Change

Just when you need a quiet day, you get….a quiet day. No new tests, lotsa “wait until Monday to decide”. Sunday is a day of rest, right? A delightful change.

It is interesting to think about how this experience will change us.

Some of the best performances in sports and business come after a run with cancer, so Drew can have every confidence that he can return to school and work and life and, if he wants to, win his equivalent of the Tour de France or the Pulitzer Prize. The radiation and side effects shouldn’t leave any lasting disabilities, and we are counting on Wanda and her fellow stem cells to make sure cancer doesn’t return. The averages and worst cases are all still out there, neatly documented in the 11 page consent form, but staying ahead of the average is Drew’s specialty.

Mentally, Drew and all of us will have challenges to make this a strengthening experience. Like war, being in a real cancer battle is different from reading about it. We will all lose some of positive, playful, trusting view of life. We will probably never like Jello again. We will all feel a twing of fear when any of a dozen symptoms show up that are harmlessly normal in daily life, because we remember how this process started. We will be a closer family with closer friends. We will know better how to help our family and friends when others have cancer. We will jump higher when the phone rings at the wrong time.

The changes we need now are more related to medical ones - the number of white cells changing upward, the amount of fluid changing downward, and the measures of fever, kidney function, and other important numbers not changing from normal. And each day on the whiteboard in Drew's room, we change the day number and all say, "one day closer, Drew". Day 13 starts in a few minutes. (28 days at Duke, and starting day 13 with Wanda).