Yesterday Rocky and I visited his surgeon in downtown Chicago. It was a discussion of options to consider treating the tumor in his neck. Removal is fraught with tissue involve with the windpipe and esophagus. If both of those require partial removal, then temporary feeding and breathing tubes will need to be installed. Chemo and radiation therapy will most likely continue after surgery as a precaution. Prior to surgery will be used only if the tumor is believed to be shrinkable. Everyone doubts that. Only surgery will allow the doctor to know with more certainty what is what in this dark corner of the body.
Update: the tumor does involve the windpipe and that will be removed and a breathing port installed in the trachea for permanent breathing. The voice box is also involved and will be removed; electronic voice training and therapy will follow. The esophagus will need a skin graft and reconstruction but will remain in place to continuing its function. The surgeon reminded us that surgery is always exploratory; it will unveil what it will and decisions of the moment will be made then.
Faith is what we rely on at times such as these. A diagnosis and uncertain prognosis need to be digested emotionally. Easy to say, nearly impossible to actually do. And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? Our faith says, trust that all will be well, but our humanness says, ‘yeah, right!’
Trust is not giving up. Trust is not the lazy person’s way out. Trust means everything that can be done is being done, and if all is lost in the end, then that will be in the hands of our creator. If you don’t believe, you don’t even have that.
In the end, though, we have choices. The beginning and the end are the bookends of life. It is the in-between years that define what our life is and was. What we do with the time we have is the marker we need to pay heed to. Why? Because the beginning and the end is out of our control. We don’t make those decisions. The only ones we do make affect our life that is lived each day.
Understanding this helps prepare for the moment we no longer have moments. The death of our being is sobering work to think upon. But it is an inevitable event. Best to think on it when things are good, pleasant doings are still possible. If we are prepared, then each reprieve gives us more time to live a life of purpose and joy. Each reprieve from serious accident, illness, or peril avoided. That’s what we control, not the end, but the continuing.
Rocky’s journey is perilous. But he has lived with reprieve several times before. Perhaps this one, too?
Time will tell that story. We are not in a rush to encounter it.
June 11, 2019
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