Falling Slowly

I feel like we have settled in to a new normal for us. There is less "every moment" anxiety. We have days and even a week at a time without scheduled something or others. Sometimes I feel back to normal, I take a good deep breath and take a moment and then BAM I feel like I have been hit in the stomach and I remember that my son has cancer. Cancer. Chemo. What in the hell? It's like time is moving in this whirlwind and I am brought back to the present sadness. Sometimes it is a picture, pre-diagnosis, a memory, a song that has this enormous effect on me. I will see a picture of my Spence with his hair and a little more meat on his bones and think, yes this is normal, this is who we are, maybe it was a dream. I turn my head and am awakened from this daydream by a sweet, skinny, fragile, bald boy. I do not curse the heavens, I do not place any blame, but I feel sad. Sad to watch him fight so hard. Sad to hear others who have lost their loved ones to this icky demon. Sad to leave my kids during chemo. Sad to miss my husband. Just plain sad. My guy is fighting so incredibly hard. The head of Oncology here is the chemo doc on the floor this week. He came to see Spence today, like he does every day and he said to me in his sweet voice, "He is incredible how he does this, he really is". He was amazed at how well his body has been reacting to all of his chemo treatments. He rarely throws up, he rarely complains. When the docs come in he is sitting there playing video games as happy as can be. He tells jokes, and he shares his knowledge of whatever his interests are at that minute. He is made of steel. He is happy. I was thinking today of the many blessings in my life that have been a result of this cancer. Too many to count. Little things that I had been praying for in my life. In fact all of the things that just weren't falling into place in my life, I believe just about every one of them has found their position now and have beg more into who I really am. What a blessing, a miracle really. Today my blessing is Jen. Jen is one of our favorite nurses. We got her again, today. She made our "third floor" stay a more enjoyable, comfortable place to be! Another blessing today is Nate. He came to visit us on his lunch break and I think it made both Spence and I pretty happy. Somedays smiling is a hard thing to do, but why not when we are so blessed?!