Numbering Days, Week 71-73

One thing I admire and appreciate about the doctors at MSK is that they are ego-less. They are quick to say, I'm going to run this by so and so, I'd like you to meet with such and such specialist. They are really, truly looking for solutions and seem to value and utilize each other's expertise. Behind-the-scenes, my oncologist has been sharing my case with others, exploring options beyond the chemo we're doing. I keep being told how rare my case is, how we're entirely "off script". How is this possible, I don't know.

We met with an Interventional Radiologist, a very kind, older man who spent as much time with us as we needed. Later, I read some of his notes from the call and just thought how strange it is to have been discussed at a medical conference and how little my medical charts tell about how I am.

Mrs. Cour is a very pleasant 48-year-old female...The patient was discussed in the bone metastases conference...I conveyed to her that we discussed her case in our multidisciplinary conference and we explored different options.

This IR doctor is willing to try some local tumor control. There are two separate tumors and he'll tackle them one at a time with two different procedures. The location of the sacral tumors is tricky, made even more difficult by the hardware in my spine so it will be a game-time decision if he can treat it and how. He makes no guarantees but feels confident its worth trying. The first of those procedures will happen mid-January and since that and treatment can't be too close together, my second December chemo treatment got canceled. Oh, happy day!

In preparation for the procedure he ordered two MRIs, which needed to be done on different days and one at a location in Manhattan. Since that's all I was doing, we decided to pull the kids from school and make a day of it in NYC. Christmas in the city is very festive!

Roasted chestnuts! :)

We got to see the Christmas Spectacular, which is aptly named. I've seen it many times and it blows me away every time. As the nativity scene came together at the end, complete with a misbehaving camel, I was so struck by the familiar words of a well-known Christmas song. I couldn't stop the tears.

Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace, who brings light and life to all.

The Prince of Peace, born that God and sinners would be reconciled.

We saw the beautiful Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza then we parted ways and Shaun got me to where I needed to go and the kids explored some stores and a bit of Times Square, with a very competent big sister leading the charge.

One thing that's really hard right now is how limited I am physically. I am a doer. So my family is learning to see things they never had to or cared to pay attention to and I am learning to let things go that don't matter. This day Aiden helped me dump my dead flower pots and put some things away until spring. (You could argue this task goes in the "doesn't matter" category, but he was a good sport.)

Each milestone I get to be a part of is immensely special. I think we often have an aggressive greed for "the good life" but we can cultivate a deep, genuine gratitude for the life we're actually living. Easy ≠ good, necessarily, hard ≠ bad, necessarily Not for all things, but in all things we can grow our 'give thanks' muscle.

These last couple weeks so many photos memories have come up of Amanda's first days of life. She was an easy baby and I remember how absolutely tickled 17-month old Avery was. Such sweet days!