We met the Chicago oncologist today. The 2 hour plus drive in reminded us why we don’t like driving to Chicago 🙂
The doctor is a specialist on gastro oncology. She walked us visually through all of the scans that have been done over the last few months and the tests that have been done and explained what they show, why that does (or does not) matter, and why they then went in this direction or that direction based on that. Made lots of sense and was nice to be visually walked through.
We didn’t learn much new information, but a lot of confirmation of what we kinda half-knew, but hadn’t had an expert confirm. We are attacking this bluntly, so excuse mine, but I believe clarity is better than vagueness… The average lifespan for what Rebecca has is 2-3 years from diagnosis. The therapies will eventually not work, and so they will keep switching them until they either run out of therapies, or until they are just not doing anything to hold things off. We kinda knew these things, but the doctor confirming added a realness that hit different.
Despite this we are keeping a positive attitude. There’s no reason to waste a bunch of time crying in your pudding (what does that even mean?) when there’s a clock ticking. We are going to see how this round of chemo goes and see what effect is has on things, and meanwhile we are going to try to be more intentional about the time we are spending with each other and our girls as it appears to be diminishing much faster than we would have chosen.
Rebecca and I have a strong amazing marriage, and we have some insanely awesome kids that enjoy hanging out with us. We are both so thankful for this. We are also very blessed to have a very large support network of friends and family around us (like you guys). Keeping positive and exercising and keeping at it will help to eek out more time with Rebecca, so that’s the goal right now. We continue to appreciate prayers for us. God has given us so much, and he continues to do so.
We have tests and an appointment on Friday in preparation for chemo on Tuesday, and we are going to head up to Lake Geneva after church Sunday and stay the night and hang with the girls for Memorial Day. I’ll give an update after chemo Tuesday.