This morning Anne and I met with her oncologist to map out her treatment plan. Anne later affirmed what I sensed during our visit: it felt good to have some concrete dates in place.

There’s so much I want to say right here, but my jumbled brain is having a hard time processing things. Mainly, how to articulate what it’s like to see your spouse visibly relieved – dare I say, glad? – to know that next week she’ll have chemical grenades thrown into her bloodstream.  Or as Anne so cleverly coined for us – they’re releasing the ninjas.

That’s not to say she did cartwheels in the lounge as we left the Duke Cancer Center…

Okay. Brass tacks:

Chemo first. Starts next Tuesday, June 9th, and is repeated every three weeks over the course of about four months. Many of you know this, but chemotherapy has a cumulative effect. Meaning, Anne will feel more fatigued after each treatment. Hate that.

Surgery second. Still working out the details of what that will look like, but knowing my wife, she’s going to opt for the most fail-proof procedure. You guys probably catch my drift.

Third, radiation. That sumbitch made it to her lymph nodes, and my limited understanding is that after surgically removing the infected one, you need to cover that area with napalm to make sure you eradicate the enemy. If you can’t tell, I’m mad at Anne’s cancer right now.

Anne and I are immensely grateful for your notes, emails, texts, phone calls, meals, offers to help. We feel the outpouring of love. Bless all of you sweet people.

I’ve decided that I’m going to end each post with something that we are thankful for, or that makes us smile/laugh, or that reminds us that we live in God’s world, one that will one day be made new, perfect, right, free of cancer.

So with that in view, a fun story I just had to share:

A few weeks ago, I had the fun of being one of several parent chaperones on my son Jack’s 3rd grade field trip to the NC Zoo. One of Anne’s good friends, Laura Vann, and I were assigned to keep tabs on a grand total of four boys (two of them being our own), and so we trailed them as fast as we could through the various exhibits.

Something completely unplanned and magical happened when our boys arrived at the chimpanzee exhibit. So thankful for the iPhone, and Beastie Boys.  You just gotta watch…

https://youtu.be/nGhFLLjwbRE

Cheers-

Van