I’ve never liked roller coasters. I’ve ridden only a few by choice, and those were pretty tame considering some of the coasters open to the public in 2026. I could go off on a tangent here and tell you about roller coasters with names like Tormenta Rampaging Run, Wonder Woman Flight of Courage, or Riddler’s Revenge, but I’ll resist the urge. You can read about each of those monsters at the links on their names.
Randy and I have been riding a roller coaster called Cancer Life for the last few months. It’s not our first go round. I’ve ridden it 3 times before when 3 times mammograms, years apart, indicated suspicious findings. Those were baby coasters compared to Cancer Life.
I’ve written about those experiences several times in this blog. After a double mastectomy with a flat closure (no reconstruction) I’m done with that breast cancer baloney. I thought I was never getting on that ride again.
Regular readers know we were completely blindsided with a surprise lung cancer with metastasis to his brain, bones and adrenal gland diagnosis for Randy on February 2. We didn’t even know we were at the theme park, let alone in line to ride the roller coaster! But that is exactly what the last several months have felt like…a traumatic and never ending roller coaster ride.
Lung cancer doesn’t sound so bad but having it so long that it’s already spread to the brain immediately conjures up fears that the prognosis for survival may only be weeks. Your stomach drops. Especially if you start doing internet research. I don’t recommend drawing conclusions or reacting to what you read by Googling cancer stuff. Just take it as general rather than specific information and tuck it away to be considered in your situation. It is not definitive, and it never applies exactly to the situation you and your loved one is going through.
A trusted friend put us in touch with her son, an oncological physicist who specializes in the radiation to treat the brain cancer Randy has. He described the advances they’ve made in that arena. The doctor at Sarasota Memorial Hospital hustled to get Randy started on radio surgery (radiation to the brain) and discussed how it’s not uncommon to live 5 years or more with brain cancer. That gave us renewed hope. We feel joy that it’s not as dire as we imagined. It’s possible, we think, that life might go back to normal for a while after all. But that doctor is only talking about his specialty, brain cancer.
Treating cancer, especially after it has metastasized to several areas in the body), are long uphill climbs of endless testing, treatment, and doctor evaluations. Those ups must come down, and the downs plunge you into the deepest valleys. Test results show worst news than you hoped for, treatments make you sicker than before you were before, and you are just worn out and want the ride to end. But you’re locked into that seat for the duration of the ride, no matter whether you like it or not. There’s no changing your mind.
Every person’s cancer is different and as much as modern medicine tries hard to sort everything into convenient little buckets of similar experience and prognosis, it’s not like that at all for the patient and the patient’s family. Some doctors get tired or roll their eyes when you ask a question they’ve heard a thousand times before. Some doctors are not interested in having their knowledge and expertise questioned. It’s frustrating. Every single thing that happens on the cancer journey is pretty much new to the patient. So many variables make for a very unpredictable ride.
Doctors try things that may or may not work, give patients choices which further personalize their experience, and refuse to consider some things that might help but are not recognized by Big Medicine and Big Insurance. I guess this is exactly why it is said that doctors “practice” medicine. They’re trained (primarily by medical schools funded by big pharmaceutical companies), but most of the time they don’t know what the hell is going to work on one patient or another. Buckle up and prepare for a crazy, unpredictable ride.
For me, as a wife and caretaker, the roller coaster of emotions has been wild. I am fairly stoic and can take the bad news as smoothly as when the car is just pulling out of the loading station on level tracks. But what really brings out the blubbering emotion, the highs and the lows, is the kindness and goodness of people we encounter on the ride. The love and care for Randy and me comes from very familiar places, of course. But it comes from some very surprising places too, complete strangers sometimes, or a tender, truly concerned health care worker.
When Randy has days with a lot of pain, or he eats almost nothing, or sleeps most of the day, I can’t help thinking that his days on earth are numbered. Then the next day he might have an odd, unexpected burst of energy and I can’t imagine why I thought his permanent move to heaven is imminent. Watching him walk around clutching his chest in pain or being able to walk for only about 5 minutes without sitting to rest just breaks my heart. That emotion triggers the tears I don’t want him to see. When someone offers to bring food or suggests a comfort to him that never occurred to me, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. Sitting here thinking of all the kindnesses I want to tell you about triggers a welling of emotion that spills unbidden out of me. Telling his sisters about his day makes me cry, sometimes in pain for him, sometimes in gratitude for a good day.
Last week my friend Nancy told me that our mutual friend Betty mentioned Randy’s pain is not for him. She explained that the pain is for us, implying that we will be so relieved when it’s over that it helps us deal more effectively with the grief left in its wake. There is wisdom in that. When the ride is over, we’ll have experienced the highs and the lows and will just be glad it’s over. And definitely not looking forward to doing it again, ever.
I pray you don’t ever, involuntarily, have to ride the Cancer Life rollercoaster. It’s never a good-thrilling kind of ride.
P.S. Having said all that, this week has been pretty dang good. We are getting into a routine with pain medication that keeps Randy relatively pain-free while still functioning on a day-to-day basis. His neck tumors are very slowly shrinking (we think), he’s sleeping a little better, and finally eating a little more. A sore throat that makes it difficult to swallow is his biggest deterrent to eating enough to maintain his weight right now. Please continue to pray for tumor reduction and weight gain, both of which will help him heal.
P.P.S. Next Tuesday, my regular blog post day, is Honor Flight Day. I’m making an executive decision to take that week off from this blog. See you in 2 weeks with a full report of the trip of a lifetime from Washington, DC.
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