One Year

I don’t have an anniversary date to mark this milestone.

I could trace it back to Nov. of 2007 when we first saw suspicious signs on a CT scan or Dec. when the PET scan showed activity in my lungs but those both seem too premature.

There’s the end of Jan. 2008 when we confirmed on a follow up PET the cancerous activity. But what about the frantic days of Feb. last year with a million questions coming at once? Will I work? How do we tell the kids? What kind of treatment do I choose?

Then came March when we chose Oregon. I mark the 18^th as the first treatment date. That stood as the trip down to Portland when infusions started with the study drug.

However precise I want to be the truth is that it’s been over a year now since we re-entered the ring and began fighting epithelioid sarcoma for the third time. It has been one year that forever altered the landscape of life for one family.

One year ago I was running a couple days a week, playing co-rec soccer and racquetball weekly and managing an internal newsletter at Microsoft. Somewhere in there I found the moments to be a fulltime dad too. Kim and I made regular date nights and we enjoyed our community, the new friends we were discovering. Shaky moments behind us, we felt like we were skyrocketing. My how one year can change you.

Now I sleep 10, 12, even more hours daily. I’ve lost 15 pounds. I take far too many narcotics for pain. For exercise, I walk the dogs. But when I am active it takes its toll, maybe a day or two to rebuild my strength. I have a scab on my scalp that started as a small pimple and now measures to a silver dollar. Other tumors through my body have multiplied in size  too.

In this year I’ve began two different chemotherapies. That meant twice learning the cancer was growing, twice going through the arduous doubts and decision process, twice telling family and friends monumental bad news. In those trips to Oregon, they gave me 13 infusions of a study drug too early along to have a name. I had enough chemo that it killed the veins in my arms so that even drawing blood is a painful task. They placed a port when accessing my veins was no longer an option. Now, I’m weighing the side-effects of another chemo and suffering through prolonged nausea and mouth sores. I cling to the hope that the side effects are worth the outcome.

My lungs also endured painful abuse this past year. Since Sept. I’ve suffered seven surgeries to my chest. Because of the lung problems I’ve spent roughly three weeks total in the desolate prison of a hospital. I’ve gone from milligrams of pain meds to 100s of milligrams of pain meds daily. Words don’t show the tic-tac-toe of scars across my chest from surgical incisions. Nor do they convey the fear of another lung collapse by invading cancerous fluids.

Yes, in this year there are the countless nights of bad dreams and mornings where you can’t wake yet because you can’t believe this is the world, this is the battle that you’ve inherited. I’ve avoided depression, not that I’m not susceptible to sinking into that season of deep despair – I have in my past, but only through the daily chores of raising three kids in the prime of their youth do I prosper.

People tell you things happen for a reason. Although I think they now know better than to tell me that. I have a hard time agreeing with that after this year, especially when I look at my family. What lesson could there possibly be in store for an eight, five and one year old? Even for my wife, I’d like to say we’re closer now but when we’re both sinking it’s hard to throw one another a rope, but easier to a give a small, timely pat on the back that might just hasten the slide.

Where is the sun, you ask? And yes I’ve seen moments and felt spirits. No, as dark as time can get between Kim and I there’s also closeness. We’ve taken to handwriting each other letters, keepsakes we haven’t done since we were college students writing long distance love letters to each other. Yes, I see my family in a different light. Every moment with them is precious. We’ve gone places that we wouldn’t have gone if not for this situation. And each moment with them is somehow carved in immortality that it stays in my mind, Kim’s mind, their mind for this life and beyond. And I’ve seen the good in so many people wanting just to help, to do anything and everything they can.

Oddly I still do believe in something greater than me. I read Psalms before bed, not understanding them but allowing the words to envelope me, consume me, and become me. When I go to pray I’m drawn to a spirit so much easier than ever before in my life. I wonder why I cry so readily – it’s not my anniversary, or Bar Mitzvah, or my family saying kaddish, yet I’m rocked by something stronger than me, something inside of me and greater than me at the same time.

Some would say I’m lucky to have one year – others haven’t even got that much. They too better not say that to my face. But they’re right just as I hope they’re right about things happening for a reason and how this one year might really be a blessing.