Monday Morning

It never fails to amaze me how God is ALWAYS ON TIME. He always does what you need, whether you realize it or not, when the time is right. I woke up yesterday morning with praise and worship music in my head. More specifically- Peace Be Still by Lauren Daigle. This song has been my go to during the trials of my life since the first time I heard it.

God knew where my heart and mind needed to start their day- on Him. I always daydream that I will wake up, and fix my nice warm mug of coffee, and curl up in an armchair with my Bible, and get in the word every morning before my day begins. But I will go ahead and admit- I fail MISERABLY at that. For one, I don’t even own the armchair that I tend to picture in this cozy little scenario. In reality, my mornings are messy, screamy, and normally we are running late. None of us are morning people. 😉

Yesterday morning though… it was different. I had the music on, the kids woke up in a generally good mood, we all managed to get dressed and out the door without any cross words or drama. On a MONDAY at that. Had a praise and worship in the car on my way to work. Everything was going so good.

Back in August, after my dad had finished chemo, they told us that chemo had not helped. We made the decision to go to Vanderbilt. Once we got there, it was determined that the cancer had metastasized, and was not not only in his lung, but also his brain, liver, adrenal glands and lymph nodes. At Vanderbilt, they immediately decided the two most critical areas were the lung, where the initial tumor had started, and the brain. They radiated those areas, which seemed to help tremendously, and started the immunotherapy. Two weeks ago, he had been downgraded from the “critical” stage, and his life expectancy had grown to 1-2 years.

My mom called me around 10:30. She had been waiting on a call from Dr. Iams, who is the clinical director at Vanderbilt, and is over my dad’s case. He had a scan last week when they were there for his immunotherapy. Dr. Iams told mom that even though the radiation had helped the places that it needed to- there was now a bigger spot on his liver that is continuing to grow. Also new spots have appeared in his lower abdomen that had not previously been there. We haven’t made this public knowledge yet. We are still processing it honestly. The immunotherapy is not working, as the chemo did not either. We are kind of at a loss as to what direction to go now. Is there a direction to go? Do we just accept that cancer is going to take him and enjoy the time we have left? We have gotten the second opinion, but essentially now they are all saying the same thing. The time frame waxes and wanes, but essentially they all say the same thing.

My brain kind of goes in to a panic mode at this point. Trying to plan for the future. A future that could be in three months. It could be six, or nine, or even a year away. What will my mom do? I don’t want her to be alone. Should I move back in with her? Should we buy a different house that fits us better? I don’t really want to be alone at this point either. It just makes more sense.

I’m just a big jumble of “what if’s” at this point. I feel the need to make a list of things that need to be done, questions that I need to ask the doctor. I think it is just my way of trying to have some sort of control over a completely uncontrollable situation. We are just trying to take a break. And breathe.