minor faux pas earlier, too, when I fell asleep right in the middle of the talk-to-all-the-relatives-you-haven’t-seen-in-a-while portion of our first Christmas dinner of the day. Some of my morning cancer pills kicked in just then and they make me impossibly sleepy.

And then there was the drive home well after dark when I had to pull over and let my wife drive me the rest of the way home because the passing lights on the highway had morphed into long lines converging at a single point in the middle of my vision. Although I did feel a little like Hans Solo making the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, that was a real shot to my pride. I know I’m a little old-fashioned and the #metoo movement would probably hate on me, but it seems a little weird when women drive and men ride, right? My big male ego likes to drive, but I don’t often feel well enough to do so these days. But I had jauntily hopped into the driver’s seat when leaving our last Christmas dinner, only to be humbled by the pills again.

And then there was my grandfather, who made fun of my lack of eyebrows. At least someone is seeing the humor in all of this.

So at first glance, it may seem like cancer was the Grinch who stole Christmas. It was at least very present all day.

But that wasn’t the whole story. A friend of mine also sent me a picture of a letter he received as a Christmas gift that said the sender had made a donation to Emily’s and my GoFundMe as a gift to my friend, because the sender knew my friend cared for my family’s situation deeply. What outrageous kindness!

And last night, alone with my thoughts as I fell asleep, I realized that I had witnessed a lot of kindness that day. My cousin and uncle who assembled a basketball goal for my kids. The other uncle who cooked pizzas for the whole family. The people who didn’t even notice their own gifts piled beside them because they were so excited to see others open theirs. So despite cancer’s best attempts to bring sorrow to the celebration of Christmas, it had failed- kindness had instead transformed its efforts into acts of love, just like the act of love we were celebrating- the sacrifice of Christ all those years ago. And just like I’ll never be able to repay the debt I incurred that day, so I’ll never be able to repay all the kindness I received yesterday.

And this makes me really thankful. So I just want to explicitly say, “thank you” to all of you. Emily and I have been the recipients of so much kindness that there’s no way I could list here all the people who have given this kindness or what they’ve done, but that doesn’t mean that each and every act hasn’t been noticed and appreciated. You know who you are. You are the people who have brought us meals and put up our Christmas lights. You’ve written thoughtful letters and prayed for us. You’ve covered shifts for me at work and given up your time to work on our flip house. You’ve donated your hard-earned money to our GoFundMe to help us cover all these medical expenses (and by the way, it’s important to me that you know that not a dime of that has been spent on anything but medical costs). You continue to care enough to ask how I’m doing, even months after my original diagnosis. In these and a thousand other ways, you all just absolutely insist on caring for us, expecting absolutely nothing in return, and it’s humbling in the most complete way. So for all these mentioned and all those unmentioned ways you all have cared for us- thank you. It’s so unbelievable how much good has come of cancer because of you.

And now, because there’s already no way I can repay you all, I’m going to ask one more kindness. Pray for me today. I have a call with my oncologist scheduled this afternoon to discuss surgery. The thing is, we’re not yet sure surgery is going to be a viable option, and if it’s not then there aren’t a lot of effective options left for me. So what this doctor has to say today could be the difference between life and death. The tone of our conversations thus far have been positive, so I suspect this call is more to schedule the surgery than anything else, but still, I’m scared. My life hangs in the balance. Until now, waiting to hear about the possibility of surgery, there was always the possibility that it would be an option. But once the decision is made, I may be robbed of that option, so the knowing is actually harder than the not knowing. So send up a prayer for ole’ Levi if you think of it today.

P.S. I received a lot of hoodies for Christmas this year, perhaps because people intuitively sensed that this bald dome of mine needs some warmth. But when I wear them with the hoods up, and especially the black one, I look exactly like Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars. Seriously, y’all. Bald. No eyebrows. Sunken eyes with dark circles underneath. And I think that we should all take a little time out of our day to recognize that This. Is. Hiliarious.

A Christmas Gift

We saw the oncologist in Houston today, and Levi’s Christmas wish came true: no more chemo infusions!

The adrenal tumor has shrunk quite a bit, as has the spot on his lung, but the real reason for no more infusions is the level of side effects Levi experienced this most recent round. For almost a week he was in so much pain that he required help to get out of bed, and he could barely walk. The doctor said another round of chemo could cripple him for life. 

So that means we’re on to phase 2, surgery. The oncologist will put together a surgical team to discuss the possibility of surgery, taking into consideration the current size and location of the mass. It is likely Levi could lose parts of nearby organs, including his spleen, kidney, pancreas and stomach. They will also discuss removing his lung tumor during the same surgery. 

We won’t hear back from the surgical team until early January, but the oncologist is shooting to have surgery at the end of January or beginning of February. The extent of the surgery likely won’t be known in full detail until the surgeons get in there, so continue to pray with us that there would be margins to remove the adrenal mass without damaging nearby organs in a way that would affect Levi’s quality of life long term.

In the meantime, Levi will continue to take his chemo pills as maintenance while we wait for surgery. We’re looking forward to living a somewhat normal life for the next month, free from infusions and weeks in bed. What a great Christmas gift, indeed.

Little Plans

“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood…”’ – Daniel H. Burnham

You gotta’ go big in this life, don’t you? Because there’s just no guarantee of anything beyond today. It’s crazy how quickly things can change. You can walk the same monotonous, routine path for decades, watching the same scenery pass by again and again until it’s so familiar you don’t even notice it, and then one day everything changes so quickly and unexpectedly that you just stand there stupidly, stunned, not comprehending why your lovely, familiar scenery now looks so foreign.

This happens to me at work all the time. I run so many dumb calls that aren’t real emergencies at all and then, every once in a while, I pull up on scene of something that is really real. People are dying in a car and somebody should really extricate them, or the house is filled with smoke from the burning couch and Grandma Pootie can’t find her way out or somebody who means a lot to all the family who have arrived for the annual Christmas celebration is now having a massive stroke. And every time this happens it catches me off guard to see really real reality interjected so suddenly into what had been my cozy, clueless stroll through life.

Tomorrow I meet with the medical oncologist who holds my fate in his hands like a tiny bird, and I wonder if I’m going to experience one of those really real moments at my meeting. We’re doing some scans today and we had blood drawn yesterday so that he can decide how best to proceed with my treatment. Basically, it comes down to how my tumor is responding to the current treatment and if my body can take more rounds of it. And I gotta’ be honest, it doesn’t feel like I can take any more of this. With the last round of chemo, there were many days that I was in so much pain that I couldn’t walk or even sit up to get out of bed.

But I’m hoping for the best, and I’m making big plans. Next August 5th (the date of my diagnosis) I want to be standing on top of the Grand Teton. I’ve been scheming how to make that happen lately, and I know it’s ambitious. A lot of things have to fall into place just so for me to beat cancer and have time to get into shape to make that happen.

But if you only ever make little plans, how are you ever going to do great things?

Promising News

We got some great news today when Levi went in for his bi-weekly lung drain: there was so little fluid that they didn't even do the procedure!

The doctor estimated there was maybe 200 mL of fluid on Levi's lung today - a stark contrast to every other time when he has had 1500-1800 mL drained. This is an incredible improvement, and it gives us so much hope for what we will learn on our trip to Houston next week.

From our understanding, the lack of fluid could mean two things: (1) the spot of cancer on his left lung has diminished and/or (2) the tumor has shrunk to a size that is no longer distorting the position of his other organs to the point of pressing on his lung.

No one is more thrilled with this development than Levi, who no longer has to literally get stabbed in the back every two weeks. We're so relieved for evidence of forward progress, and I look forward to getting to share more good news after the upcoming scans.

Wait

Well, I’m back on the Sauce again, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. This is day three of the fourth round of chemo infusions, and the strange thing is that it’s all beginning to feel so… normal. This morning I walked in to the same sterile lobby smell that I hate and took the same elevator (I finally figured out that the buttons are on different sides of the door in the separate elevators) to the same intentionally well-lit waiting area where I checked in with Doris. I had the same light conversation with the phlebotomist before heading down the hall to the chemo infusion room, where the receptionist no longer needs to ask my name before applying my wristband. At that point I’m fully uniformed with coban on my right arm and the wristband applied, so I’m allowed admission back to the recliners where I dread the familiar prick of the needle as they access my port. Then there’s nothing left to do but whatever I feel like for the next few hours while the little IV pump merrily goes about its task next to me.

And it’s not just the routine on chemo days that’s becoming oddly normal. Now cancer and all the baggage it carries with it- knowing to use the pill splitter instead of the pill crusher, and throwing up on all fours like an animal between the rows of Christmas trees while your family tries to pretend like nothing weird is happening - all of it is just the norm.

And I can honestly say that I never expected this, because at the beginning it was all entirely foreign. Cancer was the interruption. It was the exception to the rule of my life, a break from the ordinary or the silence in the eye of a storm. But now here we are. It’s familiar, it’s routine, and I don’t know how to feel because, truthfully, I don’t feel much at all about it any more. Is that sad, or is it the grace of God that such suffering no longer seems extraordinary?

Either way, it’s funny that this transition to familiarity should coincide with advent, the season of patiently suffering while we wait for Christ’s arrival at Christmas, because it feels like that’s exactly where I am now: patiently suffering. Cancer’s familiarity has led to a patient waiting just like the Good Book says: “we ourselves… groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for… the redemption of our bodies.”

And despite all efforts to the contrary, during this waiting I can’t help but wonder, “how long?” How long must I wait for this redemption? Maybe a couple of months, maybe a couple of years, maybe this thing will never go away. Maybe cancer will kill me one day. Who knows? I sure don’t.

But the one thing I do know and that I have to keep coming back to, that I have to try to believe during those hours of the night which are entirely inappropriate for human consciousness, is that, as Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” This cancer reality may feel like the only possible reality right now, but that’s a lie. That can’t be the truth, because the only thing in life that never changes is change itself. So one day this reality will be no more. Though we’ve only ever known the waiting, one day it will end and we’ll know a better reality, one where peace and rest flourish and the decay around us is no more. We’ll know joy in its entirety, filled up and overflowing, like drinking from a cold, clear river for the first time when you thought the only possible form water could take was the trickle of its headwaters far upstream. One day, maybe soon and maybe much too long from now, all of this shit will be no more and something much, much better will arrive to replace it.

For now, though, we wait.

Story Time

“Hold fast. All storms pass.” 

Conrad Anker is known for this saying. He’s a climber who should know- he’s seen storms, and not just the kind that bring snow and wind. He watched his best friend Alex Lowe swept away in an avalanche on Shishapangma in the Himalaya that he survived. I guess when they heard the “crack” of the slab releasing, Alex ran one way and Conrad ran another and just like that, one was dead and the other wasn’t. Conrad married Alex’s widow and raised his boys. That’s a storm.

He suffered a heart attack on the side of Lunag Ri with David Lama. That’s a bad place to piss off your heart- it’s about as remote as you can get. I think he was even camped in a port-a-ledge (the tent thing that hangs on the side of a cliff) at the time, somewhere around 20,000’ of elevation. That storm passed, but then another one rolled in last year when that same David Lama was killed climbing in Canada.

He found the body of George Mallory on Everest, who may have been the first person to summit that mountain, 75 years after his disappearance and was witness to the suffering that happened there. That’s a storm.

And those are just a few tiny blurbs from a really long list of climbs, many of which involved actual storms- lying wrapped in down with nothing but flapping nylon between you and the wind and snow, all immersed in uncertainty, not knowing if you’ve finally pushed your luck too far and 75 years from now somebody will find you still lying there after the ravens have had their way with you. Like I said, Conrad Anker should know about storms.

I’ve really only ever been to that place once in all the mountains I’ve been on. It was on Rainier a few years ago. We were climbing the Kautz glacier route. It’s more technical than the standard Disappointment Cleaver route because it involves some rappels down rock faces and a few pitches of ice climbing. The first day we established a high camp at about 10,000’ on a ridgeline and bedded down after a beautiful sunset, feeling like kings looking down over our kingdom. Then the wind kicked up and blew so hard that we spent the night with our mouths filled with blown grit holding onto the upwind tent poles, hoping that we wouldn’t be literally blown off the mountain. Then the tent poles snapped, forming sharp ends that shredded the tent as it flapped like a flag in the gale and we just waited for the night to end. That storm passed.

Despite the sleepless night, the next morning we began our summit bid by traversing a few glaciers until we arrived at the Rock Step, a rock face probably 70’ tall that you rappel down onto the Kautz glacier proper. It’s an impressive place, what with the glacier spreading out below you and the Kautz ice headwall above. You hear rockfall as ice melts and the rocks it’s been holding in place cascade down the gullies around you, and then there are the occasional BOOMs as apartment-building sized chunks of ice calve off the headwall and tumble down the other side of the ridge from you, kicking off more rock and ice as they go.

Anyways, for various reasons (not the least of which was stage 4 cancer and a collapsed lung, although I didn’t know it at the time) I decided to stay at the Rock Step while the rest of the team headed to the summit. The plan was for me to wait there while they tackled the remaining ice pitches and then returned to me in a few hours. I’d already summited Rainier and didn’t want to slow down the team, so I watched as they rappelled and then began making their way out of sight up the ice, weaving their way through the penitentes. Then the storm arrived and I was trapped inside a ping pong ball, all alone.

I found a small cave and sheltered from the storm there for 9 or 10 hours and my team never returned. I didn’t know if they were alive or dead up there, but eventually I realized I had to move or die, as I had no gear for a night up there. The problem, though, was navigating the glaciers between me and high camp. Usually you rope up with your partners on glaciers so that, if one person punches through a snow bridge into a crevasse, the others can get them out. Since I was all alone, though, I wouldn’t have that luxury. Some of the glaciers on Rainier are almost 1,000 feet deep, so falling into one would most likely prove fatal. It was a slow trip back to high camp probing the snow out in front of me with my ice axe the whole way, trying to feel for weak layers in the snow.

I got lucky and that storm passed, but when I arrived at high camp I realized my epic wasn’t over yet. The heavy, wet snow had saturated my sleeping bag and then frozen into a block of ice. I pulled it apart like an accordion, put on every stitch of clothing I had (including my rain gear), and crawled in with the shredded rainfly of my tent wrapped around me like a burrito and tacked down with rocks. Then the waiting began, punctuated every so often by knocking the ice my breath formed off of the material resting on my face. Thank God the wind died down as the crystal clear milky way slid over me in the moonless sky. I've never felt so refreshingly alienated from the rest of humanity as I did that night. I couldn't have been more remote on the moon- not a soul in the world knew where I was and there was no way to change that. I don’t know how cold it got that night, but some nearby waterfalls froze into solid columns of ice. That night passed and the next day I descended another 4000’. Finally, the storm had passed.

And now I find myself in the middle of another storm. The uncertainty, the animal fear in the back of my mind, the exhaustion- it’s all so familiar. I’ve spent a lot of time in this place, and right now I’m tired of it, even though I'm pretty sure it'll ultimately be for my good. But thank God that all storms pass. And in the meantime, I hold fast, thankful this Thanksgiving for Conrad’s wise words.

The Art and Science of the MegaNap

Remember how Forrest Gump said the best part of being shot in the butt-tocks was the ice cream? Well I gotta’ tell you, the best part of being on the Sauce is the sleep.

I. Can. Nap.

And I don’t just mean a little old close-my-eyelids and grab a quick, refreshing snooze kind of nap. No, I mean a show-stopping, day-altering, two-ton galactic explosion of a nap. The kind of nap that you wake up from not knowing what year it is. It’s like Morgan Freeman is in my head narrating a slideshow of images from the Hubble telescope of deep space. I’m talking about the kind of nap that starts with the sun up and ends with the sun down and the only thing left to do is eat dinner and, amazingly, go back to sleep.

And my naps aren’t limited to the afternoon, either. Oh no. I can wake up in the morning, take all my pills and down some cinnamon toast crunch, and head right back to bed for a nap that takes me right on into a late lunch like a runner rounding third heading for home. And for those of you considering cancer just for the naps, here’s a little pro tip: make use of the white noise app that your kids like. Crank up the “extreme rain pouring” and you’re off to an aquarian paradise for as long as you like, even when the buffalo herd returns home from school and stampedes around the house downstairs.

And I think these naps are truly the grace of God, because I’ve never wanted to escape consciousness more often than I do now. It’s not that I’m depressed or sad, although I’ve struggled more with those and anxiety than I expected with this. Honestly, it’s that a lot of times I just don’t want to be aware of my crappy day anymore. Let me be clear: I know that I’m a really lucky guy and I am not complaining. I have an amazing family and community and don’t have to worry about things that occupy a lot of people’s time in this world, like poverty or abusive family members or drugs or any number of things. But there are certain elements of my life at the moment that are, uh… less than desireable. Mostly it’s centered around my vanity and the fact that this present predicament, what with the double chin my low thyroid function is gifting me, the attractively smooth bald head, the ever-present dark bags under my eyes, and the potbelly caused by the sheer size of the tumor in my abdomen, makes me look like something you’d swerve around as it’s making a reckless slow-motion bid for the freedom offered by the other side of the road. That’s right, I’m becoming a turtle. An Early Thirties Mutant No-Longer-Even-Kind-Of-Athletic Turtle. So yeah, life is short and sweet and I know I should “carpe diem” and all, but sometimes a guy just needs a break.

And that, my friend, is why God gave us MegaNaps. Thanks be to God.

The Rain: A Letter to Self

Self,

You’ve been through a lot lately, and you know there’s a lot more to come.

All of the old symptoms refused go away this cycle, and new ones kept popping up all the time. It felt like you spent the entire day just trying to keep the train of little pills that rolls down your throat from coming off the rails. And then you went to the “Better Room” for more chemo infusions and you thought about how all the little chemo drops on all the IV poles in that place added up to a carefully measured and fastidiously administered poison rain. Or was it a life-giving rain?

Self, it’s very important that you think of that rain as life-giving and not poisonous. I wish I could tell you that all of this shittiness is happening for a reason, that it all serves some greater purpose, but I don’t honestly know yet if that’s true or not. You may never know the purpose behind it all. But whatever the case, it will be a lot better for you if you believe that the rain is life-giving.

Because here’s the thing: this is your one life, not a dress rehearsal for it. There is no practice for something else. Right now is all that you have. Yesterday and tomorrow are fictions that only distract you from reality, which is now. “But life and death is only a fiction, and not very deep. Why do you cry?” That you are here, right now, is the ultimate fact.

You must learn not only to embrace that fact, but you must follow where it leads and learn to live in that Now. This will be difficult at first, especially when Now isn’t a place you want to be. But when it is difficult or when you fail (both of which will happen often), you must not despair. You must be kind to yourself and live simply, with awareness. Always remember that your life, and especially your healing, are not a straight line, so you must not be surprised when you experience setbacks and bad days. And during those bad days when the whole world grows cold and hope flickers only dimly, you must tell yourself that this will not always be the case, nor has it always been so. Remind yourself that better times have always come, and try to believe that they will come again.

And there’s one last important thing: if you’re going to learn to live in the Now, to move into the New Country, you must not allow yourself to fear your pain. I don’t say that you should dwell on it or hold on to your pain just on principle, but you must be able to simply sit with it, to hold it up on your fingertips like a costly diamond and turn it, watching the light show off every radiant color in the palette in its facets. Because that’s what your pain is, a diamond of great price. If you let it, it will teach you lessons that can be learned no other way. So don’t fear it- just let your pain be there alongside you for as long as it needs. This is the road that leads to the New Country, and you will be better for having travelled it.

So, Self, good luck! Be on your way. Be of good heart and be brave, because this journey will require all the courage you knew you had and some you didn’t. And on your travels, I genuinely hope that “the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace” because, like I said, this is your one life, and you should really make it count.

With great affection,
Self

Surprise! Chemo Round 3

I’ll spare you all the details, but wanted to share that Levi is going ahead with the 21-day chemo cycle, and he started round three today. The short version is that he realized the chemo pills are what have been making him feel so bad, so there’s no reason not to go ahead with the infusions. Fingers crossed that some new meds will keep the nausea and bone pain at bay, making this round smoother.

Just a little bit

We were hoping to share miraculous news today, but we are still glad to be sharing good news: Levi's tumor is shrinking! What was once 22x18x13 cm is now 22x16x12 cm. That's not a huge difference, but it is progress in the right direction, so we'll take it. 

The doctor explained that every little bit of shrinkage helps make a successful surgery more possible. If we tried to do surgery today, Levi would lose his left kidney, his spleen and likely part of his pancreas. The more we can get the tumor to shrink and develop a hard rind (another effect of chemo), the more we improve the surgery outcome. 

We also got some unexpected news today. There is a cancerous lymph node near Levi's left shoulder. Apparently it was caught on the last scan, but we have no memory of being told about it. It, too, has shrunk since last time, going from 2.8 cm to 1.3 cm. So while we're disappointed to learn about another cancer spot, we're grateful it seems to be responding so well to chemo!

We didn't get an update on the lung spot today, other than it is more clearly visible this time since the fluid on his lung was just drained last week. Hopefully they were able to get a more accurate measurement to keep an eye on it for next time.

While we were waiting for the doctor Levi said "man, I really feel bad." And then he put on this smile. He's a trooper!

The last round of chemo was especially tough on Levi, so we will be backing off to a 28-day chemo cycle instead of 21 days. The extra recovery time between cycles and additional medications to manage side effects will help him stay strong for surgery. And, bonus, he will feel better for the holidays!

We'll move ahead with two more rounds of chemo (the next of which will begin November 18th) followed by another check up in January. We're now praying that the tumor continues to shrink and the tingling in Levi's hands and ringing in his ears doesn't worsen. If the tingling and ringing worsen, we will stop chemo after round 4 even if the tumor continues to shrink. However, if it is shrinking and those side effects haven't worsened, we will continue with the full 6 rounds of chemo.

We're grateful for our comfortable hotel in Houston where Levi has been able to rest well between appointments. He's finally starting to feel slightly better as we're getting into week three of this round. We're looking forward to more good days ahead!

What's Next

We're finishing up the second week of the second round of chemo, and it has been rough. Levi has felt really, really bad most days, but there were two days earlier this week where he felt good enough to run a single errand. And he managed to make the most of Halloween by dressing up as Mr. Clean!

We're hoping for a good week 3 like last round, but there are no guarantees. We'll be heading to Houston tomorrow (Sunday) for scans and blood work Monday, oncologist Tuesday, and endocrinologist Wednesday. They'll be looking for signs that the tumor is shrinking, which will determine whether or not Levi does another two rounds of chemo.

Unless Levi starts feeling better soon, it is going to be a difficult trip to Houston. Please join us in praying for:

• Relief from bone pain
• Quality sleep
• No nausea
• Comfort while away from home
• A shrinking tumor

Straight Lines

It’s been a week. I haven’t done much besides lie on the couch/bed, and when I’m not doing that I’m sitting on the edge of the couch/bed trying to get up off the couch/bed. It seems like that’s what I do most of the day- sit on the side of the couch/bed, stare at my feet, and contemplate getting up for more pills/food/hydration.

Then there was the usual nausea and forcing myself to eat, bone pain (but not as intense as last time), dizziness, ringing of the ears, fatigue, dry mouth, and generally feeling like I just woke up on a stranger’s floor with only one sock and somebody else’s T-shirt after an all-night bender with the flu. I’m learning how to better manage all this with medication, though, and it’s all starting to feel routine. It’s sad but true: feeling absolutely awful is becoming normal. I feel awful right now.

In my sometimes losing but ongoing efforts to keep my head screwed on straight, though, I was reminded of a quote this week that gives me hope. C.S. Lewis said that, “a man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line”. He was talking about his nagging sense of how broken the world is proves the existence of something unbroken, namely God, and I think it works the same way for me. What I mean is, my world is really messed up right now. It’s filled with disease and lots of needles and not a little suffering, and my soul objects to these circumstances. It objects not just because of the unpleasant nature of the things, but because it knows it’s not supposed to be this way. It objects to the crooked line because it knows of the straight line. And this is comforting because my soul’s very objection to the crooked proves the existence of the straight. If it had never known the pleasure of a highter, straighter existence, this soul would not feel deprived by its current circumstances.

And if there’s one true thing in this world, it’s that things change. So I have to believe I’ll be back there sometime, to the place where my soul first got this idea that lines should be straight- the place where joy effortlessly flourishes and peace is assumed. Soon I’ll be back to hollering at drivers who don’t yield to my fire truck and climbing mountains only to come right back down (what a futile and pointlessly beautiful catharsis of energy!) and having conversations about anything other than cancer, moving through the days with the luxury of being absorbed in the moment’s inconsequential distractions.

God I long for that.

Hairless is the way to go.

We finally broke down and shaved Levi's head yesterday. You know it's time when you hit your head getting out of the car and all the hair falls off in just that spot. You should have seen the shock on my face when I looked up to see this while following Levi into the house afterwards:

We had been putting off the shaving because (1) no one wants to lose all their hair, and (2) Nora seemed a bit upset when we brought up the likelihood of Levi losing his hair several weeks ago. We were relieved to hear her say afterwards that it isn't as bad as she thought. I agree! What do you think?

BEFORE:

AFTER:

The Fog

I’ve done it again. I’ve sailed directly into The Fog. I don’t know if it’s that it’s been raining all day or all the napping or the chemo or all of it tied together, but I am just dazed. Time is passing strangely, in snippets. I wake to the bumps on I-44 at 29th st. on the way home from chemo at Mercy. Sleep. I wake briefly to hear Nora stomping up the stairs. Sleep. I wake to listen to the rain drip off my roof for a few minutes. Sleep. I wake and it’s no longer light outside, and yet here I am still, doing little more than breathing in my bed as time and the world slide by around me.

I was plunged into The Fog with the last round of chemo, too, but I wasn’t yet wise enough to yield to the fatigue and just go to sleep. After all, how can I possibly need 16 hours of sleep in a day? I’m just barely awake long enough to take all of my pills and drink all of my water. Forget doing anything productive, because you, my friend, are in The Fog. When people come to visit during my chemo appointments, I can’t remember who I’ve told what. I can hardly keep track of the day of the week! It’s like I’m aboard the HMS Surprise in the scene in Master and Commander where they sail into a thick fog bank to escape the Acheron pursuing them.

And I’m struck in a not-so-lucid sort of way how we all sail into The Fog from time to time in life. It’s probably not chemo-induced for most of us, but everybody knows what it’s like. You look up and suddenly it’s five years later and you wonder what you’ve been doing with your life, chasing somebody else’s dream as a default because you don’t know what else you should be doing with yourself. You wake up and realize there’s a lot you want out of life that you haven’t been pursuing because you, too, have been in The Fog.

Cancer doesn’t let you stay in that fog, and I really appreciate that about it. It’s jarring. It’s somebody standing in front of you, grabbing you by the shoulders, and shaking you good and hard. I shaved my head yesterday, and now I don’t like looking in mirrors. That’s jarring. I was jarred this morning when I participated in a room full of people slowly poisoning themselves at chemo. It felt like we were a bunch of adrenaline junkies pushing life right to the very edge just to feel alive, gritting our teeth and then yelling, “yeah, come on! Is that all you’ve got?!” We were skydivers waiting until the very last second to pull the ripcord or bungee jumpers who want that cord to stretch to within inches of the ground. I and the people in that room weren’t taking ourselves to the ragged edge by choice, but it still felt radical, like we were slurping up life in a rich way that only those who really believe they might lose it soon are capable of doing. We’ve left the fog and are gazing out at the wondrous world with eyes wide open; seeing, really seeing, for what may be the first time. Cancer gives us that, and I’m thankful for it.

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
– Dylan Thomas

Nov. Meal Dates

Here's an updated meal train with November dates! We are so grateful for all the meals and gift cards. It has been so nice to not have to worry about planning and making dinner in the midst of all we have going on. Thanks, everyone!

Click here for the meal train.

A note about chemo visits: I didn't add time slots this time, but you're welcome to reach out to me or Levi directly about visiting him during his chemo appointments. He is glad to have visitors!

This Hair Don't Care

Rubbing the steam off the bathroom mirror, I looked at my reflection and remembered I needed to comb my hair so that it’s at least making a half-hearted pretense of all running the same way. It’s stopped growing lately, though, so that I don’t really need the comb - a quick run through with my fingers oughta’ do it. It only took one, two, three passes before it looked acceptably tame. But then, as I reached for my toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, I noticed all the hairs stuck to my hand. There were maybe a dozen or so. I looked down at the sink, and it had another dozen hairs lying there staring up at me like dead pets, and the thought blitzed through my mind: my hair is falling out, and fast.

So that happened.

That was two days ago, and since then the speed with which my hair is departing my head like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship has only accelerated. It’s as though my hairs have no confidence whatsoever in my ability to sustain this body now that it’s awash with toxins. Thanks for the vote of confidence there, hair.

And I’m reminded of this, my own hair’s treacherous betrayal, in unexpected moments throughout the day, too. Some of it is on the scroll pad of my computer this very second. Drying my head after a shower leaves our white towels covered in so much of my dark hair that I have to shake it all off into the bathtub, which only makes me notice how much of it was already lying in there. My hair falls into my cereal milk. It fell into somebody else’s mashed potatoes today, too, but I just let him think it was his own when he pulled it out because hey, I’m no saint. I leave it on my pillow when I get out of bed in the morning and on the Molly dog when I was petting her this afternoon. That one actually felt like poetic justice. Finally she had to deal with some of my hair being on her instead of the other way around. #cancerwin

Aesthetically, I don’t mind losing my hair so much. At least it’s supposed to come back this time, unlike with the usual, boring old male pattern baldness sort of hair loss. I keep telling Emily that I’m basically just temporarily transforming into Jason Statham or Vin Diesel, but I can tell by her eye rolls that, although she believes the baldness is going to be a spot-on impersonation, I may be lacking somewhere else. I feel bad for her, really. She has to look at me when I’m bald, after all, whereas I just have to avoid mirrors and employ my rather fine collection of hats.

But it’s not just that. I feel for her for the same reason I also really don’t want me to lose my hair. It’s because being bald is the hallmark of being Cancer Boy. Until now, I could still jauntily trot around in public and nobody know about any of this crap. I could still pass for normal - I wasn’t yet branded. But now, now that my hair has gone down the drain with my cereal milk, I can’t escape the label. Pretty soon cancer will be the first thing anybody thinks of when they look at me, and poor Emily has to live with that visible label walking around beside her all the time. And for her, my baldness not only labels her as Cancer Boy’s Wife but will also serve as a constant reminder of this mess we’re in.

And I don’t really know what to conclude from all of this, except that it’s a funny, old world. Sometimes you lose all your hair for a while, and that’s okay. At least I’m gonna’ make a sexy bald man from the ears up. And for just a little while longer I have a new party trick where I lick my hand and run it through my hair to show off the impressive amount of hair that comes off in that single swipe. I mean, who else can do that, right?

Broken Things

“Do you think things will ever be the same again, or are we changed forever?”

I asked Emily on our drive home from Broken Bow a few days ago. I was curled up in the passenger seat with my head swirling while Emily stoically made the four-hour drive back home. My body was so angry with me. Everything hurt, and it had for days, and for all I knew it would for many more days. I was afraid. I was despairing, and I was beginning to suspect that there’s no going back, not after you’ve been broken like we had for the last few days.

I was broken in that moment, when I asked that question. The last week had been so rough. At that moment, I was nauseatingly dizzy and hot (my hypermetabolic tumor does this to me often) and had been for hours. For the past week I’d been so lethargic I’d hardly left the couch and the stagnant scenery was wrecking my mental world. I’d been through two rounds of puking, where I quickly learned that anyone who plans to throw up as often as me should not have a bushy handlebar mustache. I’d begun scooping hairs out of my cereal milk as they fell out, and that was when I had the appetite to eat anything. But mostly I just felt like I had the flu for the last week. I went to the E.R., too, for bone pain caused by one of the drugs. I didn’t know pain could ascend to an octave that high. I’ll spare you the details except to say that if this pain were a concert, it would be AC DC on stage. It rocked so. damn. hard.

So this week I’ve been broken by both pain and despair, and the experience has changed me, though I’m not sure how yet. To be completely, indefensibly undone; to be too far out to sea to row yourself back to shore, knowing that you are beyond your own ability or strength to restore things or yourself - that’s territory from which you don’t return unchanged. And there’s no guarantee of a silver lining here, because life, while it may not be intentionally cruel, is indifferent to your plight.

So now I am broken, like so many other things in this world. I am a pencil too stubby to write with or an old car sitting out under the cruel sun patiently waiting for oxidation, time, and gravity to tear it apart. And while this week has wrought physical decay on my body, it left a much more distinct mark on my soul. Lying on the couch watching the dog walkers stroll by at their appointed times each day, unable to help my family move through life, I felt discarded because of my brokenness, an island of purposelessness amidst the swirl of a family’s life. Purpose - that’s another thing cancer has taken.

I find myself fighting this brokenness, because I know that keeping a strong mental game is so important to fighting cancer, and being broken feels like a dangerous step away from that. Not only that, it makes me look weak, like I can’t handle this, and I’m pretty committed to the foolish pursuit of image management, even now. I try to wrap up all of my thoughts with a neat bow on top just like my writing, but the truth is sometimes I’m just shattered inside, despite all desire to the contrary.

But still, the little twinge of fear this causes that has been my constant passenger lately hasn't led to complete despair, because I've read from some pretty authoritative sources that I always have been broken, that it’s just part of my nature. Not even my perceived usefulness to my family or at my job ever really made me anything but broken. I am and always have been a lone sock whose counterpart got lost in the dryer, a lost fork behind the fridge. The only thing that really happened this week is the scales fell from my eyes and I’m seeing the reality of that brokenness more clearly than ever. Don't get me wrong- it hurts to see myself in such sharp relief. We’re so frail, so vulnerable, but our value doesn’t stem from our utility to this world. Just look at Jesus or any of the sages of old - they spent all their time around broken, poor people, and even seemed to prefer them as vessels to get things done. Those people had value to them. No, I think that our only value comes from our resemblance to our Creator, and he was and is, utterly broken - “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” I still feel broken and there may not be a bow to place on top of this, but at least I’m in good company.

At least, down here, it’s okay to be broken.

Shirts!

So many people have asked for shirts they've seen made for and/or worn in support of us, so here's your chance to order!

Your options are red Team Wilkins or gray NFD, as modeled by these lovely ladies:

The red shirt is a softer, thinner style while the gray is a thicker traditional t-shirt. Both come in sizes youth small to adult 2XL and both are $20 each. 

HOW TO ORDER:

Send payment along with your style(s), size(s) and quantity in the notes via paypal (emilywilkins@live.com), venmo (@Levi-Wilkins1), cash app ($LeviW1lkins), apple pay (405.923.0606) or with cash/check in person or by mail (contact me for address).

If you want your shirt(s) SHIPPED to you, add $5 per shirt to cover shipping costs. Otherwise we can arrange local drop off or pick up.

DEADLINE TO ORDER IS WEDNESDAY, OCT. 23 AT MIDNIGHT

Thanks for all of your support! We love you guys!

The Highlight Reel

I've been struggling to find a way to describe last week, and, despite any real sense of clarity,  I'm writing about it anyway.

We did some fun things recently, and it was tempting to post pictures on social media. It would have been easy to create a highlight reel of our experiences, but that would have been far from reality.

In actuality it was a difficult week. We were warned that week two of each chemo cycle would be the worst, and, without having experienced week three yet, I would say it was. Levi felt bad about 75% of the time, and the remaining 25% of the time he didn't have enough energy to do much more than walk across the house.

We tried to make the most of our time together, but note my captions that share the reality that pictures can't. This was the first week that it really hit us that our lives have changed for the foreseeable future.

We all made it to Touch-A-Truck! Levi mustered this happy face while feeling terrible, having a horrible headache, nausea & sky-high blood pressure. He spent most of the time sitting on a parking block and left early with his mom. Maybe going out after 4 days of chemo infusions, starting a daily chemo pill and getting a flu shot was a bad idea. 

We took our annual trip to Broken Bow over fall break with our friends. You'd never know it by these pictures, but Levi spent the night before we left on the trip in the ER with excruciating bone pain. It turns out the medicine he took to combat this side effect of another medicine wasn't enough. Thankfully we were able to get it under control and still go on our trip. Still, Levi was unable to leave the cabin while we were there. We're grateful for understanding friends and beautiful porch/hot tub weather. 

Today was Nora's school field trip to Orr Family Farm. Last year Levi and I were both able to go as chaperones. This year I left for the trip as Levi was taking a morning nap after a full night's sleep. 

Since Levi's diagnosis, our goal has been to have as much normalcy as possible. While none of this is normal, we're doing the best we can.

Breaking Cold

This morning broke cold, almost freezing. And then the sun rose too quickly, filtered through the pine needles and leaves that haven’t yet decided to show off the colors hidden within them. Then, at just the right time, when the sun had shone on them for just long enough, those leaves began to steam as the dew returned to the sky from whence it came and the sun pierced through that steam to make sure I couldn’t miss the delicate swirls as they departed. It was a very good thing.

I like cold mornings. They remind me of a lot of cold mornings on mountains, when you wake up warm surrounded by so much down but you know that your cold boots are waiting for your toes and you just lie there for a moment staring up at the taut red fabric of the tent above you, thankful. Those mornings are very good also. I read something about the cold the other day that describes it perfectly:

“You’ve lost your phone signal but found a deeper connection. You’ve come to the snowy hinterlands to pitch a tent, to see the sun rise, to remember what it feels like to be hungry, to let exertion instead of boredom exhaust you. You want to know what it feels like to be very, very cold and to have to make your own shelter. And at the end of the day, tucked into your mummy bag, before you fall headlong into sleep, you think: I am a part of this world, a line of the code, not a glitch… Meanwhile, nature looks on, indifferent, as you become aware…”

I’ve been pretty lucky, so I’ve seen lots of mornings like these. And it’s true that they do make you feel like a part of this world, a line of the code, not a glitch. Cancer is like that, too, and I think that’s one of its gifts. When you have it, it reminds you that you are a part of this world, for better or worse. You belong here, but that means you’re no more exempt from the suffering than the joy of this place. You have cancer because… well, there isn’t really a “why”. It happens to you just like things have always happened to everyone and everything, because you are a part of this place.

There’s a camaraderie here, and a love that develops for all the other people here with you. Cancer might not be their burden, but you can be sure they’re suffering from something. And knowing you are not a glitch, that you are exactly where you should be, allows you to show yourself some grace. It frees you to be kind to yourself because whatever is happening is not the result of some massive screw-up on your part, it’s just the way things go in this place.

 And what a place it is, where mornings break cold.

J. and the Waiting Place

This is day 4 of my chemo, and I’m starting to feel it (fear not, dear Reader, this isn't nearly as depressing as that sentence sounds). Day 1 I felt normal, Day 2 brought on some fatigue, but yesterday afternoon felt like I took a stun gun to the chest. It knocked me down and stole my lunch money. It had its way with me and didn’t even take me out to dinner first. This morning brought real improvement, though I expect things will end up this evening much like last night. So here we go! I’m climbing back into the ring a little bruised and with one of those bleeding cuts above an eye that fighters always get because I’m a stupid glutton for punishment.

In the meantime, the port they placed in my chest so they can more easily pump the hopefully life-giving and/or fatally toxic medications hurts like a son of a gun. It was placed less than a week ago in what was sold to me as a “minor procedure” that felt a lot more like “major surgery”, and has since been accessed four times by needles that are so long I don’t understand how they don’t poke all the way through the port and out my back. And the thing is that each successive stick hurts a little more, because the surgery site still isn’t healed up and it’s getting angrier and angrier. I bought some lidocaine cream last night and forgot to bring it today, so I knew accessing the port today was going to hurt before I even arrived.

And then I met the guy who would be accessing said port, and my fears were not alleviated. Let’s call him J. to protect this man’s identity. Underneath J’s shaven head, bushy blonde eyebrows, and intensely blue eyes you’ll find thick, beefy arms both covered in full tattoo sleeves with catchy and concern-inducing mottos like “pain is an illusion” (except to the patient), and “broken” (the people left in his wake?). To complement these little gems and fill out the rest of the sleeves, he’s covered in images of women weeping over tombstones labeled “darkness” and a large skeleton praying over a rosary. Yeah, this is the guy who will be stabbing the needle in my super-sensitive, not-yet-healed port today. My chances for a gentle stick that didn’t result in mind-altering pain were rapidly plummeting into the zero range.

And I’m proud to report that J. really lived up to the image he’s putting out there into the world. One jab at me was enough to curl my toes, but it wasn’t until he stepped back and then came at me with his full weight a second time that my feet left the floor and my eyes threatened to bug out of my head like Bugs Bunny’s. It seems he got all that latent animosity out of his system right there up front, though, because since then he’s been as soft-spoken as ever and, like all healthcare employees I’ve encountered, suitably relentless in his attempts to provide me with a warm blanket. Way to be, J.

So now that J. has completed his fiendish task, I have time in between super kind visitors to look around this place, the “oncology infusion” room, and notice that this place isn’t really what you’d expect. I’d expect it to be like the Waiting Place in Oh, the Places You’ll Go:

…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
Or a bus to come, or a plane to go
Or the mail to come, or the rain to go
Or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
Or waiting around for a Yes or No
Or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

But it’s not like that at all. It’s actually quite a productive place, in a useless, just-passing-the-time sort of way. From the vantage point of my seater-heater equipped recliner, everybody I can see is at least 40 years older than me, so the activities represented do represent those of a certain generation. Sue Grafton and Steven King are really getting exercised across the room, while some amorphous yellow-orange blob of a scarf? is really coming along next door. And don’t forget that white blood cell counts are plummeting and red blood counts are being decimated simultaneously all around us.

So maybe this place, like a lot of others, isn’t so useless after all. And it occurs to me that that’s part of what makes cancer suck, too: it makes you feel useless. It takes you out of the communal game of life to play your own, much lonelier game alone on the sidelines. You’re playing solitaire by yourself in the end zone of the high school football game. While everybody else is going to soccer practice and zipping by in red fire trucks (I literally stood on a street corner this morning and watched as my crew drove by on the engine I would be driving en route to a call if I didn’t have cancer), you’re still just standing there isolated like bubble boy thinking your own thoughts in your own little cancer-filled world. I don’t mean to suggest that everything about my life is defined by cancer, just that my life is different than all of those around me now that cancer has interjected itself into it. The overall effect is to leave a guy feeling, well, useless. Stuck in the Waiting Place for months without purpose or hair.

But… maybe this place isn’t so useless? I certainly hope it’s not as useless as it feels. Maybe this cancer place, just like the Oncology Infusion room, has more going on than meets the eye. It’s easy to look at the pale, drawn faces and the IV’s filled with poison and see only death at work here, but the truth is that a lot of life happens here, too. It’s just harder to see- you have to pick up a rock and look underneath to find it sometimes. So here’s to hoping things aren’t as they seem, that there’s radiance and beauty hidden just beneath the surface of all the junk of this place and this life. I think there is. I think it’s there, and I sure hope to see it.

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.

High and Low

It’s happening! Right now, this very instant, the first giant tubes of chemo (with an appropriately sinister nickname of “Red Devil” for both its wicked side effects and the color they say it’s about to turn my urine) is pumping through a tube into my chest. I waited 56 days, 1 hour, and 38 minutes to begin treatment for cancer after a Doc told me for the first time that I had the stuff, and the wait has finally ended! This is kind of messed up, but I’m actually excited to be here slurping up my poison through my fancy new “technological enhancement” as I call it, or “port” as the rest of the world lamely describes it.

The pale, hairless, and sleeping (I hope…) people around me, though, are serious buzzkills. They look like cancer patients on chemo; solemn, pasty Ghosts of Christmas Future just lying there as Emily and I are over here grinning like idiots into our phones taking selfies with duck lips, which I didn’t realize until just now I’ve never before attempted and am poorly prepared to execute (I have no lips!). But hey, what the hell, you only get one first chemo appointment in life, and we’re gonna’ make the most of it. I even wore my new “chemo shirt” that Emily bought me, despite the fact that I’m convinced she just re-branded a women’s breastfeeding shirt. Luckily there are no hungry babies around here with big ideas.

And the soundtrack to Chemofest 2019? Empire of the Sun is opening us up with “High and Low”. Listen to it, and you’ll know exactly how the first day of chemo feels. It’s such a good song, and it perfectly describes this whole journey. It’s all just highs and lows, and the fun part is that you never know what you’re gonna’ get in a day. It’s Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates. Sometimes you even feel both high and low at the same time, which I didn’t know was possible. It’s probably a lot happier and more energetic song than this saddest of places deserves, but dammit, it just feels so good to finally be doing something about the cancer, even if it’s gonna’ make me lose all my hair, pee bright red like I just left Chernobyl, and, (the least cool of all the side effect of all) give me leukemia in 3-5 years.

Today I’m thankful for the highs and lows and the everything in between. I can remember having climbed 25 different mountains in my life, some of them a few times, and I’ve been scuba diving and looked down over a wall that plunged 3,000’ down into the depths of the earth, and in between those two extremes I’ve seen and continue to see so much radiance, beauty, and love here on Earth. Even the pitiable forms that only slightly still resemble people lying in their recliners next to me and which I am destined to become still retain the image of our suffering God; He was, after all, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

I don’t know what it is about running a liter of death into your veins, but there’s just something about it that makes life seem awfully sweet. I can’t wait to get home today and see Nora and Wyatt. I can’t wait for the fall and I daydream about the first time a tone drops when I get to go back to work and drive big red fire trucks again. There’s so much good coming as we're running life full tilt at its most absurd.

Home

That which contracts has surely expanded.

That which grows weak has surely been strong.

That which fades has surely been bright. – Tao te Ching

He has made everything beautiful in its time. - Ecclessiastes 3:11

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

The soul that rises with us, our Life’s Star

Hath had elsewhere it’s setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness – William Wordsworth

He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done. – Ecclesiastes 3:11

Home. That’s what I’m thinking about. Home. Not bricks and mortar, much as I do love that place. No- home. You know what I’m talking about. That nagging sense that there is just some thing, some place more that we used to know and to which we’ll one day return.

And here’s what I’m thinking about home: if we all know this longing for it, then we’re just not of this world. Our souls come from a better place. I don’t know what part of us retains this fuzzy memory of somewhere else better, but we all know it, don’t we? It must be the radiance, the very joy of the Trinity. You can’t ever forget it once you’ve known it, and we’ve all known it, so that longing for home never disappears so long as we’re away.

 This sense of a long-lost joy has to be theophany- God making himself known. This is surely the eternity that He put in our hearts- his own joy- and it has made us beautiful for a time. He must delight in this. He’s so playful, isn’t he? He hides the most infinite thing, eternity, right in our fragile, finite hearts and the keys to wisdom in the hearts of children- the least (or most?) wise of people.

We’re away from home for now. We’re sailors weary of an all blue horizon, travellers who miss the home cooking from their place, displaced exiles wandering looking for belonging for too long. Chemo coming on Monday and my arm still hurting from surgery Thursday and Nora crying when I tell her I’m going to lose my hair all remind me that things are not as they should be. But we’ll return one day. To home. That which contracts has surely expanded, and will expand again. Beauty‘s time will return. The soul that has risen with us will rise again, and the eternity within our hearts will see us back home.

I know this is true. But for now, I just miss it. I miss home.

A Very Dr. Seussical Cancer

I’m just gonna’ leave this right here...

It came for me one August day 
In a town called OKC. 
Cancer was callin’ my name, 
It said “hi” to me. 

We’d seen a bunch of docs already, 
Figurin’ just what was wrong. 
I’d become so short of breath, 
I could hardly get along. 

Well that was just the beginnin’, 
Of scans and sticks and draws. 
The docs, they kept on orderin’ them, 
To find out all my flaws. 

‘Till one day they saw a tumor, 
On an x-ray of my chest. 
What the heck is that thing there? 
They didn’t have to guess. 

Lil’ man’s name is Timmy Tumor. 
He’s my little passenger. 
He’s closer than my family is, 
Inside me, as it were. 

But Timmy is a menace! 
He makes me feel like shite. 
For such a very cute lil’ thing, 
He’s just not very nice. 

So he will have to go now - 
It’s non-negotiable. 
But I can’t just simply kick him out - 
It’s become intractable. 

And now fin’lly the docs agree, 
Say Timmy has run his course. 
We’ll surgically remove him soon, 
If needed, use some force! 

But the first step is to sit here, 
Poison drips into my vein. 
Mourning my beard that soon will leave, 
And fanning hope for gain. 

Like one day this’ll all be gone, 
I’ll return to normalcy. 
This will all feel like a dream, 
End of February. 

I’ll be back on top of mountains! 
I’ll drive red fire trucks! 
I’ll climb my stairs without the huffing, 
Feel like a million bucks! 

I’ll be back up on that horse real soon, 
And you’ll all come to see, 
There was a reason for the troubles, 
That did just come to me. 

You’ll view the love and peace and joy, 
That came to many lives, 
Even in midst of strife and death, 
As I strove to survive. 

So hopefully that is a “why”, 
In the midst of my present plight, 
That pulls me across the finish line, 
And sustains me through this fight. 

Cause I don’t know how much it’ll take, 
Seein’ through to the end, 
Till things are back like they should be, 
Healed body on the mend. 

Obviously my mind should not be left unsupervised at odd hours of the night after reading Dr. Seuss to Nora and Wyatt at bedtime.