Sometimes the news is more than you can handle.  Sometimes it’s more than the heart can stand to hear, because it’s the heart that takes the hit, not the head when the news that the cancer has spread and the lymph nodes are fully involved and some major organs are showing signs of disease.

The heart just hurts so much when this is the news of the day.

So it went for some friends today who have kept a positive, hopeful approach following a serious surgery.  But this was the day when pathology stepped forward with results no one wanted to hear.

I remember “that” day in our life.  I remember the numbness; it’s almost a white noise that filled my head.  No words could comfort, nothing you do can take your mind off of what the doctor said and it wasn’t easy for him to say either.

It’s a bad day for everyone.

We tried to be so brave.  We tried to be so positive.  Maybe they’ll be wrong.  Maybe the next treatment will cause the cancer to turn and run?

Last night on ’60 Minutes’, Scott Pelley was reporting on a cancer story where Duke University is working on killing brain cancers with polio injections in a phase one trial.  At one point in the report a doctor talks about how some patients are seeing six more months of life and Pelley responds by saying that doesn’t sound like a lot of time.

Oh, but it is….it can mean so much: a treatment breakthrough, a new trial launched, or weeks or months longer with a loved one.

It can mean so much.