Fragility



A cold day with Beth



 Tanner is having a hard time shaking the cold that he picked up over Thanksgiving.  He had a culture taken at last week's chemo appointment and the doctor told him that it was viral but he still has a bad cough and lots of chest congestion.

She told him that he needs to drink lots of fluids, stay in out of the cold, and get plenty of rest.  I'm trying to get him to drink more water and not turn to the sodas so much.  As for the "plenty of rest", he still wants to stay up all night and sleep half of the day away.  I wish I could get him back to a more "normal" routine.  It just seems that teenagers prefer to stay up all night and then sleep late the next day. 

My niece, Beth, flew in last night and her dad and I picked her up from the airport and we went straight to Aunt Gerry's house for Sunday dinner.  She will be here with me until after Christmas. 

I didn't get to go to Montana and see her this past Fall as I planned to do so I hadn't seen her since June when she last came home for a short break.  I'm so glad she is here!  I'm ready for some quality time with my girl!!

The reporter from the Fort Worth Star Telegram that wrote the story about Tanner last Christmas emailed me last week and said that they are going to run a follow up article about Tanner over the holidays.  I guess something along the lines of how he is doing a year later. I'm hoping that he will let me know when the article will run so that I will be sure and not miss it.

One of my favorite agents was just diagnosed with lung cancer and found out that it has spread to his liver, bones, and brain.  They are going to do radiation on his brain Wednesday and then will start chemotherapy the Monday after Christmas.

He wasn't feeling bad at all and the only indication he had that something was wrong is that he was losing weight and his shoulder started hurting (he thought he just pulled a muscle moving a house plant).  His daughter is a nurse and is doing research looking for doctors who specialize in the type of rare lung cancer that Chet was diagnosed with.  I hope that they find someone as brilliant as we did when we found Dr. Barlogie.



Tanner and Kelson flying kite



It still hits me sometimes, how you can be going along in your everday routine not knowing anything is wrong, and then out of the blue comes a diagnosis like cancer and you come face to face with just how very fragile life is.

I have a photo of Tanner and his cousin Kelson (who died of cancer not long before Tanner was diagnosed) on my refrigerator taken at Jesse and Rebecca's wedding.  I was looking at it the other day and thought about how there was Tanner sitting with his cousin who had cancer and we didn't know that Tanner too had cancer spreading through his body.

We need to all enjoy each day, let the petty stuff go, and treasure our loved ones because none of us know what tomorrow is going to bring.

"You never leave someone behind, you take a part of them with you and leave a part of yourself behind..."