I started this blog four years ago while awaiting the results of a lumpectomy, facing the possibility of cancer and questioning life. I ducked the bullet, but a year later my husband was not so lucky – he started treatment for Stage III prostate cancer. Then, to complicate matters, he ruptured his quad tendon and needed reparative surgery, which had to be repeated ten weeks later when he re-injured. The second surgery became infected and after a nightmare six months and five more operations, he was finally on the mend. We thought the worse was behind us until I was struck down by a life altering debilitating illness that has confined me to home. Roles in our house reversed and after a year of caring for my husband, he now has to look after me. It is a reality that we have learned to accept, believing that the worst is behind us.
We have been naive.
A recent visit to the doctor for a routine physical has resulted in a barrage of further tests and Thor finds himself back in the care of the specialist who originally delivered the cancer diagnosis. “There’s only a fifteen percent chance that this is cancer,” the doctor has told him, but we’ve both heard that before, and somehow, we are not as confident this time.
We are too familiar with all the signs.
So, as I write this, we are back to that awful place of waiting: waiting for the tests that will confirm or allay our fears; waiting to know if life will be put on hold yet again; waiting to know when it is safe to plan again.
Are we being tested? Is there opportunity in the midst of all this anguish, or is life just a random draw, and we have pulled the short straw?
In the end, we really have no control over what happens to us, and while we would not have chosen this path, there is not much we can do to change it.
We will put in our time these next few weeks, immersing ourselves in trivial distractions,
desperately trying to think about anything but the worse that can happen. “One step at a time,” we tell ourselves.
Forgive us if we falter in our obligations, or if we appear distant or disinterested. We have a lot on our minds.
One Woman's Quest 