Patience

"It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it."

Time. Time between tests and appointments. Waiting. Waiting for phone calls and test results. Answers. Hearing words you know will come but waiting to know they are true. Relief. Knowing that there is someone struggling to accept a harder truth than what you face.

As we enjoyed time as a family this weekend celebrating our daughter's Champagne birthday, a milestone turning 14 on April 14, 2014. I marvelled at how she became this young woman in a blink of an eye. It was only yesterday that she was carrying her golly around, driving up and down the sidewalk in her cozy coupe, we were enjoying the bliss of three hour afternoon naps while I worked half time. Her routines of "flippies" with Daddy and dance routines on the driveway. How did all that time go by so quickly when it seems like the past few days and weeks seem so hard to get through. 

When? When will treatment start? When will I meet with the oncologist? How long will the treatment last? How long will I keep working? When will I start feeling better or worse? When will all the tests stop and the answers begin? Believe me, those are all questions I seek to find the answers to. And I may not get them all at once.

"Patience is not the ability to wait, but how you act while you're waiting."

I am grateful for the answers I have received. They are enough to keep me positive, give me hope and help me put one foot in front of the other. I am thankful for the joy and calmness I find in completing tasks at school, having short conversations with wonderful colleagues, kind words and smiles bestowed on me. Even if I don't always respond or stop for a chat, I know you are there. 

 I am putting my faith in the medical field that a solid plan is being built carefully for me with all the necessary information to put all the pieces together treat me. Waiting for a week for my appointment at the Cancer Centre has been extremely difficult, a load that I struggle at times to accept, made easier by so many friends and family. One truly does not realize how loved you are until you face something like this.

To my many Secret Bunnies at school, you made coming to work something I look forward to again tomorrow. For the beautiful flowers that arrived from two amazing gymnastics moms, even though we don't see each other often in our dropping off and crazy schedules, I know you are there for us and you provide a second home to Jordan. For our friends who invite us out for dinner, visits and treat us exactly the same, thank you for helping me realize there is more to our lives than illness. We need and yearn for normal.