Greg has been home from the hospital since last Saturday, late afternoon and has been doing really well. Life is pretty much normal from the outside.

Life on the inside is another story. The pathology report came back and we needed some time, well a lot of time, to sit with it and process it.  

Glioblastoma. Stage 4. Life Expectancy 2-4 years. 

And cue the nausea in the pit of my stomach.

Over the past week we have gone to oncologist appointments going over the regimented medicines. Certain pills on specific days at specific times.  Followed up by a radiation appointment where Greg got his head mask made so his head will be in the same position every time.  Just writing it, I have to get up and walk away.  

Before this week I hadn't given a lot of thought to cancer.  It existed, but about 2 or 3 arm lengths away.   I have a good friend who is in the battle of infant leukemia with her 9 month son, Vaughn, and for those New Wilmingtonites reading this, Adam Zahniser's daughter, and another friend whose mother in law passed away too soon, but beyond that, this was not me.  And here we are sitting in waiting rooms, for the most part the youngest people there, silently wishing we never get called, that there was some silly mix up and when we do, getting that bucket of water dumped on us, all over again. This is our reality now, along with all of you in this office; cancer.  I felt ignorant being so naive to so many peoples daily lives, silently trudging through their own battles with cancer. If it wasn't for COVID I think I would have hugged every person I saw in those offices. 

Here we are. Life expectancy given.  Battle plan drawn. And well. We are feeling all the feels.  Science is science and medicine is medicine.  We are hopeful that we may be an outlier.  That the chemo pill works far beyond what they thought it would and the radiation zaps it out. And it doesn't come back.  But this is our reality.  We are taking a chemo pill (42 days) and going to radiation daily (6 weeks)  and, well, fighting cancer.  And a cancer that can move fast.  So welcome to the tension.   

I believe in the miraculous, and that God does have the power to heal. I also have had to come to the awful truth, along with so many others, walking this road, that this is our road.  And while this road is not one I would ever chose for us, or anyone, I do want to be in it. There is something to be learned, ordained by God and I believe that as much as I believe in God the Healer.    

There's been a lot of anger, sadness, loss, for both of us.  It comes a lot, and at really inconvenient times. I've decided the best way to deal with it, is to sit with it, talk about it, and let it wash over me.  Whether it is the loss of the normal life we had just 3 weeks ago, to the infinite frailty of life that I have come to realize in that same 3 weeks time.  I've decided to let those feelings take some residency in me. To accept it's feel, to let it do it's work to me, to usher me into a new depth of life. Because life's canter pre August 2020 will never be the same as post August 2020.  There's something so vital, life giving, in its own regard, beyond the end of this story, that is calling to me, welcoming me in, however difficult, brutal and ugly at times it is.  To be and live in the tension. 

So once again, thank you to all those people that have sat with Greg and I in the tension.  Social workers who have made this their life's work, nurses and doctors.  Thank you to both of our sets of parents, and siblings and those friends who are showing up time and time again for us. Maybe not sure what to do, but by golly doing something.  It means so much.   

We are hopeful.  And your prayers, support, meals, gifts help us to keep on carrying on.  

With all the feels,
Rebecca