An Introduction: Beginning in the Middle...
Picking up in the middle seems an odd thing to do, and yet to me is the most natural thing in the world. I always planned on a 'normal' life and because I am a bit of a control freak and a planner, it has largely worked out that way. Good school, good job, got married, had kids, blah, blah, blah. And then Fiona, my youngest, was diagnosed with AML at 15 months of age and everything changed. Everything ground to a halt for 6 months and everything else went on the back burner and we dealt with her critical - and it was critical - illness. Six months later we brought her home in remission - a miracle of sorts - and we tried to get on with our lives. And we did a pretty good job too. We went back to work and life carried on, we treated our brush with death as something in the past and counted ourselves lucky we had 'dodged a bullet'
But then she went and relapsed and fucked it all up
Her story and her diagnosis - the freight train that hit our family - was the start. From a writer's perspective it's a classic arc of crisis, resolution, new crisis with lots of cliffhangers and a long slow road to recovery (and maybe redemption?) We did a decent job of tracking that arc and surviving it - but now what? It's impossible to think of it as over; instead we live in the period after.
This period after Childhood Cancer - Fiona's, not mine - is an weird place to be. A place and time full of reflections (probably not enough) and guilt and anxiety (definitely too much) and the normal frustration that comes with being a parent. This time is also, for me, full of space and expectation to do something that captures where we have been, the toll this experience has taken, what we have learned about ourselves - good and bad - and what we think lies ahead.
Let me be clear, this is not some philosophical or insightful view into the 'silver linings' of a critical illness/crisis or life event. I absolutely do not recommend anything about this and would give it one-star (at best) rating on any life-experience-review-site. That said, the humanity of this experience is what draws me to do this. The idea that sharing personal experiences - especially the shitty ones - may be of service to another family or mum who is having to live this. The power of the stories I heard from other parents and caregivers, the horror stories I watched unfold both up close and at a distance and the blunt realities of life during and after can be transforming. What it might transform you into is up for debate.
This blog will be about the realities of what happened - to us at least - what might happen and how we handled it. Right or wrong, good or bad. I think it is easy for me to reflect back and see clearly what would be a do-over and what we happened to get right by choice or by chance. Anyone living this knows your capacities for reason, for decision making and for coping are compromised to the point of being non-existent. Ironically, this is the time when you will make some of the most important choices ever. You are through the looking glass. Welcome to the world where it IS life and death, everything is NOT necessarily going to be okay and things do NOT always work out in the end. Truisms do not apply here and the only way we get through is together.
Fam Jam Selfie - North Bay for Canada Day weekend with family - I'm teaching my kids that all good selfies are taken from a high angle (see how I've already trained Tim?)