Levelling up

[scarfman]

Leah saw the surgeon for followup Thursday and the oncologists for therapy plans Friday. The surgeon said she's healing nicely and needn't wear the bandage any more nor come back to see him unless an infection should develop. The chemo oncologist will be seeing her for four sessions 21 days apart starting June 29. After that, about Septemer, the radiation therapy oncologist will be seeing her for sessions five days a week for six weeks.

After I made the most recent journal entry on this subject Wednesday morning and sent the same update to my family in email, I hit a wall myself, and called off work. It was the first chance Leah and I had had for a day together since the surgery anyway, and some needed cartharsises (catharses?) on both our parts were experienced, as validated by the doctors and the social worker Leah spoke with Friday at the oncology center. In general we've found over the years that I react to stress with apathy; my conscious morale has been okay but I've been tired all this week and I remember saying last week that I was tired then too. What we're both realizing this week is that this represents a permanent change in our lives, and that - as Leah saw someone say in the literature we're reading - it's not that she's got cancer, it's that we have.