Good News

A little while ago my mother-in-law went in for a scan of her kidneys. She had been having back pains for months, and was afraid the constant pain pills her former idiot doctor put her on might have given her an ulcer.

Well, turned out she had no ulcer. She did, however, have a very large growth, the size of a cantaloupe, engulfing her kidney. 98% sure it was cancerous.

OK, so the good news is this: it hasn't spread, according to the results of numerous other scans (MRI and CT). Since it is contained, that makes treatment much easier. She won't even need chemo treatment after surgery.

This whole episode just brought back in vivid detail the anguish I felt a couple of years back when my wife went though hell and back to cleanse her body of breast cancer. The feelings of helplessness from my father-in-law were echoed in my memories. I'll readily admit I'm not the dominant one in the family, I tend to let my wife lead the way. She takes care of the bills, gets the kids where they need to be when they need to be there. Every year I give her the day off on her birthday (or near to it so long as it's a weekday) and tote the kids around so she can play. I don't think I could do that every day really, I'm entirely too disorganized.

Which was the root of much of my, and my father-in-law's, discomfort. We're not used to being the strong one, the one to hold things together, the organized one. But that pales in comparison to the utter panic at the thought of even the possibility of losing the one closest to you. And not a damn thing you can do about it.

But at least this good news answers many prayers, and lets my in-laws just worry about the surgery itself. Which, granted, won't be a picnic by any means.

My wife just had another checkup with her oncologist yesterday. She's been in remission since last summer, but it never ends. The fear of going through it again, of still losing the one person who completes you in every way, it just never goes away.