Back from the Brink

Mark said that it took him about ten days before the bad news about Austin really sunk in and he could fully grasp the possibility of what lay ahead. Now it’s taken him another ten days for the good news about Austin to truly sink in so he can fully grasp the possibilities that lie ahead.

It is a fascinating process, how your mind can so quickly and completely adapt from one reality to the next. I was so there — in that worst place — so quickly, already figuring out the weekly schedule for dialysis, planning the activities we’d engage in for those four hour stretches. My mom was too — she had a mental list of books they’d read together and games they’d play. Mark and I discussed getting a Lego table that could fit nicely on Austin’s lap so he could contentedly build while his blood was being removed and cleaned by the machine whirring next to him. It’s a classic example of Whoosh… one minute your life is normal, the next it isn’t. And the next, it is again.

We’re still adjusting mentally. Still feeling a jolt of relief and giddiness when we remember some summer plan that we’d canceled in our minds. I feel like we’ve come back from the dead. Like a scene from a movie or book when a beloved character dies and you’re left there thinking, “No, no way! This can’t be…” and then lo and behold, the heart monitor jerks back to life after flatlining or the hero rushes in with the magic serum or the character claws their way out of the shallow grave and voila! All is better. And you, as reader or viewer, are both thrilled and also disbelieving — “Oh, come on! As if that could actually happen.”

But it actually happened.

There were a few reasons the possibility of cancer seemed so bad this time. I think, for one, it was simply that we’d gotten so close to our goal, just inches away from the finish line, almost touching the two-year trophy before it was ripped from our hands. It somehow seems like it might have been easier if it had happened at the 18-month or 21-month marks, like not such a tease.

There was also this terrible reality hovering in the back of our minds, which neither of us wanted to voice aloud, that we were somehow responsible. That our decision two years ago to keep his kidney was wrong and now we had to do it all again. Mark and I both said back in 2010 that we would take whatever consequences came our way. And of course, we knew in our heads what those consequences were. But that doesn’t make it any easier when they actually occur. I couldn’t help but think that we’d be almost done by now if we had taken the kidney. His two years of dialysis would be coming to an end and we’d be spending this summer dealing with his transplant — lots of time in the hospital, absurd amounts of daily medications, worry and more worry. But we’d still feel like we’d accomplished something. So I was left wondering if it would be worse for him to have dialysis now that he was older, now that he’d be missing so much “real” school (I would have had to pick him up at 11:30 three days a week). With all the new friends he’d be meeting for the first time, he’d be known as the sick kid, the one who never feels well, who misses all the fun stuff. How long would that identity have stuck with him before he could replace that image in the minds of his peers with the strong, vibrant child we all know?

And then, of course, the big one: the intense and overwhelming fear that this was it. I mean, how many times can you beat the same cancer? We’d done radiation and chemo and surgeries and it just kept coming back. How smart is it? How powerful? Back in December 2009, when we were trying to determine a plan of action to treat that relapse, Mark and I asked our oncologist what chemo drugs would be available in the future if the three we used for those six months didn’t work. (You don’t give the same drugs for more than one protocol; Austin had three drugs during his first eight months of chemo and then three completely different drugs during his last six months of chemo.) The response? “Palliative chemo.” Uuuuummmmm, okay, I know what that means: “Cure” is no longer the goal, palliative chemo is simply about relieving symptoms and prolonging life… by a little bit. A few extra months maybe.

So yeah, cancer again would not have been good. To say the least.

But now I’m dwelling and I don’t need to. We’ve come back from the brink, no longer dangling over the edge of the cliff. I feel a thorough and deep sense of calm, like nothing really matters beyond my two healthy children bouncing on the trampoline and my pretty awesome husband mowing the lawn.

I must be the luckiest.