balance

Finding balance is difficult when you feel like you are on a roller coaster of physical and emotional well-being!

For Jason, the struggle continues with the effects of double chemotherapy causing side-effect on top of side-effect. And while doctors prescribe medicines and chemicals for each symptom, it's frustrating not truly knowing the cause of each malady. Headaches may come from low potassium, chemotherapy, lack of sleep, post-radiation edema, or a growing tumor. Or the flu. Who knows. What's most disheartening is the weakness in the body - for the more strength he loses the less able he is to stand or walk or sometimes even sit up.

Without that physical balance, he has found himself a few times on the floor. 

And therein lies my struggle for stability: when the headaches (and other various side effects) come I unravel into a ticking time bomb of anxiety, grief, panic and frustration at not knowing what to do. Fortunately, Jason has developed zen-like levels of patience throughout all of this and so he simply waits for me to finish melting and then he encourages me to press on and/or take a nap! Even in his infirmity he is my rock.

But without that emotional balance, I have found myself a few times on the floor.

A perfect example of the roller coaster we are riding is our experience this weekend:

Jason developed bloods clots in his lungs that showed up on a chest X-ray and CT scan. And what was a truly frightening moment eventually played into a peaceful and restorative weekend. Even though Jason spent the weekend in the Meeker hospital, he was able to rest well, eat well, and be wonderfully cared for. And when the boys and I weren't hanging out in the hospital room with him reading books, watching football, or sneaking ice cream cups from the nurses, we took in a high school playoff football game (where the Cowboys were victorious again!) and even a trip to the movie theater to see Big Hero 6!

So the joy found in all of this turmoil is in the days, moments even, of lucidity and energy when we can catch glimpses of some kind of normalcy. We can all appreciate with greater depth the laugh of a joke, the tenderness of a touch, or the sweetness of a sound (specifically the sound of Hamp & Sam laughing and playing well together!)

We have learned to seek balance when we desperately need it - Jason has therapists and friends and family who are there to lift him up (literally) and for me, there is always peace in a walk in the woods.