It's Not Easy

Tanner's doctor visit this week seemed to go well.

Dr. Albritten came out and talked to us together for a few minutes and then when they took Tanner back to start his IV, she and I talked about his schooling, his medical care, and how far he's come in the last year.

She feels that it is very important for Tanner to interact with other young adult cancer patients and would like for him to attend several social events the Oncology Department is hosting in the near future.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on the way you look at things) Tanner has school every night, Monday thru Thursday, so he's not going to have a lot of opportunities to attend any of their functions.

She asked me how I was doing and we discussed a late night (tearful) conversation that Tanner and I had on the porch swing earlier this week around 1 a.m.  You could see the genuine concern in her eyes and she said that she so very badly wanted to do something to help us find our way. 

When Tanner came out from having his IV placed, she told him to come with her and she took him into a room and talked to him for quite a while and when he came out she had given him some information about a program where he can be connected to another cancer patient who has similiarities to Tanner's circumstances.  Sort of a cancer mentoring program...

I'm going to do my best to see that he follows up on this information.  It's like she and I talked about, though Tanner may look like all the other 19 year olds he's friends with, he is in fact very different from all of them and he needs to have the opportunity to interact with others who can understand what he's going through.

I love Dr. Albritten...

As for me, I'm having a hard time again.  It's a journey with peaks and valleys... 

We went to a meeting at the Cancer Center a while back and the man who talked said that he has discovered during his journey with cancer himself - and counseling other's with cancer - that the people who seem to have the hardest time are parents of children with cancer.  I believe him...

I'm going to be okay.  I'm always okay eventually...  but this is a journey I never expected to have to take and it's not easy.  Worry and stress are constant companions.  Sometimes I can push it aside and sometimes I can't... I've never felt more isolated and alone than I have the last few years...

I often feel guilty blogging about how hard this is for me.  I wish I could be one of those ever positive people who always see the light... who always only have positive upbeat things to say... but I am who I am... and since I don't often actually talk to anyone about what's going on deep inside me, you get to read about it here.

Thanks for understanding.