Great News!

I was a bit blubbery today.

Dad called this morning to say that his PET scan results came back with great news – the intermediate level of his cancer is GONE!

WOO HOO!!!

Tearing up just thinking about it.

The last five months have dragged on and on. I can hardly believe that Dad has reached this point. I wondered when it would come and how it would feel.

Well, it feels AWESOME!

Cancer sends you on and emotional roller coaster, to say the least.

I’ll never forget the moment Dad called (Friday, May 30) to say that his doctor was fairly certain he had cancer. More tests were needed, but cancer was the only thing the doctor thought would turn up. I pulled off to the side of Highway 52 and screamed and cried.

The next few weeks were hard – a lot of waiting and praying and crying.

When you first find out about cancer, it feels overwhelming. It feels terminal – even if it isn’t. It feels like the world stops spinning. When it feels like the world didn’t stop spinning, you wished it would. You want things to do – anything – just to keep busy. You want nothing to do – nothing at all – just so you can lie in bed and cry. I knew in my mind that hope was there – hope in Christ – but my heart didn’t always feel that.

Today feels like an amazing relief. I was just telling a friend a few days ago that I had gotten to the point where thinking about Dad’s cancer doesn’t “dominate” me anymore. I still think about it daily and pray about it a lot, but it used to feel all consuming. I had moved past that point to a point where it felt more manageable. I didn’t feel like I was grieving anymore, like I had felt at the beginning. Now I feel like it is time to celebrate!

Of course, with cancer, there is a caveat. Dad has more tests next week for his bone marrow, where he had a low grade form of his cancer. He may need radiation, too, but those things are greatly overshadowed by the great news from the PET scan.

I’ve learned a lot in five months: about cancer, about myself, about my family, about my friends, and about my God. I can’t really put much of it into words because….it’s all….messy. So that means I’m still learning about all of it. And I always will be, I hope.

But if I could stop learning about cancer, that would be just fine with me!