ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

I am beginning to understand that processing the grief of a metastatic cancer diagnosis is not a logical and fluid event. It is a roller coaster of the worst kind, with the lows very low. We need to give ourselves the grace to feel what we feel, and that is hard. We want to get beyond the intense sorrow, but it still finds us and lays us flat.

On Saturday, God answered prayers for normalcy, as I had about 7-8 hours of no anxiety and moving about my day doing Saturday types of things with D. I was so grateful for the respite from fear. Sunday was hard. S came home and much as we tried to ignore it, the big white elephant was in the room with us and cast a shadow. After he left, D and I just grieved for the fact that our family dynamic will never be the same. I want to be S's "real mom" again, not the mom that cannot smile and cannot joke and cannot be the family manager of events and fun. Oh, yes, we ached after he left.

On a medical front, the Mayo Clinic (they may be well-known, but they suck at getting answers to you in a timely way) will not have the last lab results for 14 more days now. I was crushed at this news. We will be meeting with an radiation oncologist on Wednesday to get his opinion on that avenue.

My dear aunt, Nancy, sent me a quote she saw on a church marquee, on a street she says she never goes down. I wrote it out in poster size and taped it to my dining room hutch.

With the help of God, Goliath was slain with only one small stone.

My Goliath hovers, but I say this sentence to myself every time I walk by it. God can do anything. He knows remission, and He has granted it to many people. I pray that my life will glorify Him whether or not He grants me the mercy of remission.