Hurry up and wait.
The chemo is done, 5 months worth.
And now we wait, our options are either move to Sydney for 3 months for a bone marrow transplant, there’s still some disease markers in her bones that state relapse could be on the horizon. One of the largest and longest recovery medical procedures done here in Australia.
Or we wait, and see. She has the favourable leukaemia. The one that sometimes just goes away after chemo. And her numbers have dropped amazingly in the last 2 cycles. So much so that the risk of the transplant might be higher than the risk of relapse, is the juice worth the squeeze?
Is a year of physical, emotional and financial stress, better than 5 years of high anxiety and hyper awareness?
Only 70% of people survive the transplant. Only 40% of people relapse with her mutation.
Unfortunately the call lands on the shoulders of the doctors and specialists. I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse, this whole experience has taught us that a lot of doctors seem to forget they are treating people, not just diseases.
Humans, with emotions and complex situations. Humans with 9 month old daughters who spend all day every day in the hospital to be close to their mum. She’s big now, she’s crawling and starting to stand up. She needs a break from hospitals and waiting rooms, it’s starting to eat into her a little bit, you can see it.
I’ve started to lose durability, early on it was all action stations, no time to be sad, full focus on keeping her alive and learning how to be a full time dad and carer. Now there’s less pressure, less rush, less cancer. So the depression and anxiety has room to move in. I’ve started working out again, that’s nice, just at home with a kettle bell. But it has lifted my esteem a bit. A good piece of advice from the psychologist you get for free for being a cancer carer. But I fear nowadays I’m much more likely to break rather than bend. Any little thing really sends me. The psych says it’s my trauma catching up with me. And that she was surprised I’ve lasted this long.
What are you gonna do? Our daughter needs someone there to be solid. So I still try and keep my back straight and my chest out and chin up.
Maybe some lucks coming our way. Maybe there’s a silver lining. Maybe we will get to go back to being a new, young family. Walks, parks, swings, hot chips at the beach after a surf. Play dates, all these things that have been taken away from us. Missed out on.
Bit of a rant, bit of a relief. This is an old photo, when she had hair. This is the life I’m hoping is waiting for us on the other side of this. Sunset walks around the lake after work.