It’s a sinister disease, this cancer. In the last few weeks it’s played some dirty tricks on friends who were doing everything right in their fight to live despite a diagnosis of advanced staged disease.
Their treatments were going well. The follow up scans were coming back with those magical letters, N-E-D and family and friends were exhaling from a rough time.
Then cancer did what cancer does so well…it changed the rules. No more chemotherapy. The patients were willing but the bodies just couldn’t take anymore. Vital organs were screaming “STOP.” Too much toxicity, too much to handle.
Talk about free-falling from a healthy high to a devastating low.
What happens now? Remember rule number one in cancer world? It’s not what we see that worries us, it’s what we don’t see.
Both of these friends say it’s like hearing the tic toc of the cancer clock in the distance. How long before it returns? And what to do when it does?
We all hate rule number one.
September 30, 2011 @ 6:50 pm
I was out of town last weekend. When I returned I found out that the little boy my church had been praying for for the last 10 months had passed away. He was 7 months old when he was diagnosed- not quite 18 months when he passed. Because of all the time spent in the hospital and getting stem cells, etc. he was behind on his milestones. So his parents never got to hear him say his first word, or watch him take his first steps. This disease is just horrible. Little Micah had just been released after his stem cell transplant. His parents were starting to think they had it beaten. Then it came back – more aggressively than the doctors thought. At first the doctors said he would have a few more months. That quickly changed to a few more hours…
How do you say goodbye to a baby. I can’t even imagine. He hadn’t even had a chance to live. 10 months of his 17 were spent in the hospital.
September 30, 2011 @ 8:36 am
Cancer families are always waiting for the other shoe to fall…it’s a nerve wracking life.