What do you do when you don’t know what you want to do?

I am still in my school-schedule of setting appointments for Peyton’s clinic visits.  So, at 7 AM this morning, when the alarm went off and I knew there were lovely late afternoon appointments we could have taken, I was one step away from ripping off my own foot and beating myself senseless with it.  There is NO reason not to make my appointments for 10 AM, allowing us all to awaken to our normal gentle sounds of the TV being turned on and the Wii warming up.

However, we made it to clinic on time and besides being ridiculously tired, all went well.  We had a freaky moment in meeting Dr. Kerr, strange only because our oncology group already includes a Dr. Kerr…. so we now have two Dr. Kerr’s, who have husbands who share the same first name, they drive the same vehicle, they work in the same medical specialty and now work in the same office.  Spooky, huh?  It confused the heck out of Peyton who kept whispering to me, “THAT is not Dr. Kerr.”  But Dr. K2 was exceptionally nice, Peyton loved her on sight and that made the new doctor an easier transition.

Peyton dressed down in a big way today and Dr. K2 made a comment about how cutely she was dressed….to which the nurses and I had a good laugh.  The day will come soon enough when she walks in with her full princess gear, tiara and rhinestones glaring and then Dr K2 can experience the full fashionista Peyton is.

Peyton’s counts were perfectly in range.

Her ANC = 1400
RBC = 12
Platelets = 210K

Peyton has a nice hack-y cough that had us fleeing Alabama a full day early.  Saturday night she complained that her throat hurt, Sunday morning she woke with a full blown cough and we packed up and left before she could get a fever that would leave us trapped for a 72 hour (minimum) stay at CHOA (Children’s Hospital of Atlanta).  The cough has remained, leaving us unable to go enjoy Little Tales on Tuesday morning, but with no fever, no red throat, no red hears, no funky post nasal drip, she was diagnosed with a summer cold.  Isn’t it great that we have an ONCOLOGIST to tell us she has a summer cold?

She got her Vincristine chemo via port and starts her monthly round of steroids.  All her at-home daily/weekly chemo med doses remain the same as her counts were perfectly where they are supposed to be.

This means she has 3 more of these visits in her protocol.  3!!  After what feels like a million trips to the hospital and the clinic, the “end” is in sight.  A friend asked if we are going to have an end-of-chemo party for Peyton in October.  Yeah…I don’t know.

Part one of me wants to have a rockin’ blow out fest for her.  We have the perfect reason to PARTY, two and a half years of chemo and radiation and it is the end of treatment.  Why would we even hesitate to throw down Animal House style?

Because Part two of me is scared. “End of treatment” doesn’t have any guarantee of “end of cancer”.  If anything, it’s an anxiety booster for me.  When we started this journey I was all “get to the end, get to the end, get to the end!” and now that we can see the finish line, I have a healthy dose of “Am I ready for this to end?”

I don’t know if there is a good way to explain this.  As long as we’re putting the toxic poisonous chemo into her system, it’s at least doing something to battle the return of the cancer.  If we stop that, there’s nothing to keep it from coming back.  Do you get how my fragile brain might start equating the toxic poisonous chemo as, if not a good thing, at least a thing with a very valuable purpose?

My friend Annike has this fantastic analogy she uses.  You’re walking a vicious, angry dog at your side with a desperately tight grip on it’s leash….a leash that keeps the dog where it’s supposed to be, it keeps the dog under some control.  Then one day you’re supposed to take the dog off the leash and hope it stays at your side, under control, but you have NO WAY of knowing what it’s going to do.

In the wake of so many of our friends relapsing post treatment, literally days after stopping the drugs, the reality is that I know it’s a possibility that end of treatment could mean nothing.  I don’t mean to seem pessimistic or Chicken Little about it all, and I do know that many children do make it successfully through treatment and into long wonderful cancer-free lives.  I praise God for remission, for the knowledge that the cancer is out of her body, but that doesn’t stop me from staying awake at night, almost listening for its return.  I trust God that no matter what happens we are fully in his purpose for our lives, but that doesn’t stop me from praying that we be graced with an end to this.

Peter and I would talk about relapse when we were deciding on him taking a job that meant a move away from our support system and hospital.  But we talked about it in a vague, unspecific way…a very non-possible possibility.  It has happened in such a wave lately, so many little friends relapsing that there’s a dread that what was once possibility could be probability.

Do I feel like celebrating when there is a feeling of “how do you celebrate what feels like opening the door wide open and inviting cancer back in our home?”  Oh, I also know that I want to celebrate her strength and endurance, her amazing spirit and joy, making it through what we’ve been through.  Letting everyone know how thankful we are for the support and friendship and unending encouragement through the past two years.

I don’t want to give her this great big “YOU’RE DONE!” and then have to turn around and say, “oh, I was wrong about that.”  Quandary.  One emotional baby step at a time on this one.