A Very Bad Email

I heard a sound. It wasn’t a cry. It sounded much worse than a cry. It was such a brief, soft, yet terrifying sound that I’ll probably never get it out of my head for the rest of my life. I turned around not knowing what to expect. I thought maybe Eric had gotten hurt or was in pain from his…

Another Bad Email

People have said cancer is a marathon. Well, it’s not. I’ve run marathons before. They’re 26.2 miles. They have a start and a finish. They have a route. You choose to run one. Cancer has none of those qualities. But unfortunately I have no better analogy for cancer because this is like nothing…

A Very Good Email

A lot has happened.

Eric’s 4th cycle of chemo was more intense than even our worst case predictions. There were 3 straight days when Eric didn’t move out of bed except to use the bathroom. It was too painful for Eric to eat. He told me he was in so much pain that he was…

Returning to Normal

But not to where we were

Depending on when you start counting Eric’s cancer from (symptoms or diagnosis), the first 8–10 months of Bryn’s life were “normal”. She had two parents who loved her more than life itself and wanted to do the best job possible…

Not a Fairytale

There’s no happily ever after, but we can live happily right now

Being a Mother

On May 15 2016 I was on the phone with my mom. She wanted to plan a quick trip across the country to San Francisco and I was trying to convince her it wasn’t necessary. My husband Eric was scheduled for a bilateral tonsillectomy on May 17 and we knew the recovery would be about 2 weeks. The first week…

Sort of Halfway

Eric recently finished his third out of six chemo treatments. Halfway. Well, sort of.

Seeing Eric battle cancer, I’m realizing part of what makes cancer so inhumane is that in order to get better, the treatment has to make you sicker. And not just a little sicker. You can…

A Judgement Call

One of the most frustrating parts of this process is that I want medicine to be a science. I want it to be exact, definitive, and certain. When a loved one’s life hangs in the balance, I’m not ok with so much being left up to chance and gut feel. But the reality is that so much of cancer treatment…