Kristin and I talked last weekend, after not receiving our expected call, after spending the night in the ER, after going on another medication only to have it fail again, after a night of not breathing and not sleeping... we talked. We, together, made the decision that unless the MRI results were miraculous, I would be ending treatment. I'm losing my insurance. Costs are only going to go up. There are some days, more and more, where I just can't keep it together. There's also a part of me that knows that the sooner I get this over with, the sooner people, especially those I love, can get on with their lives and begin healing.
In the final cut, I made the decision. Which is fitting. How could she be part of the decision that would accelerate my demise?
Today we were blessed, as Kristin was hired for a new job. She'll be working at a dental office as some kind of informational coordinator. As patients leave she'll go over the plan for follow-up care and their financial arrangements. Kristin will be excellent, I'm sure. She's become such a people person over the last few years and, even before that, her customer service skills are outstanding.
So, when they called her at nine o'clock this morning and asked her to be at work by noon naturally... we both cried. Kristin wrote a moving and soulful blog last night on her site at kristinjamison.blogspot.com explaining how hard the concept of going back to work was. How our time is so incredibly limited that losing forty hours a week together is devastating. She says from her heart, "I don't understand God's plan in all this. I feel like I was laid off to be able to spend time with Aaron, only to have that ripped away in the last few months we have together."
But we prayed about this job. Not that she'd get it. We just prayed, at least I prayed, that God's will would be done and Kristin would find joy in the experience. So far, He's answered half the prayer. Since they offered her the job, we're assuming that is His will and today she went to work. Joy, however, is a vague and vaporous concept today.
Forty hours a week with the most amazing woman on the planet is a lot to lose in one day. So, once again and depending on my oncologist with that very special MRI to read, I am going to continue treatment as long as I can. It'll add to our debt. It won't get any easier from here. I may be able to get on to Kristin's new insurance plan at some point depending on the rules, by-laws and the sacred words handed down by Valen to the Minbari.
Barring the will of God, which I continue to bow before and accept with faith and respect, or the random crappy growth of this super-cancer I seem to have deep inside me I will be around a bit longer. (Wow could I be any more dramatic?) Chemo really isn't where either of us wants me to be anymore. But, for the kiss, even the hand, of my beautiful wife, I'd walk through fire.
I guess this blog is to let you know, for our regular viewers, that nothing is going to change. I mean, my doctor may change my treatment or my cancer may advance on it's own, but I plan to stay the course for as long as the course will have me. I guess it would have been easier to ignore this post than to read it and you would have had, pretty much, the same information.
Kristin will be at the Thurston High School Holiday Bazaar Friday and Saturday this weekend if you've seen her website at http://www.joyofglass.us and would like to see some of her work up-close. Her pendants and necklaces would make great holiday gifts.
My hopes and prayers are with you this holiday as we all search out those things for which we are thankful. I am thankful for so many things. Having lived in my car for some time, today I look out at the freezing air and think of how, but for the grace that God provides me, I wouldn't have this home. More over, without that grace, I wouldn't have made it this far in life. And who knows what He has planned for me in the remaining months. Who knows?
Don't forget that the parade starts tomorrow at nine in the morning on NBC.
Locally you can find it on KMTR!
( Basic cable channel 3, HD cable channel 703, local off-air channel 16.1 )
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