As we prepare to leave the “comforts” of the chemo suite for other floors of the cancer center in 2022, may we find good news. May we find light at the end of what has been a long, dark tunnel.

I’m not sure why we need to rank our memories this time of year, but it seems that we do. I suppose a quick “remember when” session helps stoke the magic that powers our traditions.

The Karen Wellington Foundation surprised Julie with a spa day package. Watch the video of the presentation.

Words like lumpectomy, mastectomy, reconstruction, drain tubes and hysterectomy are keeping me up at night. But she sleeps soundly.

Sometimes, no amount of “stay positive” gets you up the hill.

He needs me to be okay, and if I’m not he’ll do anything he can to know I will be alright. 

We never expected so many — more than 5,000 blog views by 2,100 different people so far — to come along for the journey. We are thankful for all of you, and we pray it helps others who find themselves walking a similar path.

I saw the panic in Julie’s eyes as she struggled to breathe. She went completely flush as redness filled her face from chin to forehead like a glass filling with water.

Instead of holding my wife’s hand at a fall festival, I served her breakfast, lunch and dinner in bed. 

The world doesn’t stop or slow down because of cancer or any other disease. And nor should it. Life and growth continue around you, and it must. The garden can’t wait for you to pick it, and your kids can’t pause their lives for you to catch up.

You don’t know how powerful it is to have friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers step into your life in a loving way until you are truly vulnerable.

Walking in from the parking garage today, she said “let’s just skip it and leave. I think I’m all better now.” She was joking, but I’m pretty sure if I would have turned back to the car, she would have followed.

If you want the full effect of this Q&A, you should imagine the rhythmic sound of an IV pump pushing fluids throughout the conversation. That’s what it sounded like to me as Julie answered my questions from inside the chemo suite. We stopped in at the Barrett Cancer Center today for a bit of a tuneup after a rough day of nausea and getting sick. Figured it was a good time to see where Julie’s head is at.

There is a certain fraternity among breast cancer patients, a commonality if you will. Sort of like Jeep owners who acknowledge one another on the open road, women on the third floor of UC’s Barrett Cancer Center exchange a sympathetic sad smirk. It is as if to say, “I feel ya” or “You got this girl.”

Also, your dryer still dies, the grass still needs cut, work doesn’t take a break, and your kids still get sick with a virus that mimics COVID-19 symptoms.

As much as she tried to prepare herself for losing her long beautiful brown hair, it was still a shock — like an audible gasp, followed by crying — when a slight tug left her holding dozens of strands.

Cancer has an indiscriminate way of shifting your priority list from inside the chemo suite.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have good news to share with you,” she said. You have a “somewhat aggressive form of cancer that has triple negative receptors.”

We should be sitting around a celebration dinner with our oldest kid listening to the news of her day. Instead, we wondered how we tell the news when all three of our girls aren’t even home.

Cancer. Of all the words I never thought would invade our home, this was the one I didn’t fear. All that changed this week.