Nothing easy here, not even the parking

I'd like to start with the good and end with the reality. 

I am so grateful that Strother's progress is important to you and I am glad to share his story.  This is a lot.

And we will get through this.

We have an abundance of family and friends who think about Strother every day. There are friends who provide meals. Our community has donated blood in Strother's name.  There are texts that make us smile.  I get jokes and memes that take my mind off the day. Beautiful plants await me when I get home.  I absolutely can not tell you how amazing Cooks is for us. The continuity of care, facilities, staff, mindset.  All of it. It is where we need to be.

The bad. Cooks parking lot is crappy. Always full. And I don’t know why I feel this sense of dread while I drive up the spiral hoping to find a spot before scraping my review mirror. Again. PTSD maybe. Probably.

The tumor is not shrinking much. The tumor markers show that the cancer is being killed off but the actual remaining mass is problematic. Its size prevents him from sleeping comfortably without oxygen. The oxygen cannula causes nosebleeds. He takes it off for comfort. When he is low on oxygen he can't sleep well.  If he has sleep medication he can't be awake enough to eat. His lack of appetite and low oxygen levels and medication he needs to take to prevent nausea cause constipation. If a child on chemo who is non ambulatory with low oxygen and experiencing weight loss because of loss of appetite and zero bowel movements as a result of so many meds would like to be discharged from the hospital after five days of chemo the team is likely to say NO. His spinal cord injury complicates every single thing. This is pushing the limits of what one person can endure.

Cancer isn't fun. Whoever decided to give both a spinal cord injury AND cancer to THIS guy is malicious. Zero out of ten stars.

So there you are. We will be on repeat for the next two months.  And then a surgery. Not a pretty one. 

If you’d like to be inspired, reread this from the beginning. Then stop when I write, "the bad."  This is our reality.