Cancer

I haven't really posted on here about cancer but at the moment it is something that is on my mind. Tonight I write this after hearing the news that one of my old colleagues has passed away from her 3 year fight with bowl cancer. While she is free from pain, she leaves behind a husband and 3 kids - years 8, 6 and 3 at school. While she is having a party in Heaven, her family and friends are here still on earth hurting, processing what has happened. This is the 3rd person who I worked with at the school who has passed away from cancer.

It is made all the more real because my father-in-law, Malcolm, has been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He was diagnosed in November and given a 5 year prognosis. That was then cut to 18months - 2 years after further scans and now it has been shortened again to around 8months. It has been hard each time the doctors have seen the aggression of the cancer and reassessed how long he has left. It has been hard to be far away from them. To see James hurting and wanting to be up in Hervey Bay with his family but also wanting to be here with us. It has been hard not knowing how to help, not even being able to help. 

James was able to go up there and be with his family for a week and a half. It was so important for him to be up there and so important for his family to be together. I am really glad that he was still able to go even with Corona around and that he was able to make it over the border. I am so glad that he was able to be there to help his dad do some things around the place, to be able to be with his mum and sister and have chats with them. I'm glad that he was able to sit down with his family for his dad to talk about his wishes. I love that he was able to be there. It was also hard for us to not be there. We told the kids that Boompa had cancer just before James went up. We mentioned that Boompa was still sick and that he has gotten worse. Daniel asked us when Boompa was going to get better. We told him that he probably won't. And at that moment we told him that Boompa had cancer and briefly explained it to them. As kids do, they said a couple of things in response to it and the kinda moved on.

For me though it was a hard week. I had home learning, being a mum plus brief chats with James about how he was going up in Hervey Bay and then as well trying to process the information about Malcolm. Wondering when we would be able to go up, wondering if we will see him before things get worse. Wondering how it would work with us going up there (because more often than not our kids get sick when we go up there and we wouldn't want sickness to be around Malcolm and Julie). Thinking about how Malcolm is going. Thinking about Julie and Jenny and how they are going as they process all the information. Just very mentally and emotionally draining time as well as having no break from the kids. I was doing ok but on the Wednesday before James came home (he'd been away 8 days and wasn't coming home until Friday afternoon) it all kinda hit me. It was a really hard day with the kids' learning and motivation to do school work. It was a hard day with my own emotions. It was a hard day with hearing that James was sitting down with his family on the Thursday morning to go through Malcolm's wishes for his funeral. Great that he could say his wishes but it just brought it all home. It was a draining day. 

And again, tonight I sit here with all these thoughts going through my mind again. Cancer is so unpredictable. It is so unknown. It is so hard to know what is going to happen. For now we are going to be heading up to Qld to see James' family in the first week of the holidays. We will be there for a week (praying that we have no sickness so that we can spend time with them). We are staying close by so will take it one day at a time to work out what to do each day. It will be a special time together and a time of making more memories. 

I will continue to process it, continue to go through it each day. Some days will be good. Some days will be hard. But we will get through it. And we will make the most of having Malcolm with us. God's peace is with us and he is our strength. He will help us through each day no matter what it holds.

Sorry, this is just some rambling that is going on in my mind. Cancer sucks. Life is short. Make the most of our time together. Hug when you can. Say I love you when you can. Life is special.