Lately

Lately I’ve been wondering

When it’s all gonna end

‘Cause I’m tired of bein’ sick and tired

And I ain’t got much more in me

I’m running outta steam

And there ain’t no sleep for the wicked

So I’ve just been doin’ me

And so far it’s safe to say

That I haven’t been doin’ so well

~Chris Hosier

As has been a reoccurring theme here, lately, there’s a whole lot of shit going on. My sweet daughter has been having some knee pain for about a year, now. A few weeks ago, she suddenly couldn’t even walk. She couldn’t bend or straighten her left knee, and she had tears pouring down her face from the pain. I brought her back to her doctor, to again search for answers about what in the hell was happening. I’d taken her into the doctor no less than five times prior, looking to find an explanation for her worsening symptoms. She had X-rays done (for the third time since this began). This time, her doctor noticed something “suspicious”. We were referred to an orthopedic surgeon. An orthopedic oncologist surgeon, to be precise. She was seen there just two days later. They did MRI scans, and this doctor was able to give us some clarity. Some. He is relatively certain he knows exactly what’s causing her problems. Mercifully, he’s confident the growth is benign, but she has an abnormal growth in the cartilage around her knee. It has actually damaged her bone, to the point she has a piece of the lower part of her femur that’s broken off and is now just floating around in her knee area. As if that isn’t painful enough, this piece of bone is sometimes getting caught up in her knee joint, and prevents her from being able to bend or straighten her knee until it finally moves again. She will be going in for some pretty serious surgery, here very soon. I’m praying she’ll only need one surgery, but he warned us that’s unlikely. It’s possible, but the odds are she’s going to end up needing to have at least one more surgery after this one. They will cut out the growth within her cartilage and bone, and remove unhealthy tissue and bone. They’ll then be placing pins in her femur, in an attempt to get new healthy bone and cartilage to grow back. She’ll be in a full leg cast for 6 weeks, and then start rehab and physical therapy. Unless she isn’t able to grow new bone and cartilage. If that’s the case, and the surgeon stressed that cartilage is notoriously difficult to repair, they’ll need to do a bone graft. That surgery would mean taking some of her pelvic bone and grafting it onto her femur bone.

Adam’s mom is going in for a lung biopsy, next week. The results will determine one of two possible paths she’ll be taking. Either they’ll begin aggressive chemotherapy, to prolong her life as much as possible, OR she’ll be sent home on palliative care, to help keep her as comfortable as possible because chemo would be ineffective and would only make her feel unwell through all her last days with us. So, this biopsy will be a huge determining factor as far as hers and all of our foreseeable future goes. We’re all planning to take her to Cancun, Mexico, this Summer. It’s on her “bucket list”, and we intend to do everything we can to make sure it happens.

I talked with my manager, at work, a couple weeks ago. At first, I’d told her I have to quit. After I realized my daughter needed an appointment with an oncologist, that was my final straw. My manager cried and told me she totally understood, and to do whatever I need to do for my baby. But, she insisted she has my back at work. She told me she loves me, and doesn’t want to lose me. I think we’ve decided that I’ll first try dropping my hours down to part time. We’ll schedule around the things I need to do for my family, and I’ve got 3 and a half weeks of vacation time, 16 hours of paid floating holiday time, plus a week and a half left of sick time I can use while my daughter recovers and when we need to go visit Adam’s mom. I know how lucky I am to have such an understanding and empathetic manager, with a job that has a flexible schedule that could allow me to be here for my family. Hopefully. Hopefully it can all work out. Maybe one of these days we can have some semblance of normality brought back into our lives, and me and my family can finally put ourselves back together again. Until then, I’ll just have to keep clinging to the rope I’ve found myself attached to, dangling precariously over an unknown abyss I’d rather not discover the inside of. Every time I ask myself, “How could things possibly get any harder?”, they do.