And Now, We Wait

I haven't posted anything recently because, for better or worse, there's nothing to really post.

More for the better.

The wait used to terrify me. The enormity of time, its slow passage, all those seconds and minutes to ruminate and conflagrate. But the fires are still, and time plods on with small, child-sized steps.

I see my patients, and things largely feel normal. I return home, spend time with my husband, our daughter, and things largely feel normal.

The follow-up scan is weeks away, as are the follow-up appointments. Even if I were to worry, panic, stress about what was going on in the cave where the tumor...the bump...used to be, would it do anything?

Halloween was yesterday. The little one was a fairy princess, decked out in pink and sparkles. We, as her parents, put little to no effort into our own looks, as tradition might dictate. I wore an orange sweater my daughter still insists is red. My husband claimed he was a Jets fan for Halloween and wore his favorite Jets shirt when we all know that that particular costume is a year-round look. The serpentine scar over the right side of his head is flatter than it was a month ago, less obvious, but no less present. I watched him walk alongside my daughter with a walking stick, one he used out of an abundance of caution rather than a clear need. She had fully embraced the spirit of the day and the sugar which was promised to her, and he embraced the joy of watching her flit from house to house with our neighbors, grinning as her Halloween basket grew heavier.

I embraced it all through my own eyes and through the lens of my camera.

And so we wait. We live for small joys in the seconds and minutes which present themselves to us. We tackle the challenges we can without putting stock in what the outcomes might be. We do what we need to do.

And we hope.