Ding Dong the Bump is...Dead? What is Next?

Radiation is done.

The bell has been rung.

Temozolomide, complete...for now.

One road has reached its conclusion, but what lies ahead is murky. Follow-up scans, follow-up appointments, and taking next steps. The bump is all but vanquished. That is the mantra we murmur in whispers when we wake up in the morning and before we retire for the night.

The neurologist is still in charge. All the compartments are reinforced with lead and steel. The larger compartment has her clinic schedule and patients, the projects being dusted off, her child's school assignments, and miscellaneous to-do's around the house. The smaller is a brackish pool, muddied with disparate feelings. The wife has dominion here.

There is so little to say and so much to feel. Uncertainty, mainly. There is no algorithm to follow, the well-laid paths break apart and are overtaken by nature itself. And so we plead with nature to show us the way. But nature has ears only for its own processes, that which pushes things forward. Forward is neither good nor bad, from where it stands, it just is. But for us, the pendulum swings wildly with each decision made.

All we can do is hold on.

Ding...dong...