cancerschmancer - one of those days

today was a rough day, they happen. they have happened and they will happen. we're human. we laugh. we cry. we deal. i'm going on too many days with too little sleep and having too many emotions. today is just one of those days.

today we went to our new oncologist, she has a long name that i can't pronounce. she is a specialist at uci, she only sees the hard cases, she never has a "normal" cancer come through her office.
she confirmed what we already knew. this is rare. this is aggressive. she has only seen 6 or 7 patients with this kind of cancer. the problem is that this is a rare place for cancer and rare type of cancer. we have the best (or worst?) of both worlds since matt has this rare cancer in this rare place. again, 1 in 100,000. i told him he's taking one for the team since no one else we will ever know will get this cancer, in this place.

the new oncologist asked many questions that seemed irrelevant but obviously had a purpose in her mind. as it turns out, they are researching this cancer in this place. it is not hereditary so our kids are safe from it, it's more environmental and is found primarily in asians - in fact i believe she's only seen it in asians. matt told her that explains it as he loves chinese food. she smirked, i'm not sure she laughed, but he did and that's what matters.

for treatment, she said would have chosen a more aggressive treatment, a cocktail of chemo but she said since what we are in the middle of a plan, it's best to continue on. once we finish this course of treatment, we can start going to her. for now, she'll send our biopsy in for further testing to see if they can identify mutated genes and hit those specifically with the next round of chemo. until then, we continue with the current chemo, radiation and we'll go back to see her early november. she isn't sure when (or if) surgery will happen. she confirmed what everyone else has said - we have a long road ahead of us.

matt's hair started to really thin so he decided today was the day. the kids had fun shaving matts head. taylor gave him a reverse faux hawk, levi shaved an m in the back of his dad's head. when matt was diagnosed, taylor decided when her daddy said it was time for his head to be shaved, she was cutting her hair and donating it. she printed and filled out the form, she is donating her hair to locks of love.

yes, it's a hard day for this wife and mom. not because of their hair but because of what it represents.

tomorrow taylor turns 15, she has a new, gorgeous look and a reason for this new look. her daddy has cancer.
i can't guarantee i'll be tear free tomorrow. i haven't had a tear free day since the diagnosis. perhaps one day.

in the mean time, we recognize hard days happen. and when they do, we remember He was human; He wept; He asked for this cup to pass; He said, not my will but Yours.