Lucky in love

At hospital for the outcome of my latest scan, I realise it's at least the 15th time over the past three and a half years we've sat in the waiting room expecting such results.

It's still hard to express my feelings in the run-up to these appointments; an anxiety that bubbles subconsciously rather than in the front of my brain.

But as we head up the A38 on results morning, questions are simmering. Will the latest CT show my cancer has been kept in its corner? Or will the cancer have quietly jumped to another organ, or increased in size?

We haven't seen my normal consultant since January and she's not in again this time. Instead, a registrar welcomes us and, rather than turn straight to my results, goes through my routine blood test readings from the day before. We then have a conversation about delaying my next treatment cycle for a family summer holiday to France. Finally, we get to the scan results. Which are stable.

Phew.

As I relay the good news to family on the way home, my feelings calibrate as peace and equilibrium, a settling, slowly arrive. A few days later, I find myself listening to a random podcast about Christmas songs, a sign of my contracted sense of future rolling out a bit further. An ability to breathe again.

And so, tomorrow, we jump in two cars and head for the Eurotunnel before taking a couple of days to drive to our Airbnb near Bordeaux. It appears the wildfires in that area of south-west France have subsided. Weather-wise, it might not be out of the frying pan and into the fire, thankfully.

Eight of us (including the kids and two partners) will do what we nornally do in France: buy baguettes and grenadine shandy, make up stunts with inflatables in the pool, visit water parks and evening markets, play table tennis and card games, and generally lounge around.

In the midst of the chronic uncertainty of a life measured out in three-month chunks, I no longer take these holidays for granted (I'm also aware that this is the second post in a row about a break abroad and how privileged we are to take these).

Since last month's chemo cycle, I've wrestled with weeks of low-level illness including a cold, mouth ulcers and pain where I previously lost a tooth to treatment. It's a relief to now feel relatively normal (even if the rest of my family seem to have caught my cold!) and to get out for a few runs, including Wolverhampton parkrun with friends last Saturday. The next day we had a fantastic belated gathering for my mum's 75th birthday where, for the first time in years, all wings and generations of our family came together. And, just a few hours ago, we found out Reuben has got into his university of choice for September thanks to some great A level results. Life is good.

Running before it got too hot yesterday morning, I listened to a Kate Bowler podcast with American comedian Tig Notaro. As the pair unpacked their experiences of cancer they talked about being 'the luckiest unlucky person', also the title of the podcast episode.

I like that. Over 15 quarterly scans with various results, I'm still alive and kicking and more aware than ever of the love of those around me: one of the luckiest unlucky people.

Here's the blessing Kate used to finish the podcast:

Blessed are you when the shock subsides,

when vaguely, you see a line appear that divides before and after.

You didn’t draw it, and can barely even make it out.

But as surely as minutes add up to hours and days,

here you are,

forced into a story you never would have written.

Blessed are you in the tender place of wonder and dread,

Wondering how to be whole when dreams have disappeared and part of you with them,

where mastery, control, determination, bootstrapping, and grit,

are consigned to the realm of before (where most of the world lives),

in the fever dream that promises infinite choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the after, loudly shouting: is there anybody here?

We hear the echo, the shuffle of feet, the murmur of others

asking the same question, together in the knowledge

that we are far beyond what we know.

Show us a glimmer of possibility in this new constraint,

that small truths will be given back to us.

We are held.

We are safe.

We are loved.

We are loved.

We are loved.

And best of all: We are not alone.

(Kate Bowler: A Blessing For The Life You Didn't Choose)

And here's a 2018 photo that just popped up in my phone's memories of a family ski trip, to Sestriere, Italy, to keep you cool.