six months
The scans were clean. Merry Christmas to us.
And while we are beyond grateful, beyond blessed - happy isn't the word I'd use walking out of Mayo Clinic.
Because every time we walk out, other people are walking into oncology.
Rewind 10 months and those people are us.
Rewind 12 months and we aren't even in that door yet, we are in ICU praying for hours, for days, for weeks.
Today there are 17 year-olds in that waiting room. There are grandparents, wives, husbands, teachers, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends.
It's like being thrilled that you found a lifeboat on the Titanic.
There just has to be more we can do.
We had to stop in the medical supply store for Rico's compression socks. They had an entire wall of silicone cancer awareness bracelets. I thought maybe I would get one.
Sarcoma is yellow.
Royal blue for Gram's colon.
Then there's my mom.
Lung cancer is white
Breast cancer is pink.
Esophageal cancer is periwinkle. Yeah - periwinkle. There are so damn many cancers they have resorted to periwinkle.
I stopped counting at 12. Somehow, I didn't think me sporting a dozen rubber bands was going to change much.
I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, except maybe here:
For as good as it felt to hear that doctor say, "There is no cancer." I knew that we were just one family hearing that just one day, and my heart hurts for that.
So when Dr. Jean told us that he was a bit anemic, we knew we could fix that with some spinach.
When she said we needed to schedule follow-up surgery to put a post in his femur, we were thrilled that it's a two day hospital stay. When she said that his nerve damage is permanent, that he would never ski again, I was grateful for that. Because the alternatives were all around us. That limp is the only thing I wished for last Christmas. It's the only thing I'll ever want - still.
And while we are beyond grateful, beyond blessed - happy isn't the word I'd use walking out of Mayo Clinic.
Because every time we walk out, other people are walking into oncology.
Rewind 10 months and those people are us.
Rewind 12 months and we aren't even in that door yet, we are in ICU praying for hours, for days, for weeks.
Today there are 17 year-olds in that waiting room. There are grandparents, wives, husbands, teachers, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends.
It's like being thrilled that you found a lifeboat on the Titanic.
There just has to be more we can do.
We had to stop in the medical supply store for Rico's compression socks. They had an entire wall of silicone cancer awareness bracelets. I thought maybe I would get one.
Sarcoma is yellow.
Royal blue for Gram's colon.
Then there's my mom.
Lung cancer is white
Breast cancer is pink.
Esophageal cancer is periwinkle. Yeah - periwinkle. There are so damn many cancers they have resorted to periwinkle.
I stopped counting at 12. Somehow, I didn't think me sporting a dozen rubber bands was going to change much.
I'm not even sure where I'm going with this, except maybe here:
For as good as it felt to hear that doctor say, "There is no cancer." I knew that we were just one family hearing that just one day, and my heart hurts for that.
So when Dr. Jean told us that he was a bit anemic, we knew we could fix that with some spinach.
When she said we needed to schedule follow-up surgery to put a post in his femur, we were thrilled that it's a two day hospital stay. When she said that his nerve damage is permanent, that he would never ski again, I was grateful for that. Because the alternatives were all around us. That limp is the only thing I wished for last Christmas. It's the only thing I'll ever want - still.
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