“Your Speed doesn’t Matter, Forward is Forward” 🐢

Love that quote. Our late bloomer got some much needed good news today! We received positive results from his Monday bone marrow biopsy!! The last round of chemo is still showing it’s effectiveness. Not only were we still holding or trending down as needed, we did so pretty significantly. We were very excited to get the numbers today and see that C’s body is finally responding to the chemo. 🙏🏼 His doctor and team seemed as genuinely excited as we were. 🥰

The last two weeks have been really rough - there are so many rollercoaster moments that don’t make the blog cut - that are frankly too tedious, terrifying, exhausting to post. Changes that feel like they are coming at warp speed. Such is the nature of this disease. Yesterday he lost most of his peripheral vision and wasn’t able to read his phone or computer even with heavily magnified cheaters. And then there is a whole process of CT’s, Neuro, Ophthalmology, and discussions with our doctors. And all of it is potentially really scary stuff. I woke up around 4:30am with my undocumented freelance oncology degree 🙅‍♀️and went to work on his daily labs and symptoms. I genuinely hesitated to text our way-too-generous NP to rapid fire my diagnosis at 6:15am. “Hesitated“ being the operative word. 😬 No matter how much I tried to keep that finger from hitting the send arrow, it did. She kindly talked me off the ledge and used her actual documented oncology degree to reason why my diagnosis didn't hold up. 😇 Thank goodness. My poor uncle also got a call around the same time.🤦‍♀️ I feel like we are genuinely positive and believe what we spew 95% of the time, but that 5% doubt will bring you to your knees. So lessons learned:

- think twice before giving Ashley your personal number. Seriously. Think. Twice

- daily mantra - one of the gentlest and kindest ❤️, but with a personal add on - “you is smart, you is kind, you is important.....and you is not a medical professional”. (The Help)

- no matter how much fear creeps in, always push hope back to the center

- the two most powerful warriors are patience and time —Tolstoy

Anyway, we feel reinvigorated to tackle what comes next. We took a 2-hour snuggle nap together and probably slept more deeply than we have the whole time we’ve been here. We decided to keep my Lorazepam prescription (normally for turbulent flights) at the ready 😂💊🤯. C is going headstrong with his exercise and muscle building (we think we spied the beginnings of a tricep returning home). We are grateful for the collective effort it took to get good news on this day. Doctors, nurses, medicine, hard work, will, faith, support, family, friends, focus, energy, spirit, God, prayer, kindness, love, dedication, etc. I’ve said it before.....it takes a village. ❤️

Another bone marrow biopsy sometime next week to see where we are again - give him some time to let his body heal/rest/recover - then decide next steps.

Thankful for all of you! 💃🏼🕺🏻

Hope this finds you all well,

C & A

Celebratory walk with one of our favorite nurses & the 😇 NP without whom we couldn’t do this!