Cancer. Such an ugly word. And an even uglier reality. On August 8, 2017, my husband and I found ourselves staring grimly into each other’s eyes, and acknowledging the fact that cancer had now become a part of OUR reality, regardless of how we felt about it in that moment. Numbly, we made decisions about surgery to have the tumor debulked, and then there were a plethora of scans and a pile of bloodwork to sift through…followed by many tearful conversations where we discussed the very un-fun reality of the fact that chemotherapy was clinically indicated, and mulled over the ways that this would affect our plans for both the present and the future.

I’ve been a nurse for several years now. But what I’m learning through this experience—this odd sensation of being a family member of the patient instead of being the caregiver—is that somehow, even when the prognosis post-treatment is GREAT, the reality of the fact that cancer has affected someone you love is devastating in an earth-shattering, mind-numbing, norm-changing way that leaves one reeling. And searching. And questioning. And hurting.

Gradually the overwhelming ache of that hurt gives way to a softening and acceptance that opens the door for others to come in and quietly minister, but this has been a process. Let’s face it, yours truly has never been good at asking for or accepting help.

To allow others to glimpse in and see our pain and walk with us through this season of tears and chaos has been acutely painful. Over the years, I’ve become selfishly attached to the idea that we should always strive to appear to have things all together—to be invulnerable, to hide our needs, to smile through whatever might be happening under the surface, and to always be “fine,” even when that’s the furthest thing from the truth. And when my Father placed me in this situation where I can no longer pretend that I’m invulnerable—where I’m clearly NOT fine, where our family has needs on many fronts, and where I’m no longer able to pretend that I can single-handedly hold everything together—I was suddenly forced to realize just HOW attached I’d become to the notion of invulnerability. It can be surprisingly painful to have our idols pried away.

We certainly don’t have everything figured out at this point. We’re hopefully nearing the end of Jon’s final round of chemotherapy, but there will be more bloodwork, and more tests…which will tell us if there will be more surgery, and potentially more chemo. Cancer has robbed us of our old sense of normal, it’s true—but what we’re realizing through this journey is that the death of the old sense of normal was long overdue.

It’s still hard. There are still lots of tearful days. Chemo totally sucks. But we’re finding that as we’ve been open—gradually, timidly—with people about our pain, and our needs, and our situation, we’ve been overwhelmed by the love, the support, and the crazy sense of being valued that have flowed back towards our tiny family.

We’ve received so much grace undeservedly, and we are truly grateful. 

Things that tickle my funnybone

Scenario 1:

I came home from clinical rotations the other day to find my five month old lying on her back on our bed with my husband leaning over her.

“What’s up, babe?” I asked as I breezed into the room.

“Watch this,” he whispered.

I looked over to see Raedyn combing carefully through his beard with both hands—very gently, with a look of intense concentration on her little face.

“She does this for like an hour every day,” Jon confessed. “I’m kind of afraid to shave—what if she doesn’t love me anymore?!”

Ah, babies. They learn so early on how to train their big humans…

Scenario 2:

A good number of my clinical rotations involve rounding in nursing homes to assess the health of some completely adorable and yet surprisingly feisty little grandmas and grandpas. Sometimes nursing homes are like having a front-row seat to a bunch of adult sized kindergarteners and their drama.

There is one duo in particular who crack me up on a regular basis. Resident A in this room has very severe dementia, and very little of what she says makes any sense. She asks a lot of questions, but doesn’t remember what she said 30 seconds ago anyway, so she’s easily redirected.

Resident B in this room is significantly more alert and oriented—she tells me frequently with smug satisfaction that she still “has all her marbles.” (Although she tells me this SO frequently that I’m beginning to wonder if some of those marbles might not be rolling away.)

Resident B is greatly annoyed by what she terms the “gibbering idiot” of a roommate that she is forced to put up with, but her way of handling it is what cracks me up.

You see, Resident A will frequently lie in her bed during naptime or at night and ask very loudly, “God? God, is that you?!”

At which point, Resident B will holler from behind the curtain that divides their room: “This is God! Shut up!”

And Resident A will look amazed that she has just been visited by the Divine Himself. Her little mouth drops open a few centimeters, and then she says, “Oh! Thank you, God!”

At which point Resident B chuckles like a naughty little school girl and goes back to watching her television in relative peace.

Oh. My. Goodness. I about died the first time I heard this interchange. But staff assure me that it occurs not infrequently…

I realized this morning that, while my 3 month old has more adorable outfits than she will probably ever wear before she grows into the next size (this happens approximately every 2 weeks), her mother has been wandering around the house in the same old ratty nursing bra and workout shorts for the past three days.

Which caused me to realize three things:

• I should get out more. It would force me to actually get dressed like a normal human.
• I should order new nursing bras.
• I really wish I looked better in onesies and footie pajamas. That would just be so fun.

My husband and I recently had a brutally honest discussion about allocation of housework within our home. It may or may not have been preceded by a bit of a melt-down by none other than yours truly…

We had gone out to eat together, sans baby—the first date we’d been on since the baby came almost three months ago. And as he watched me picking at my sushi, he asked, as well-intentioned men will,

“How are you doing, babe?”

I, of course, said that I was fine. And looked down at my sushi. And burst into tears.

At which point, of course, my poor husband began to realize that I was, in fact, not fine. Not at all. He was probably thinking, “Curses! I should know better than to ask that question!”

Anyway, all of this led to a conversation about who was doing what within our household, and since we reached the conclusion that he was (sometimes) putting his dishes in the dishwasher, and I was doing everything else, we decided to maybe divvy some things up a little differently.

Which is how it came about that my husband is now doing the laundry for our family. And he’s doing a fabulous job of it, I must say—he’s a good deal faster at folding things and putting them away than I am.

But the other day, I walked into our bedroom and saw my husband looking at me ruefully from the other side of a veritable Mount Everest of clean laundry.

“Babe,” he said, shaking his head somewhat mournfully, “I really liked it better when the laundry just magically got done.”

I probably got a smug little grin on my face as I started helping him fold clothes…because inwardly, I confess I was thinking, “Cool. I’m a magician. A magic laundry woman. I knew I had special powers of some kind…”

One of my favorite parts about mornings these days is watching my two month old wake up, and seeing her bi-secondly mood swings flit across her face.

It starts with much (as in, VERRYY much) squirming, grunting, and mini squeals, and then you can pretty much see her little internal dialogue start going:

“Ugggghhhh…I just really really do NOT like waking up. This is so stressful.” Her little face scrunches up like a tiny crinkle-nosed pink walrus pup.

Then one eye squints open, and my tiny human starts looking around with a dazed expression.

“Wait. Whoa whoa whoa. Hold the phone. There’s my mom! Oh my goodness, I just love her so much! I can’t believe she’s here again!”

A huge smile starts spreading slowly across her face--and is replaced half a second later as her eyebrows scrunch together in a concerned expression.

“Um, actually…this is really worrisome. I just realized I’m hungry.”

“Oh my gosh, I am SO hungry! Like, I’m not gonna be here anymore if I don’t eat pretty much right now!”

“Wait just a second. Is that the DOG? How does the dog DO that with her tail? That is just soooo interesting to me. Although I do wish that tail was closer."

She sighs heavily at this point.

“Ok, seeeerrriously hungry right now. Stay focused. Where’d mom go? Oh, right. She never moved.”

And then she leans over, butts me with her nose, and looks up into my face expectantly.

Um, yes. Yes, child, I do know what you want. You make these things abundantly clear.