It's Complicated

We've been enjoying our visits with Alex, and all of us have been readjusting to life with Alex out on his own. Clearly, going through his cancer treatment changed the landscape of everything, and so much of our time with Alex revolved around his treatment. It's an understatement to say that it's nice to just be able to have dinner with him or have him home for an uneventful weekend.

Fazoli's continues to be a favorite, so it is a frequent dinner destination when we have dinner together. I love looking at his face - seeing him look healthy and at ease.

Alex is doing so well right now, and I love to be able to tell people when they ask that he is feeling great. Yet, always on the tip of my tongue is the qualifier, "for now."


Remission = Happy, right?

Mostly, yes. It's not that I'm ungrateful or unappreciative of where we are at now; I am. It's just that when your hand has been slammed in that car door time after time, you wince a little every time you open it.

I understand it when people say that "no one knows what tomorrow will bring," and I agree with them. However, Alex has been given a bit more information than most about his future. A year ago a very well respected and knowledgeable specialist told us that Alex would be in treatment for his cancer for the rest of his life. We also didn't discontinue his immunotherapy because it stopped working, we didn't even discontinue it because it worked. We had to discontinue it because of the damage it was doing to his lungs.

And yet, here he is, cancer free for over eight months now. "Durable remission" is a term that has been used. The doctors just don't know how long this will last. There isn't enough data on his treatment to tell us what will happen. There are study patients who have been in remission from this drug for two years, but they continued to receive the drug the whole time. I don't know if there are even numbers on how long someone stayed in remission after stopping the drug. I purposely haven't tried to find out.

So when you ask me how Alex is, and my response is "He's doing great" but I add on that "for now," I'm not trying to be bleak, or difficult. I'm terrified. If I don't say, "for now" out loud, I'm still thinking it in my head. I'm forcing myself to make plans for the future - to think about life a year or five years from now. I'm allowing myself to imagine a life a year or five years from now with Alex in it. I'm pushing away the fear that such dreams are foolishly optimistic. Because I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I do know sadly, from experience, that we are capable of dropping everything and dealing with whatever we need to in the moment. I also know that dwelling on it now robs me of this time when he's well. I know I can't squander it. Knowing a thing and managing a thing are not exactly the same, though, are they?

Alex is doing great. He looks healthy. He has energy. He's active with his house. His anxiety is generally low, and his good days and bad days appear to revolve more around his regular rhythms than anything cancer related. He is feeling better than he has since before he had cancer. We're back in a routine of visits. He spent several days at home over Thanksgiving, and will be with us again at Christmas. This year, our Christmas will be fairly quiet, which is a welcome change from the past two years. No hospitals, no treatments, just family time, baking, and Christmas movies. I love, love, love Christmas and am very content for it to be a quiet one.

Yes, Alex is doing great, and so are we. Thanks for asking.