Saturday

In the entire professional history of my life, Saturday has been meaningless as a weekend day. It is the curse that I share with all of my retail brethren; total lack of significance for the formal weekend, major holidays, and even less major ones. Of course, you could argue that the significance of these holidays has nothing to do with my work schedule and that each of them have their own self-contained relevance that I am too self-pitying to see. You might even be right about that. But it doesn’t change the fact that it still feels strange to be off and walking amongst other humans.

Today we had a quiet morning, I slept through the night with no chills, no drenching sweats, and not in enough pain to be woken up. I used the restroom at 3am, and decided it would be germaine to redose my Advil, to avoid waking up with the chills and muscle stiffness. It seemed to do the trick, and I woke up at 6:30am, sitting up with no assistance. Small victories. Mandi brought her laptop into bed to do some catchup on her work, which she still somehow manages to stay on top of. That woman. If I told you all about her you wouldn’t even believe me. I think I might anyway. Forgive the detour.

Mandi

When you are married, it is quite common for there to be some obligatory statement about “sickness and health” during the ceremony. You all know the one. I’m pretty sure that just ended up in there because there were too many people bailing out when their spouse got the plague a week later, or something like that. But in any case, Mandi and I made this promise to each other as well. I don’t know how much people think about this statement when they make such a promise, but current circumstances do tend to give context to such words. To say that Mandi has risen to this challenge is a most pitiful understatement. Some of you have known her for years, or even her whole life and you already know her to be an incredible person, but I would tell even those people that she is more impressive than that. It is too hard to put into words how I feel about her support of me during this time, so I can only stumble around insufficiently in pursuit of a semblance of gratitude; here goes nothing.

See the thing you have to understand first, is that I want to live. Like I really want to live. I’m not ashamed in the least to say that. Do you know why? It’s quite simply because I have so much to live for. I am married to the love of my life and my best friend, I have two absolute miracles of creation that I get to watch grow every day; Bode and Scarlett. I have family and friends who I love deeply and enjoy spending free time and holidays with. I even have a job that I care about, enjoy, and I’m good at. I live in a beautiful place, and have so many things to be thankful for that I cannot even count them. The only person that may want me to live more than I do, is my wife. And that’s really saying something.

Since the beginning of this cancer episode, she has surprised me with her courage. Even since the moment I broke her the news, I was watching her face for evidence of despair, a tweaked expression, a look of hopelessness. It would have been understandable, if not expected. I noticed many other things instead as I scanned her countenance: strength, concern, determination, grit, encouragement. I knew then that we would be ok. We would be able to do what was necessary to fight through this. She has been by my side at the hospital, through my pain meds experiments, my biopsy procedure, and slept next to me while I struggled through each night; sometimes on a hospital room sofa, and sometimes squeezed into my hospital bed with me. She took careful notes, talked to doctors, organized my visitors, arranged childcare for our little ones while we were at the hospital, and pushed them to get me to the point of discharge. She even kept me company during my testicular ultrasound (everything is normal if you were wondering). Even now, she has alarms set on her phone to coordinate the seven different medications I must take at different times, sometimes in the middle of the night. She makes sure that I have food with certain medications, and not with others, that I’m always well hydrated, and on the lookout for adverse reactions to medications or activities I’ve done during the day. And, of course, there are times in the quiet when I see, hear, and sense something else; fear. The same fear that I share at the prospect of being separated too soon from my best friend, my love, my kids, and the beauty that surrounds me in my life.

Of course, she still has everything else to manage around the house. Creating and mailing invoices for work, answering calls, emails, working spreadsheets. Waking up and dutifully completing her workouts in the gym. Laundry, cleaning, vacuuming, kids meals, back to school planning, washing and changing bedding, unloading the dishwasher, watering the trees in the backyard, and keeping everything else up to the immaculate standards that are her trademark. This only scratches the surface really. How she still has anything left in her to care for me amazes me every day. And what’s even more amazing to me is that, while the medication routine is new, the rest of it is not. If it is possible for a gift to be wrapped up in such a terrible packaging as cancer is, then that gift would be perspective. Seeing things for what they are and even people for who they are. In fact, while we are counting small blessings in disguise, one of them is the small but perfect moments, holding the hand of the woman that I love and listening to her breathe while she sleeps, head rising and falling with the patterned gown that covered my chest. A certain peace could be felt between us in those moments, not because we knew anything about the future would be ok, but because at that time we were together and had each other. And that was all that mattered.

I love you Mabe, more than words can express. And more than ever, I want nothing more than to be an old man holding your hand someday, watching our grandkids grow. I am so thankful for the life that we have made together, and do not take any of it for granted. Thank you for everything you have given me, and shared with me, and even the times you have suffered with me. I will undergo any surgery. I will endure any pain, and I will suffer any treatment to make it so.

The Oaks Mall

Once we finally got out the door today for our single planned errand, we headed to the Thousand Oaks mall to stop by the Tempurpedic store. We had been talking for years about getting a new mattress, and since I get such a deal on them through work, we have had our eyes on Tempurpedic. The idea is to get a power-adjustable base with the ability to have head and feet incline. I figured this would be nice to have while recovering from my surgery, which reportedly has an 8 week recovery time with varying levels of discomfort. I guess I liked my hospital bed a little too much.

There is nothing else that I can say about the shopping trip that is going to make it worth hearing, but just trust that we found what we wanted to find. Afterward, we stopped by Wetzel’s Pretzels to grab some warm pretzels and lemonade for the kids. Initially, I was craving a pretzel myself, but upon seeing the prices and then reconsidering the nutritional value of a pretzel, I had a change of heart. Sometimes it sucks to be an adult. Still, I somehow spent $30 on two pretzels and two lemonades, but I was able to check another item off of the “have your kids experience things you enjoyed as a child” list. I’m sure those of you with kids are familiar with it. Not always satisfying, but required nonetheless.

Evening

We headed home and met Faith and Luis and the boys at the house at around 2pm. It’s always a joy watching the kids play and do kid things. I ate Chipotle and then attempted to rest on the sofa for a while but I started to feel a bit unwell. This happens to me sometimes in the afternoons, which is probably a result of fatigue, or timing of medication. But then I remembered, I ate Chipotle. Even people without cancer don’t feel well after that. Fortunately, it was short lived, and I watched the kids play out front for a few minutes while Luis poked around in my attic investigating some things we noticed recently about our quirky AC unit. Thanks Luis, I’m not great at army crawling in the attic these days.

Faith and Luis took all the kids to a community event for a few hours which gave Mandi and I some time to hang out together. We spent it watching Netflix in bed, which is such a rare occurrence in the middle of the day. These days it really feels like each hour is a gift, especially if I’m free of pain and breathing normally. These hours were no exception, and I try to make the time pass slowly, to savor it.

As my surgery date approaches, I feel adrift in life’s river, the current quickening and turning into whitewater as it approaches the waterfall, powerless to stop the inevitable. On one hand, I am eager to get this mass out of my chest, to get on with healing, to stop the progression of the pain that has taken over my life. On the other hand, if I could delay the surgery somehow, I would. The thought of being unconscious, my life completely in the hands of doctors and nurses, and waking up with an unknown quantity of missing organs, it’s one that I am not keen to rush into. What will my life be like afterward? The recovery? How difficult will it be?What will I be able to do with just one lung, and more importantly, what will I be prevented from doing. Will I still be able to keep up with my kids? No matter what happens, the surgery is a pivotal moment in my life. But a necessary one. And one that I will face when the time comes, but every single beautiful moment between now and then I will play on slow and take with me when I close my eyes on that day.

Love you all.