Fair warning:  I promise in advance that this post is going to be all over the place.  

Where to start?  At the end of April I noticed a tiny spot on Jets head.  I thought it was a tick but after intensive searching I determined that it was not a tick.  It was so small and it wasn't bothering him so after that initial search, I didn't think anything else of it.  Then, around May 3rd, Jet went for a visit with my parents.  I needed one less thing to take care of for a second and my parents are always so happy to help in any way possible.  So, anyway, on May 9th my mom sent me a picture of his head.  It was no longer a teeny tiny little spot.  In the photo it looked huge and raw and painful.  They brought him home the next day and I took him immediately to a vet.  She walked in, looked at him and immediately said "That looks like a mast cell tumor."  I stared at her blankly for a second before saying "Um?  That sounds like cancer.  Is that cancer??"  She said "Yup." In the most painfully nonchalant way imaginable.  Followed by "Its almost certainly that.  But there is an outside chance that it could be a benign tumor.  Either way, it will need to be removed."  She followed that up with a super brief conversation about how whatever it is, it is infected.  We need to start with antibiotics and then figure out a plan from there.  

I somehow managed to not panic or freak out while I was there.  And I even drove myself home just fine.  But, once I got home?  It was ugly.  All I could think about was telling my children, eight months after they lost their dad to cancer, that their dog has cancer.  I decided I would not tell them that, until it was 100% confirmed.  And maybe, not even then.  We started the antibiotics that night and it looked better the next morning.  After seven days of antibiotics, I couldn't see how this was going to be anything at all.  It looked almost all the way healed.  It has now been ten days. And today I took him back to the doctor for a recheck.  The verdict?  He most likely had an ingrown hair follicle that became infected and then abscessed.  No mention of the fact that they told me that my dog almost certainly had cancer.  

I learned from that experience that I am NOT ready to deal with hard things.  I have completely lost the ability to cope with, even the idea of hard things.  Maybe someday, I will relearn that skill.  Speaking of hard things, at the end of March, I was handed a plate FILLED with hard things.  One of them, was that Patrick lost his job.  They loved him (because obviously, he is awesome) but they did not have the money in their budget to bring him back when his next co-op term starts in July.  My instinct at that time was to go directly back to Johns (amazing) fraternity brothers to plead for more assistance.  Patrick, looked at me and said "I would like to try to get a job all by myself."  And guess what?  Not only did that boy get a job, "all by himself."  He got THE job.  THE job that he has been speaking about since he decided that he wasn't going to play college baseball.  THE job that he has been trying to land since he walked through the doors of his first Kettering job fair.  THE job that made him decided that cars were his thing and that engineering was what he wanted, not baseball.  Patrick will officially be starting his co-op with General Motors in July.  It would be impossible for me to be more proud of him.

And now, the part of this post that I have been trying how to word for at least a week.  Why has it taken me that long?  Because I desperately do not want to hurt anyones feelings.  To the point that I very seriously considered not making this post.  BUT, I have determined that, this is an instance where my feelings on this subject matter more.  In an effort to avoid hurting feelings as much as possible, I am going to share more on this subject than I ever intended.  So here goes:

My views on God, and, to a greater extent, religion, were not in a great place BEFORE John got sick.  I had been struggling with it for YEARS, leading up to Johns cancer diagnosis.  And then.  John was diagnosed with cancer.  And then. I watched it slowly take away everything from him. AND THEN.  He was taken away.  Not just from me, but from his children.  His teenage children.  My views on God AND Religion AFTER that experience are.  I don't have the right words to use to avoid offending people who feel differently than I do.  And so, what is the point of this portion of my post tonight?  It is to tell you that when you reach out to me with love and kindness I almost always appreciate it.  I want to hear from you.  I don't want to ever come across as ungrateful.  I am so incredibly grateful for the love, support and generosity that my family has received over the last year and a half.  BUT when you reach out to me with messages about God and Jesus and Religion, I promise you that those messages are not having the impact that you want them to have.  In fact, they are almost certainly having the exact opposite impact on me, than what you are intending.  Because even through my pain when I get these messages, I know that you mean well and that you are coming from a good spot.  I just need to not get them anymore.  So if you could please respect my feelings on this topic, I would be incredibly grateful.  I can promise you that I have a small handful of people who I am very, very close to who I will go to if I ever feel like this is conversation that I am ready to have.  

As I said all the way back at the beginning of this post, I know this is all over the place.  I could have boiled it down to:  My dog does not have cancer.  Patrick got a job.  Please don't send me anymore religious messages.  But once I get started on these posts, they almost always end up much, much longer than I intended.