Yep, it was a year ago that I said to Ken, sitting in the waiting room, “If it’s cancer, the doctor is going to tell me to come back with you.” And then the doctor himself came into the waiting room to call Ken back and say to me, “Why don’t you come, too?”

That’s all it took to start us on a journey of self-discovery that none of us wanted to take. It really is, you know … a journey. We are learning how we respond to stress, sorrow, grief, fear, pain/seeing someone else in pain. Believe me; this is no Hollywood movie with the dialogue scripted and the lines perfect (quotable!). But I remain very thankful for all the really wonderful people I encounter all the time.

Some of them enter our lives briefly while others gift us with their ongoing presence. There’s the oncology social worker who pulled me aside on Monday to say that I look like I’m crumbling — “are you sleeping at all?” — and to ask how she can help me. “Do you ever cry?” She asks. I’ve known her for a year now; so I rolled my eyes at her (she laughed) and said, “Only when I have to.” When I was a little girl, my momma used to say “You get a limited supply of tears in your life so don’t waste them.” I think about that a lot because it feels like I’m on a journey with more stops for tears down the road.

Ken’s having a very hard time kicking the pneumonia. He’s been off work since Christmas and the doctor just extended his disability for at least another month. His color is poor; his weight is still dropping. And he’s terribly cold pretty much all of the time. For awhile, we were having a thermostat battle. He would bump up the temperature in the house to a balmy 80ish and one of us would check it later when we were stifling in the heat. Since having the whole house super warm wasn’t helping him to stay warm, I got him a really comfy heated blanket (Costco!) AND a space heater on wheels (Meh.com!) so we can move it around with him.

We’ve been struggling a bit with medication management. He has a drugstore full of pills in the bathroom — stuff for pain, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, sleeplessness, vitamin deficiencies — you name it, he’s been prescribed it. With these last hospitalizations, they reminded us to pick up our scripts on the way home but no one even explained what the scripts are for. Back to my friend google for assistance.  Really, if we could just get the pain management part under control, it would improve things for him tremendously. We’re on day 3 of a new strategy for pain management and while things were not good last night, I am hopeful that by day 5, his pain will be more easily managed than it is right now.

Fingers crossed for positive or even neutral news from his long-delayed PET/CT.  It’s finally approved and scheduled for this Wednesday, results expected at his next chemo appointment.