It’s Friday morning and I’m on hold with our insurer, trying to get them to move quickly to approve a test for Ken. There have been so many wonderful people involved in our physical and emotional care; I’m not naming them out of respect for their privacy but I think my second lesson in our progress toward “new normal” is something one of those wonderful people told me:  “Cancer isn’t a ME thing; it’s a WE thing.” 

We were still in our prior normal on January 18th, when we met with the urologist and on the morning of January 25th, when we went to St Clair Hospital for Ken’s surgery. I hadn’t met the doctor yet; Ken said that being naked with his doctor and his wife in the room was weird and he wouldn’t let me go into the patient room with him.

During the whole process of getting to surgery (doctor appointments, medications, pre-op tests, and bloodwork), there was nothing unexpected:  no lightning-strike, lightbulb-illuminated flashes of insight regarding what was to come.

The surgery was an easy-peasy two-hour outpatient procedure. After the St Clair status board changed Ken from “procedure” to “recovery,” the doctor introduced himself to me and gave me the usual “went as expected” speech, ending with the clincher:  “after the results come back, we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

Nineteen years ago, my dear, courageous sister called me at 3PM on a Thursday to tell me that we’d lost our mom.  Eleven years later, at 8:30AM on a Wednesday, she had that same call with me about our dad.  In a single moment, the earth shifts on its axis; tectonic plates knock together. WHAT?! “We’ll know what we’re dealing with?!” We’re dealing with a couple cysts. They are just cysts, right? But I could tell he didn’t think so.