The News

Many of you know this already but, for those who don't, the news is that my mom's cancer is back. She's had some trouble reading and writing for the last week or ten days and, as it turns out, those troubles are the result of three tumors in her brain. The breast cancer metastasized despite chemo, surgery, and radiation and now it's spread to her head. Two of the tumors are smaller but one of them, according to what the doctor told my dad, is only slightly smaller than a ping pong ball.

Mom ceaselessly looks on the bright side of things and spent most of our conversation about all this talking about her many blessings. Specifically, the new doctor she's had over the last couple of months happens to be a brain cancer specialist and also happens to still be an adjunct faculty at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. She feels it's much more than coincidence that things have worked out the way they have. I admire her for her positive outlook and gratitude.

Dad's angry. Why didn't the doctors scan her brain sooner? If breast cancer often migrates to the brain, why was Mom's last scan only from the eyes to the thighs? Shouldn't they have been more thorough? Why do these offices have to be so busy? Maybe if these treatment clinics weren't like giant milk barns with people shuffling in and out at all hours of the day, maybe the doctors could take more time and be more thorough.

I don't want to dwell on things like that but I don't blame Dad for feeling the way he does. He's a fixer - and here is a situation that none of us can remedy.

Naturally, I'm worried. When Mom was first diagnosed last year, she told me she felt she wouldn't be around for long. The cancer was aggressive and pretty far gone. But after the extremely positive reactions to her various treatments, I chalked up her initial rhetoric as just what any person might feel when they're told they have aggressive, stage four cancer. Ever since she began chemo last summer, I think everyone in the family had tentatively, privately decided that maybe things would be okay after all.

I think because of that thought, that feeling that Mom had been spared, we're all a little shell shocked now. I think there's a lot of "But I thought she was better" going around. I suppose I always thought the cancer would come back at some point, but I never dreamed it would be so soon or in such an invasive way.

Because of how unexpected and unwelcome it is, I'm honestly not sure exactly how I feel or what I think. Obviously, I'm sad and angry and afraid - but, at the same time, I have no interest in being hopeless or pessimistic. Mom's attitude in conversations with me is always, "We'll just see what happens next and, whatever it is, we'll deal with it as it comes." She's very Zen about everything and always seems to have her eye on the big picture. I try to do the same thing but sometimes that feels to me like I'm just avoiding both the immediate and potential future pain of the situation. I don't really know how to negotiate the intersection between hope, faith, realism, and fear.

One thing we are doing is traveling to Idaho at the first of June. My folks were going to come out here but Mom will be recovering from gamma knife therapy at that time and won't be in much shape to drive across the country. (I mean, Wyoming alone is enough to incapacitate a person in perfectly good health.) So we'll go out there and stay for a week or ten days and come back just in time for me to start summer term. It will be good to see her, my dad, and my brothers and their families. (Dad made the mistake of telling Avery that we could bring home Buck, the family dog. Avery thinks this is a fine idea. Maryn wisely reminded her that the dog's full name is Buck the Doofus and that we don't want a dog that is a doofus.)

We will continue to do what we do. Mom doesn't want anyone to stop their life on her account nor does she want a bunch of maudlin weeping and wailing. I'll keep living life and trying to be happy and productive and positive because, if for no other reason, I know that's what she wants me to do and she'd be mad if I didn't.