When Mom and Cancer Meet

Well, we got the call we have been hoping never would come again...last Tuesday, Mom's cancer is officially back.  The little spots on her liver that we have been watching, scanning, trying to biopsy are looking more and more like cancer.  Her numbers have been increasing for several months and as much as we hoped that her numbers were just "off" and she had arthritis making the numbers off, or she was just "one of those" off number results....nope.  ALL of the silver linings we were looking for...all of the google research results showing that negative positive results happen all of the time...yep.  Not happening.  This is REAL, we cannot keep coming up with excuses as to the "why" the numbers weren't where they should be.  Reality is...her cancer has come back in a tiny and small way.

We are continuing to choose joy.  Continuing to choose positive thinking...continuing to trust God as the mighty healer.  But we continue to have to enter back into the chemo world, the treatment world.  A proactive place where we choose to put on fighting gloves and to use modern medicine to kill cancer cells.  

Tuesday was HARD, hard to look at my Mom who feels well and looks amazing and know that inside of her body cancer lives.  It stinks to be real honest.  NONE of us ever wanted her to have to go down this path again.  But the truth is with Ovarian Cancer, this is common.  There are remissions and then little cells pop up and you treat them...then you enjoy another remission.  It's not all sunny days and roses forever and ever down a golden path.  It is work, it is monitoring things, it is catching things when they creep in before they become BIG things.  This I am learning.  

Yesterday chemo began, the first of 6 treatments over 6 months.  Not the 18 we did before, not the 3 every 21 days...but still 6.  We still had to listen to the nurse read through the pages of possible side affects, the risks, the worst case scenarios before you sign the paperwork.  That part makes me want to throw up.  I actually stopped the nurse part way and told her she sounded like one of those depressing commercials where you hear nothing but the BAD in the medicines and the risks.  She smiled a little...I wanted her to realize that while this may be every day reading for her, it's hard for others to sit and listen to and I wished she did it with a little bit more compassion.  I wanted to say "THIS IS MY MOM YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, MY PRECIOUS MOM..." but I refrained from it.  We enjoyed our time chatting and just being together.  I treasure it all with my parents.  Time alone, chemo chair or at the cabin.  I love it, I love them and I love it when I get them all to myself.  

I will never say this stuff is easy, it isn't.  But I also am often reminded by the fact that I know God has a plan, and I know that we are learning through this and being shaped and molded.  Team Mary Lou is strong and we have so many who pray and love us.  Priorities become more clear to me...and that is always a good thing.  My heart is grateful.