It's raining I think

So much to say, but not really anything new at all. That's the place I seem to find myself in these days. I have started so many posts with updates as to what is going on, but sooner or later every post I started ended up being about The Cancer. And it was starting to piss me off. (at The Cancer, I was getting pissed off at Cancer) Because, there are other things that have happened in the last 3 weeks, I'm quite sure of it...but everything is still under The Cancer umbrella. The big, stupid Cancer umbrella.

Speaking of umbrellas, Due the the weather out here in the sunny NW, Will's new obsession is rain gear. We stopped at the store one night on our way home from school because for the 10 minutes prior he had been telling me how much he needed a gumbrella from the store. And since these days I am a total sucker, we stopped and got a new gumbrella. And for the last 12 days that gumbrella is talked about at least 10 times in every car ride and must go with us everywhere. It also must sleep next to Will's bed in case it starts raining in the middle of the night and there is a gumbrella emergency. Then he will be prepared with the staying dry. because of the gumbrella. next to his bed.

Christmas this year came and went. My parents came out and we had an early christmas with them (St. Nicholas day) and they got our house all decorated for the holidays...because lord knows if they hadn't there is no way I would have had the energy to do it. Christmas week was..interesting. With Dan's entire family here there was 4 family events in the 4 days leading up to Christmas. The smallest being 9, the largest being like 40. And because of The Cancer, Dan couldn't go to these events so I took Will by myself. Now, his family is amazing and I am so lucky that I married into them and they have been an incredible help with Will...but it was a lot of event-ing to do on my own. It just felt very, I don't know, obvious that Dan was missing...and it made me sad and honestly a little unsettled to be with his family without him.

One piece of good news - we got some preliminary test results back on Dan's blood work on Christmas eve and the tumor markers have been falling really well. Early signs are that the chemo seems to be doing what we hoped it would doing. So, while the road is still hard...at least it feels like we are headed the right direction.

So, you see? The Cancer takes over the post anyway. But I don't feel like ending it there. So here is a picture of Will enjoying Christmas - seriously, how can this not make you happy?

Rough Weekend

Near the end of a what has been a very tough weekend, Will finally had enough of me this evening.

He was trying to get to Dan, who at the moment was not really available and when I wouldn't let him yelled this at me:

"You DON'T keep me away from my Daddy! You STOP keeping my daddy away from me. You are not being very nice."

I know this is a confusing and hard time for him, and I understand that he is going to be pretty mad at me throughout all of this, but tonight, that? It broke me just a little.

2 days down

Well we are two days into the chemo. There are three different chemo meds that Dan is getting (along with lots of saline and a bunch of other drugs to combat the side effects). They all have long names, but the treatment is better known as BEP. The “B” he gets on days 1,8 and 15 of the cycle. The “E” and the “P” he gets on days 1-5 of the cycle. We have been told that the side effects are cumulative throughout the process and that he will be feeling his best early this week and in the days leading up to the start of the next cycle.

So far, it’s kind of like what we expected. Which is actually nice, I can do without surprises. I went with him on the first day so I could talk to his oncologist about the specifics of what they found last week and also to get the Chemo 101 from the nurse – you know, what all the meds are at the clinic, what meds we will need to monitor at home, things to look out for and things to be concerned about, that kind of thing. Then I stayed with him for the day while he got the 6 hour cocktail. I think I may be banned from coming back for a while as I kind of drove him crazy. With every movement, every sigh from him I was all “Do you need anything?can I get you some water?how about some juice?do you need the nurse?anything?ANYTHING?” at one point he asked if I would mind if he just read, quietly. I calmly told him “Sure, no problem. I’ve got a magazine right here” but in my head was more “sure no problem, I will just sit and stare at you for the next two hours and if you make any move that resembles discomfort I will ask you 9 million questions about how I can try to make it better”.

There is this hard balance you attempt to reach when someone you love is going through something that undoubtedly will cause them discomfort and pain. We know that is what will happen with these medications, it’s kind of how we know they’re working. But the balance part comes between you and the person physically going through this. Dan wants to be able to tell me truth and not always have it send me off into a flurry of action. Sometimes he’s simply going to be feeling shitty and there is nothing I can do about it and he doesn’t want me to do anything about it, he just wants me to know. However, if I fly off the handle every time he mentions that he’s got a little chest pain, it’s going to make it hard for him to tell me in the future. At the same time, I can’t see into his body to see what he means by a ‘little bit’ of chest pain – does he mean a little like some Tylenol would help or a little like I should call the Dr. cause it’s getting hard to breath. There is just so much of reworking ways that you communicate with each other and I have a feeling it is something we are going to be working at for the next 9 weeks.