Prom Queen

Tomorrow is my big outing to Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston. Things have fallen pretty far when that’s your big day out. In the past few weeks, I’ve been giddy with excitement, as if I’m preparing for the prom at a fancy hotel, my first fancy hotel. In the past few days, however, aided by being cooped up at home with a sick boy, and maybe fighting off a bug myself, I’ve become a tad petrified.

I’m happy that a new pair of eyeballs, world reknowned eyeballs will be looking at my copious tests, slides, samples and reports. I’m looking forward to comparing and contrasting the facilities and philosophies. My hope is to gain a new level of optimism, that a relapse doesn’t mean certain and somewhat rapid death which is the information I’m currently in possession of. I can deal with some level of early death, but if I relapse, and that’s mostly likely to occur within five years, I need to eek out a few more years, I need to get my kids further on their way, I have to have time to get so many things in order. I want to hear about options and resources and experimental treatments and I’m hoping for some better numbers, or something where the arrow points up instead of down.

Life has been so good these last few months and as I feel better and better and can do more and more a relapse seems unthinkable, but then I realize that this whole situation is unthinkable, but is, none the less, quite real, quite thinkable.

It’s so hard to look ahead, to make plans which is, on the one hand, freeing, but on the other, paralyzing. I have to rebuild my business, earning money is a necessity, but that requires long term planning and it seems crazy to do that, and equally crazy not to.

I hope to come away with something from Dana Farber that helps me move forward but I also know that might be something I have to just figure out how to do on my own.