As I sit here and reflect on 2017 to write, think and ponder, all that comes up is uncertainty and anxiety.

This year is winding down and another one is yet to begin. I am thankful we made it through 2017 (If even only by the skin of our teeth. 😳)

I can remember sitting here one year ago unclear if we would still be a family of four and see 2018 together.

I am sad and grateful for this year.

It is not lost on me how I lucky and unlucky I am to feel exactly the same way 365 days later.

As I sit here with my Desire Map Planner trying to fester up my intentions for 2018 my thoughts are racing with the hope and possibility.

I almost always feel this way with the prospect of a clean slate.

Only this time it is different.

The wishes only swirl inside my head but truthfully, I don’t really ‘feel’ them.

In theory, optimism on New Years seems logical and expected, every one does it.

But this year, when it comes to writing down and committing to owning my own core desires- my pages are completely blank.

“How do you want to feel in 2018?”
The first question on page one baffles me.

I know I am screwed.

“Not like this any fucking more.” Is the only thought I can come up with.

I put the book down.

“What is the point?” I mumble to myself. I pour myself a glass of wine and pick up my latest read- ‘The subtle art of not giving a fuck.’

It seems fitting.

Maybe my only option is not giving a fuck.

But is it possible?

‘They’ say anxiety is living in fear of the future
And
‘They’ say depression is living in sadness of the past.

‘They’ also say the only true path to happiness and peace is to stay in the present moment.

I ponder.

“Who the F are ‘they’ anyway? and how the heck do ‘they’ even know? Have ‘they’ ever lived a life as messed up as this?”

Fuck them or ‘they’ or whomever 😉

I am so condescending and judgy these days.

I know it is because I am struggling.

This past month has been an absolutely incredible and an overwhelming show of love and support towards our family.

We have experienced some of the most amazing acts of kindness in our entire lives. So many of you have turned up to rally for us. We’ve been in awe. ❤️

What you’ve given us is far more than freedom from a financial burden.

You’ve shown us you are with us. We know we aren’t alone and that you all are committed to helping us get through this difficult time.

You’ve given us comfort, love, warm meals and oh so many hugs.
You’ve shared advice, hope, and faith in humanity and community and god.

We have spent so much time in absolute shock, we’ve almost been unable to process the level of kindness and compassion we’ve been shown.

It’s hard to imagine we are even worthy of all of the this.
We, never in a million years would have expected what you’ve all done for us and I am at a loss on how to even begin to thank you all or how to show you how grateful we are.

I feel like I am never, ever, going to be able to repay this level of kindness forward in my life although it is all I want to do now.

For me personally, I feel like you have all given me so much more than you will ever know.

I know I needed to learn this level of humility and I needed to know what it feels like to be this humbled.

I have always been someone who has struggled with receiving (I like to think I don’t need help) and I’ve also struggled with control (I might not have it all covered😉)

There is a false sense of accomplishment that comes with feeling like things are taken care of. I yearn to have a plan. I like taking action. I like feeling useful, doing something, anything….

But this year has been so out of control that every time we took two steps forward and felt like we were making progress,it was as though we were pushed twenty steps back. It was a constant shuffle and we had no choice but to own it.

It’s been a tough year.

Truthfully, it’s been the worst year of our lives- and yet it has also been filled with some of the best experiences, the most kindness, support and generosity we’ve ever experienced so it’s hard to chop it all up to a bad year.

This is where the swing of the pendulum of my emotion comes into play.

The contradiction of life that is hard to process. How can it be so awful and yet so amazing all at the same time?

I just don’t know what to do…or how I am supposed to feel coming into 2018.

I try so hard to only lean into gratitude and think about enjoying this time we have together.
I desperately try to stay in the now- I don’t want the anxiety or the depression- but I just don’t always have the strength to steady myself.

I slip.

I think about the worst. I get so fucking angry. I am tired. I feel ripped off and the ‘what if’s’ fill my thoughts all day long.

What if this is our last Christmas as a family? What if things don’t work out? What if our life will never be ok again? What if we can’t find the strength to rally anymore?

What if Logan isn’t strong enough to take anymore treatment? What if her health stabilizes and we get more time together but this is as good as it gets?

How do I accept what feels so unacceptable? How do I not become bitter or jaded?

Where does the ever lovin’ strength that every talks about come from? Because I fear it’s not a renewable energy.

We are all so drained and sometimes all I want to do is go ape shit crazy and lose my mind.

Riding the ups and downs of uncertainty is emotional and exhausting.

But staying up all night to listen for Logan throwing up or worrying about her getting out of bed alone when her blood pressure is unstable is physically exhausting and starting to take its toll.

Caregiving 24 hours a day, listening to her feeding pump run for hours on end, the endless phone alarms ringing indicating it’s time for more medication, the error codes on the blood pressure machine beeping and the cries of sadness and pain have become the rhythm and sound track of our lives.

It’s not good enough.

Yet, what if this is all we get?

What if this HAS to be good E-fucking-Nuff?

How do you measure joy and happiness amidst all the fear and worry?

How do you allow yourself to experience both the pleasure and the pain this illness has brought to our lives?

Guilt is thick. It plagues me. I am vulnerable to people who judge me because I know I am not perfect and I am always judging myself.

“Could I do a better job? What else should I be doing? How can I fix this mess?”

I believe the acupuncture and new medication regimen have finally helped settled Logan’s endless vomiting (thank god) and this relief has given us some respite.

For 9 weeks Logan vomited at least 10 times a day. She quickly lost about 12 lbs and it didn’t matter what we did, she was in a cycle and we just couldn’t get her out of it.

I felt the anxiety and desperation and helplessness like I’ve never felt before.

I feared we had little time left. The doctors didn’t know why this was happening. Maybe the chemo was too hard on her, maybe the tumour was progressing, maybe it was a fungus….
We spent days on end in the hospital and there were no answers.

But as of today, it’s been 9 days and she’s only vomited once. (Knock on wood). It’s not all roses. Don’t get me wrong- but we are now managing symptoms and it feels a little more hopeful.

The doctors are confident their new ‘think outside of the box’ concoction of 7 zillion meds are the saving grace.

The acupuncturist is convinced her improvement is because he has finally managed to open some of her energy blocks and her chi is finally starting to return.

I don’t know. All I know is I should be grateful and happy for this little bit of respite but all I feel is an overwhelming sense of dread for the unknown.

Logan is weaker than she’s ever been. Fragile- shaky and frail. Think 90 year old grandma.
She’s confused. She has trouble articulating herself or getting her thoughts together. She moves so slowly it is often just easier to put her in a wheelchair and trying to get her to eat a full meal is a constant struggle.

The doctors tell us best case scenario we need to continue to give her a break from chemo for as long as possible. We will have another MRI in the coming weeks to look at the tumour and make sure it isn’t growing.

The hope with this ‘wait and see’ strategy is that she gets physically stronger and her organs and bone marrow recover enough to possibly take more treatment if needed.

The shitty thing is, even if the tumour doesn’t grow for a while, obviously after 4 relapses we know it will, it’s just a matter of when.

It feels like living on the edge of a cliff and praying the earth doesn’t give way.

Regardless of growth, the size the tumour and location of it now is our biggest problem. We hoped after 14 months of chemo we’d see better results from treatment.

Sadly we just didn’t.

The brainstem is where her tumour is and absolutely controls everything and even if the tumour doesn’t get any bigger for a few months unless we do something to minimize it, this is likely the Loggie we are left with.

She is in autonomic system failure. For those of you who don’t know, your autonomic system controls the basic system you need to live. Breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, swallowing, digestion, organ function, metabolism, waste control- all of it.

All of it.
Her whole system is not working properly because there is a stupid tumour in the way and as the doctors say “it is wreaking havoc” on her system.

The shitty part is that the more chemo we give her the more we are hurting her whole body and even though it’s been helping the cancer (there are some areas that look improved) we aren’t sure how much more poison she can actually withstand.

So, as I sit here and think about coming into a new year, I don’t know what write in my planner, because quite simply, I don’t know what to hope for.

I don’t know how to accept where we are at. I don’t know how to pause, and enjoy this time together when it’s so much to manage every day and the fear of the unknown is bogging me down.

I don’t know how to process.

It’s like there is a glitch in the software controlling our existence.

I feel like all we’ve worked to achieve in this life doesn’t really matter anymore.

Things we’ve prided ourselves at attaining feel empty.

Being present and in the moment feels imperative but I am grasping.

I don’t want to miss anything, not the absolute goodness or any of the bad moments.

I feel desperate to accept where we are at but I am finding it so fucking hard to do when all I feel like I am doing is sitting around waiting for the next shoe to drop.

All I want is for these moments to be enough. Enough for now. Enough for the rest of my life, if it has to be.

We, as humans, are programmed to believe the opposite of lack in our lives is total abundance and none of us want to live in lack of anything.

We all strive for abundance.
It is drilled into us that if we can believe wholeheartedly in something we can manifest all the beautiful things we want to receive.

I call bullshit.

We all want wealth and success and health and unlimited happiness. We are programmed to believe that when we finally ‘arrive’ at our perceived level of abundance and achieve all of our desires only then we will finally be happy and content.

But what if the opposite of lack is not abundance but only ‘enough’?

What if we can’t actually ever reach happy and content and abundance unless we can accept where we are at every stage of our lives as simply ‘enough’?

What if we stopped wishing for more and started focusing on what is?

I listened to a podcast a few months ago and this concept has been swirling in my consciousness since then.

I have been back and forth internally struggling to find a way to accept where we are as enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not there yet….but I really want to be.

I want us to enjoy (whatever that means) these moments even if they don’t measure up to what we hoped for in abundance.

I want to lap up all the contradiction and just live from a place of less pressure and more of what feels good.

I want to let go of trying to fix it all.
I want to do the best I can but not miss what’s in front of me because I am wishing for more than is currently possible.

There is only one problem, I just don’t know how ‘get there’

Yet.

Maybe I never will.

Or maybe 2018 will totally rock.

The thing is, I think, maybe as we all sit and contemplate this new year instead of plaguing ourselves with goals and intentions and pressure, instead of setting ourselves up with hefty measurements and resolutions, instead of putting all the pressure of greatness on the next 365 days and carrying that weight on our shoulders, maybe we should just meet ourselves where we are.

In this moment…..

Wherever you are, however good or shitty it is….

Just own it and give it a little bit of space, to simply and humbly be ‘enough’

Here is to 2018. 🥂

I am not sure what it will bring but I know with absolute truth it will be what it will be.

My only hope going into it, is whatever the outcome, I will have experienced it all wholeheartedly and will leave it behind me feeling it was absolutely and completely  ‘enough’. ❤️🤞

The only comment I get more than ‘If there is anything I can do to help?’ is ‘I don’t know how you do ‘it’.

People often tell me how they don’t think they could do what I do and comment on how strong I am.
They tell me how if it were their child who was sick they would be emotional wrecks  and simply couldn’t cope.

“God, I’d be SUCH a mess…. I DON’T know how you function….I DON’T think I could do it…” (and yes all the capitalized words are emphasized in conversation)

I hear these words over and over again from very well intentioned folk.

I think people choose  words with the intention of giving credit and acknowledgement for the courage, capacity and strength it takes to care for a sick child.

But when it is worded like this, it makes me feel even more disconnected from the ‘normal’ people and the ‘normal’ world around me.

I usually walk away a little miffed and my irritated condescending inner voice kicks in.

“Yup, I guess you’d be an emotional basket case and I’m not because you love your kid more than me….” (insert 🙄)

I know this absolutely isn’t true. I get it, most of us associate dramatic emotion with deep love.

But honestly, what most people don’t understand is how the trauma and terror of cancer subsides.
I mean, I know our situation is shit but I have also come to know how once unfathomable things easily become a part of  daily life and reality.

‘Gloved up’ and giving chemo on the fly.

When people share how they could never do what I do, my reply is always the same “I really have no choice but to be strong and FYI you could do it too if you had to.”

I smile half-heartedly hoping they feel their words gave me some comfort and walk away after the awkward hug that almost always follows with a slight eye twitch.

“Nobody ‘gets’ me. Nobody ‘gets’ this.
Nobody knows what to say. Let it go Jenny….
Practice the 4 f’ing agreements. You know better, for god sakes, than to take anything personally…”

The other day I got a message from one of my India tribe members. She wanted to see how I was doing and rather than letting me BS my way through our exchange, she asked me a question.

“Tell me, how you are coping?” She asked. “What do you do to take care of yourself?”

It really got me thinking….

How the hell do I cope?

Why is it that I am not falling apart all the time? (Is there something wrong with me?)

Should I be I be concerned that I have become so exposed to shitty and hard situations that I don’t ‘feel’ anything anymore? Am I emotionally detached?

I do love wine and I joke about drinking too much but really, why have I not tipped over the edge and numbed myself into needing a sponsor?

I was deep in thought about it all while sitting in the oncology clinic waiting for Logan to get blood when it hit me.

The Canuck Place people had come to see a family we were sharing a room with and as I watched the two ladies approach the door my stomach lurched.

Logan has been doing pretty crappy for the past few weeks. She has new symptoms and because we lowered the dose of chemo of course we worry her tumour is growing.

We have been dodging our orientation into their program like a flying bullet. Juliette (our oncologist) wants us to utilize their resources. I was sure she sent them to see us.

As they approached the door I grabbed my cel phone to aimlessly scroll and avoid eye contact.

“I am going to lose my shit on Dr.Hukin for this….Oh, fuck, things ARE getting worse…..The tumour IS growing.” My thoughts immediately spiralled into panic mode.

When I finally worked up the courage to look up, the Canuck Place ladies flashed me an uncomfortable smile then panned over to the family sitting next to us and asked for privacy.

Immediately my stomached plummeted into deep and painful knots and I literally bolted.

The very first thought I had as I gave a look of compassion to the mom I left behind in the teen room was…

“I don’t know how you do it…..”

Fuck me.

How can I possibly loathe when people say these words to me yet the exact same words come to mind in uncomfortable situations?

I pondered this epiphany as I sat outside the door.

Compassion is such a complicated process.

It is so much easier to say “I don’t think I could cope with what you are coping with or I’d be a total mess ” and deflect the conversation than it is to feel the deep pain and emotion for someone else and be compassionate and empathetic and truthful.

Compassion is what we want to show others but is so fucking hard to do because it takes a lot of courage and vulnerability and to be honest most of us have never been taught how to be open. We don’t want to face the shitty parts of life or get thrown in the trenches.

For most of us, life is just too busy and stressful and it is hard enough to try to stay happy and content in our own worlds.

I get it.

But the truth is….

Shitty, hard things are always going to be a huge part of life and the more we avoid them the less connected, engaged and whole we feel in every aspect of life.

As I sat outside the door and waited for the hospice people to leave I felt the familiar feeling of the walls closing in on me. I felt the cries of the kids in the clinic piercing through my bones. I felt the tension of the parents bickering and the stress coming off the nurses who were trying to ‘help’ although they know all they are doing is ‘hurting’.

It all hit me like a ton of bricks.

We cope (or at least I do) most of the time by not letting myself ‘go there’

Denial.

Yep, the first step in the process of grief is personally where I chose to vibrate the most.

And I’m not talking about walking around with my head in the clouds like my kid doesn’t have cancer, but instead just chunking things down into the moment.

No big picture over here….

No looking too far ahead or thinking about all we’ve been though because it’s too fucking intense and when I do, I can’t breathe.

Anxiety comes on so strong, it is literally painful.

So, I just put one foot in front of the other and try to stay in the moment, every day.

Because I am not processing much around me, I also find I have very little focus and rarely remember much. Sorry in advance if you’ve had to remind me about something 27 times.
I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m just coping 😉

I also cope by joking about things that are too heavy to actually face. It’s probably why I’m not clicking with the Canuck Place people- they are WAY too serious and quite frankly I’m not ready to go there yet.

Listen, I know none of this is funny but sometimes I feel like the only choice I have is to either to laugh or to cry.

I know you don’t always ‘get’ my humour and you don’t know how to take me. It’s ok- just know if I chose the latter emotion our interactions would likely be far more awkward than my stupid jokes about my bald kid.

Give it to me…

Oh and it’s ok to laugh with me….my inappropriateness is not contagious 😉

I cope by planning adventure.

Putting things on the calendar (planning a trip around the world) and keeping busy gives all four of us a sense purpose.

You might think it is absurd to learn how to change my kids feeding tube and talk about getting a five hundred dollar MRI in Ethiopia but this is OUR jam.

It is what we want to do.

Have experience and fun. Period.

We want to feel alive and do cool shit. We want to plan adventures and spend our time together daydreaming about those very adventures. The trips we’ve collectively taken to over 20 countries since Loggie has been diagnosed has been the very thread that has kept us going.

Seeing the world for all that it is- beauty and struggle- gives us hope. Getting lost together so we can find ourselves and reconnect outside of the bullshit has been the best thing we’ve ever done.

What makes my heart the most full. Traveling with these beauties!

It’s not for everyone and it’s not about running away from our problems. (Ok maybe it is, a little bit 🙄)

But it is NOT a bucket list.

We are not an race to check off seeing the Eiffel Tower or the pyramids in Egypt. Instead, we want to saunter around seeing the beauty in this world and feel alive.

Really, our circumstances have been difficult but we know life and humanity and the world as a whole is not terrible. It is amazing and awesome and here for us to experience and enjoy.

Throwing in the towel, blowing money we should be saving, quitting jobs and selling our stuff to traveling the world is our own version of a ‘fuckit’ list.

To you, it might not seem smart or responsible or right but again… that is why it we call it a ‘fuckit’ list.

I believe it will all work out. It’s only money we’ve been through much worse than being broke- although we have been that too. 😉 💰

Travel has also been a good form of bribing Logan.

“Get up and get moving and start feeling better or you aren’t coming to Mexico.” The fear of missing out always gets her out of bed.

Plus, she is also pretty wise.

“Mom, you work so hard to save my life. You have to let me live it.❤️” is what she tells me every time I suggest we stay home.

Sometimes, my coping skills suck and I scream and holler and vacuum the road outside my house. Sometimes all I desperately want to do is run away or punch someone in the face. Sometimes I don’t answer my phone and I avoid situations that I know will piss me off. Sometimes I say mean things to the people I love. Let’s be honest, sometimes, I do drink too much wine.

I am human.

I am broken and I am truly so fucking afraid every single day of my life.

But I guess I stay ‘strong’ mostly, and simply because I want to. Falling apart and being sad and angry all the time takes a shit load of effort and far too much energy.

Strong is a choice. I work at it because I don’t want to fall apart. I have done the whole falling apart thing. I’ve numbed myself with medication and distraction and learned that buried hurt doesn’t really ever go away.
It always catches up with you.

You have to face it.

You have a choice. I choose to sift through the shit and look for the goodness.

Life really can be good despite the bogus dirtbag crap that cancer brings.

There is good all around us and when you look for it and you decide to do things and migrate towards situations and people that make you feel happy and comforted the less power the cancer has.

Your own personal energy is like a fucking magnet. When you get stuck in feeling shitty and you attract shit. You wake up each day and say “I’ve got this” or “You are doing a great job” even when you don’t believe it,  you start the flow of energy and change.

Sometimes, you have to use the negative emotion inside you to elevate you into positive action.

I was so pissed off at cancer for so long I finally got mad enough to put it in its place.
Cancer is a part of our life, but it is NOT our life and it needs to know where it belongs.

I am not saying this to inspire anyone by my profound strength (insert eye roll 🙄) but rather to explain.

A. You wouldn’t be a mess- all the time- if your kid was sick. (Just some of the time 😉)

And

B. It is a process- all of it.

Life is a process and we get better at things with time and experience.
Sadly, I am better at cancer ‘momming’ than you.

Simply, for one reason and one reason only…

I’ve got a kid with cancer and you don’t.

It doesn’t matter how many times I have sat in the MRI waiting room, I always feel panicked.

I don’t know why but every single time I enter that room there is a sudden pulsation of fear that overcomes me and I literally feel like I am going to lose my shit.

The MRI waiting room isn’t a scary place and theoretically it isn’t any different than any other waiting area in the hospital but it doesn’t matter. I loathe this room and almost choke on the lump that forms in my throat every time I have to sit in there.

Maybe, because I know even though it looks the same as all the others, it is different.

It is a room that carries a hefty, weighty, stressful energy and I sense it in every fiber of my being.

It is where families go to measure progress or confirm their worst fears.

No one gets an MRI because something isn’t wrong.

An MRI is a big test and it holds clout.

Despite any pacifying from doctors, the pictures that come from the scan make almost all the treatment decisions.

Knowing this means I can almost feel the banging of the machine through the thick painted cement walls when they fire up the machine.

The thud of the metal door from the waiting room to the radiologists desk seems to close harder than any other door in the hospital and every time it does I consciously think to myself, “You have to let it go Jenny. It already is whatever it is going to be. ”

Only I never can just let it go.

It is impossible.

Instead, I stew in my fear and worry and sit in that room which feels like torture and limbo combined.

It is hard to explain the intensity of the wait between a scan and the report but if you have ever experienced these moments, you will know what I mean.

I used to go into the scan with Logan every time she had one.

I used to think I could tell by the facial expressions of the technicians what the pictures were showing. I used to drive myself crazy trying to see a reflection in the glass between the machine and the computer screens as the images appeared.

I used to be so desperate to know the results, I felt like I was going insane from the sound of the machine as it began to hammer.

Now, I just sit silently outside in the irritating, confined waiting room trying to calm my own nerves.

I don’t exactly know why or even when I decided to start sitting outside the scan but today I realized it is no easier than being beside her.

It is all I can do to not to throat punch the parents who turn The Wiggles on the TV full volume while ignoring their kids who are throwing around plastic toys and playing the xylophone.

It is all I can do but wonder, “How the fuck does one cope with this? How the fuck do I cope? Am I even coping?”

MRI day and business trip= no coping and no shoes 😳

Today, I tried to be super evolved and self aware. I  journaled my way through my stay in the MRI waiting room. I was in the midst of writing through my feelings of why the room freaks me out so much when it all hit me.

I had just run into DR. Rod in the hall.

The kids and I were taking a selfie outside the MRI room when he came up and joked about our lighting and our angle.

“Where are you off to?” I asked him

“ICU.” He replied with a slight head tilt.

ICU is shittier than MRI. We both know it.

I looked down the long hallway with the stars on the wall indicating the route.

We’ve been there.

Actually, I think we’ve left MRI and very quickly been admitted into the ICU or vice versa.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

MRI is so fucking scary because it is the moment when you realize the magnitude of the situation you are facing.

MRI reiterates that you are caught between living life (and walking out of the front door of the lobby) and facing death (and heading down the hall to follow the stars to the ICU)

So, it is just “holy fuck!!”

MRI should be scary simply because it is…..

Super Scary. Period.

And another scan is now done and yes I am typing this while drinking a glass of wine.🍷

This glass of wine is from a neighbor who left me bottle at my doorstep because she totally  knew I would need it tonight. Thank the dear lord for moving me next door to Lesley.

Believe it or not I am not as nervous about this scan as I usually am.

I think I know what to expect.

Logan is doing better than she was, but she is also a long way from where she needs to be.

We are just plugging along (having as much fun as we can, when we can). Which is all I think we can do at this point.

I really am expecting a ‘status quo’ report.

But expecting and wishing are two different things and the crazy thing is, as I write this I am reminded how I don’t know what to wish for.

Of course, I wish her cancer would just disappear.

I always do and I’d be a shitty parent if I didn’t, but what if tomorrow I found out it was all gone and this Loggie is the Loggie we were left with.

Would it be enough? Would we feel like we  had won the battle?

Logan is so far from where she needs to be.

Could I accept where we are at today as the ultimate success and rest of our lives or as I sit here tonight should I be wishing to find out Friday we are only making progress on the road to the cure?

I don’t know.

What I truly wish for is for a life that wasn’t ever about cancer.

I wish this disease wasn’t part of our personal equation, but it is.

And reality has a shitty way of being real so there is no point in wishing for something that can’t be possible.

So, what I am left with is I don’t know what to wish for and I have finally decided that is ok because sometimes wishing is just a recipe for disappointment.

Maybe my therapist will help me to better understand this question.

Poor thing had a cancellation tomorrow and called me in at last minute.

My first thought when I got her message was “SCREW YOU UNIVERSE!!!😩😩😩.” But then I also said a silent thank you.😉

Good timing. I know I need it.

Results come Friday and the day between the scan and the report can be a doozy.

On that note, the new hospital is almost built and ready for patients to move in.

Do you think it is too late to suggest they make sure the MRI machine is no longer next door to the ICU?

Somebody I really admire once told me “You can have bad days but it doesn’t have to mean you have a bad life”

Her wisdom has stuck with me and thinking with her logic makes it difficult for me feel sorry for myself.

I mean, some days I feel super shitty about our situation because cancer is so fucking challenging.

Every single day is tough and the truth is, as time goes on it only gets tougher.

I hate it.

And I feel sad and angry and more than anything,

I feel tired.

So. FUCKING tired.

Of all of it.

Every aspect.

Providing 24 hour round the clock care is exhausting. Logan’s needs are intense and I feel like I never get a break and its draining and I am torn between wanting to run away and wanting to stay put.

Cancer is consuming.

All. The. Bloody. Time.

Living this life, every single day, truly is a struggle.

An uphill battle.

We may try to make it look easy but the truth is, it is far from easy.

It is a struggle to not let this hardship and the pity and the bitterness I feel eat at the very depth of my core.

It takes effort to not let negative energy penetrate you and strip you of your happiness and joy.

It is hard not to feel ripped off or resentful.

It is a battle.

A weird, internal battle where you can see that you surrounded by so many people who love and care about you, yet you still feel so completely isolated and deeply alone.

You wonder, “Does anyone even ‘get’ the magnitude of this?”

You don’t ever ask because you already know they don’t. They can’t possibly. You take some peace in knowing they never will.

But the struggle is even harder when you try to explain and find the words.

Because, there is no explanation for things you, yourself, don’t even understand.

There are days when you wonder if the fight is worth all the effort you put in.

You know yourself better than anyone and you can feel what is happening.

You are breaking. Slowly.

Your patience is wearing thin.

The pent up frustration you have chips away at you and fragility surfaces. You wear emotion on your cuff. You feel things you’ve never felt. Your feelings can catch you off guard.

You begin to fear what you are praying for.

Yet you still pray.

You pray, every moment, of every single day simply because you don’t know what else to do.

Some days you feel like prayers are useless and fall on deaf ears. More often then spoken in the cancer world things get better and then just as quickly they get worse and life feels like it is flipping you the bird.

Your efforts feel wasted. You look at you child and wonder how fair the decisions you are making really are.

The chemotherapy is now taking such a toll on Logan. Her blood pressure is still very unstable, she’s had another seizure, she is rapidly losing weight and has had to start daily NG feeds again. The intensity and pressure of her headaches are increasing and cognitively she has continued to decline. We have another MRI coming up and although the last one (only 3 months ago) showed improvement, I worry, she has regressed.

Mornings are a really terrible time for her and there are days when I feel like nothing we are doing is moving us in the right direction.

Sometimes, I feel like picture I am painting for the world (and for myself) is not always the truth of our situation.

This leaves me conflicted.

Because the truth is, most of the time our life is a giant mess with fleeting moments of extreme goodness.

It is intense yet jammed up like rush hour traffic. Energy wanting nothing more than to move forward yet forced to be completely stuck.

I wake up after each restless night ready to face the torture of another day knowing accepting the unacceptable will be inevitable. Life is all about adjusting expectations and rolling with the punches and making the best of it.

I am tired of making the best of it.

But as hard as my life is, my kid’s life is harder. I am constantly reminded of this.

So, I suck it up. I feel guilty about my own pity and try to make this life super awesome for her and Brody and Jared.

That is what mom’s (and dads) are supposed to do, regardless of the shit, right?

It is the job we unknowingly sign up for. It is the dark side nobody tells you about parenting. The moment you have a baby, your life is never really about you again.

The truth is….

I have never felt more stuck or unsure in my entire life.

I should be better at this.

I thought hypothetically, if cancer ever happened again as a mom I would have it cooked and handled.

I thought somewhere inside of me, being a cancer mom vet would protect me from the pain of it all.

I thought exposure would make me an expert.

I learned there is no truth to my thoughts or expectations.

I am not better at this.

In fact most days I feel like I totally suck at it.

I feel like I am barely hanging on.

I wonder every single day why I have been chosen for this impossible task.

I think about my own, eight year old, carefree self and all the hopes and dreams I had for my life and I feel so broken to think of the possibility and ignorance I once felt.

This can’t really be it, can it?

In a quest to have it make sense, I spend so much time in contemplation, therapy and in search of a meaning. I read so many books.

Mostly, the work I do on myself and the things I learn only make me feel more lost.

Go figure.

But I do know this is not my story. It is just part of the process.

I know, although I may not always display it and despite what I tell myself, I am a better version of who I used to be.

I am not any worse than I think I am, I am just really hard on myself. I always have been.

It is a lifetime pattern of beating myself up and an unrealistic perfection complex that is now amped up by wanted desperately to save my child’s life and cure her from this horrid disease but knowing it is totally out of my control.

There is no road map, or instruction manual. We are all doing the best we can.

I draw strength from Logan and she truly is the guiding light for this whole family.

Experience, knowledge, and education doesn’t mean shit on a cancer journey but it really does mean something in the whole scheme of life.

This journey (god I hate that word) helps you get better at being the person you want to be, it has nothing to do with being a better cancer mom.

You take less shit because you have no space for it. Your circle gets smaller but the people in it are super rad and you make decisions based on what you want to do right now instead of living in the past or waiting for the future.

You start to feel everything so very deeply and you get better at saying yes when you can and no when you can’t.

You get to be the recipient of people’s kindness and love and compassion.

No one should have to do this four times and going through it time and time again doesn’t make you stronger. It exposes you but that exposure doesn’t always give you the perspective you need and exposure doesn’t make you more equip to handle what you are forced to face.

Cancer doesn’t give you much but the journey through it does.

It teaches you endurance and it makes your search for happiness and purpose that much stronger.

Struggle shapes you.

There is no sense to things that don’t make sense.

Period.

There are things in this world that we can’t begin to understand and there are things in this world we shouldn’t even try to.

We aren’t meant to understand everything.

I don’t know alot for sure, but I do know life is a process bigger than anything any of us have control over.

I believe we might have to do this many times over to figure out the master plan for our own little souls so I think the right thing to do is focus on the good while we are here.

This is why I have a hard time feeling sorry for myself, or Loggie, (although I desperately wish she didn’t have to be in pain) or for my family, because there is still so much good in this life, in our life.

And because of this, I think I have a responsibility to focus on that good.

Humanity.

Hope.

Possibility.

Kindness

And

Choice.

When you say (and you feel) “My situation sucks, but my whole life doesn’t….”

There is power in that.

Logan taught me this.

She hates having cancer but cancer has never had her. She is gracious and graceful and she is hopeful and she is thankful and she at peace with it all.

It is why goodness always seems to flow towards her and as a result towards all of us as well.

Gratitude is not writing in your journal. You may have to start there and use it to keep you on track but gratitude is not about looking out at your life and saying a verbal thank you.

Gratitude is about looking inward and thanking yourself for being strong enough, aware enough and enlightened enough to recognize possibility and opportunities and good people and then use the energy you have inside you to create more goodness.

I post so many good things to the world simply because I want more goodness to flow into our life.

Not because cancer is a fucking breeze.

Not because I feel like an inspiration (I am always caught off guard when people say this to me. Do any of you know how much wine I drink?🍷😳😉) and not because every single day I don’t realize there is going to be another set back we have to face.

I do it intentionally.

I send out what I want more of.

I have come to learn that struggle is sacred and sometimes we have to face the really hard shit alone, and when we are strong enough to understand it only then can we release it out into the world and ask for support we need.

P.s. It will show up.

The same way all of you have somehow showed up and are now connected to our family and our story.

And if you have any doubt just look below at this beautiful smile and know…

Goodness happens despite the shit.

Every. Single. Day.

We are continuing to hang in there,

#rollwithit

❤️

J

Apparently yesterday was the dark moon. I read all about it on Danielle Laporte’s Instagram page.

“It is the time of the month when the moon is reflecting the least amount of light. In esoteric terms it’s when the light versus the dark and it’s the “darkest before the dawn”. After a dark moon a crescent moon of light forms. Dark moon days can feel like struggles of opposites, and real ass-kickers.”

Yep it was a dark moon, and a fucking MRI day.

Doozy.😩

It has been an all around tough week and truthfully a tough transition back to reality after our Mexican adventure.

Going away and having our ’90 day plan’ is crucial to our sanity, but it does make stepping back into the ‘shit show’ that is our life that much harder.

This week for some unknown reason Logan’s face started to swell. She is also day 21 in the chemo cycle so her counts are starting to plummet and she feels like ass.

We spent some time in the ER this week, then returned to hospital have our own doctor take a look at her. As usual everyone is baffled by Logan’s mystery symptoms and swollen face.

An oncologist we’ve never seen before casually suggested “Sometimes in the medical world it is OK not knowing why symptoms occur.”

No, I didn’t punch her in the face but I did break out hives and almost swallow my tongue whole as told her how her words made me feel.

Then, I took to Facebook and wrote a long rant about her bedside manner which I later deleted. Writing is my release but it wasn’t entirely fair to her. I think she got it. We all get to make mistakes but I  learned we all have the right to be heard.

I am pretty sure in the end the whole situation was a learning opportunity for both of us. I am leaving it at that.

Of course, I was panicked.

My kid’s head was swollen.

She looked somewhere between an Avatar and Rocky from the 1985 movie ‘Mask’ (Hmmm…come to think of it I’d play a good Rusty Dennis in the remake). I may have been a bit bitchy in my presentation to the ER oncologist that day, but for good reason. Had Logan’s toe been swollen I wouldn’t have given her the gears, or spent my sunny holiday Monday paging ‘on call’ residents.

Did I really need to tell them?

“She has a fucking brain tumour, people!!!”

They knew, but as residents they avoided the conversation like the plague. Her MRI was already booked and god only knows no ‘first year’ want’s to be the one to bump a major scan up by 2 days for no good reason. Instead, they offered to admit us.

I told them I needed a glass of wine🍷 and I’d take my swollen kid home. The conversation ended there.

Two days have felt like forever. I could hardly look at Loggie because the fear of what was really going on would literally bubble up from the pit in my stomach through my esophagus and I could taste the bile.

“Fuck me. Her tumour is growing and this is hydrocephalus.” I told myself.

“Stop it Jenny. It’s nothing…… no wait, maybe her tumour is coming out of her nose, maybe that weird healer you had stay with you years ago telepathically felt Logan was sick again and she’s sucking it out or eating it or whatever the hell she said she could do all the way from across the country…..” My mind paused. “Healers can do that shit, right?”

I paced around my house.

I ironed my bed sheets.

“Nope, this is the beginning of the end. Prepare yourself. It IS the end. By this time next week she will be in surgery, and then the ICU and then what? Do we do POG study? Will she need a shunt? Fuck me, I should text Dr. Rod on Facebook…..No Jenny, you can’t text Dr. Rod. He cannot diagnose via social media. Get a grip. Not fair….. Don’t text Dr. Rod”

Ugh……

Finally, MRI day arrived and it was a dark moon.

Apparently my only saving grace was that the very next day it was the crescent moon. New beginning, more light. “Hang on Jenny” I told myself all day.

Loggie got blood.

None of her infection markers indicated she caught some random disease in Mexico (Thank God or we’d never get another recreational ‘top up’ to catch a flight to paradise.) She hadn’t blown an eardrum and there was no abscess in her sinus cavity. She wasn’t having an allergic reaction. There was NO known reason for the swelling.

All we could do was wait for the MRI.

The last 24 hours have been some of the longest hours of my life.

Fuck the dark moon and Fuck the crescent moon too.

In the cancer world, there really isn’t a whole lot of light after the darkness. Especially when you are in the thick of it. There is only intense darkness and then there is a new day. And some days are filled with more intense darkness and some days are a little less dim but mostly they are the same. You need to be a fucking lotus flower and grow in the darkness and mud. You can’t wait for the light. Ever. Period.

So, now, we don’t have the full report from Loggie’s scan yet but we do know that there isn’t a new massive tumour causing her to look like an Avatar.

We also know that the rest of her tumour looks somewhat the same. There is no new worry about the frontal lobe, that unexpected lesion has not grown. The big asshole tumour in the brainstem also has not shrunk or grown, and what felt like they may have been ‘throwing us a bone’ was just hesitation when they said there may be a little LESS signal abnormality on the left side of her pons.

I started to cry.

And then I was reminded about picture splices. They are always slightly different so the pons could actually just be the same.

Sigh.

We were instructed to celebrate with wine and ice cream, but maybe only one glass and one scoop.

Cautiously celebrate…..

Hmmm new concept. Maybe not “Cheers!!!” but  ” Go ahead and crack a 30 dollar bottle tonight instead of a 15 dollar one, right?”

Our oncologist told me she was reaching out to the radiologist to discuss the finalized report later this afternoon but wanted to call me this morning to let me know there would be no ICU or surgery this weekend. Logan didn’t look like Rocky from the movie Mask because there was a new tumour and her old one wasn’t coming out of her nose.

Silence.

She told me to breathe.

I let out a giant moan before I hung up.

At first I felt super relieved and maybe even a bit happy. “To hell with the swelling!!! Sometimes in medicine we are comfortable without knowing what is causing symptoms”

I will go with that..

But then it came rushing in….so fast and so harsh.

Why am I so angry now???

I have pondered it all day and

The truth is (#2) Sometimes feelings in themselves are a paradox.

They contradict each other and you feel them both at the very same time.

You can be happy and relieved and sad and ripped off in the exact moment.

You can be grateful, and bitter.

You can be both afraid of life without your child and afraid of what life will be like if they continue to live. You just fear it all. The unknown is consuming and terrifying.

(Hardest statement I’ve ever wrote or admitted but so true)

Cancer is not fair and it’s really hard. It doesn’t let up. Ever.

There is no good alternative when you are living with this beast but to face it.

You do the best you can and some days, you live in the shadow of the dark moon and other days your crescent moon comes midway through the month and not very next morning.

You can beat yourself up for feeling sad when you should feel happy and you can feel shitty for saying thank you to your doctors when all you really want to say is Fuck you!!!

Stable is good when you know it is all you are going to get, but stable NOW is not as good as stable was 2 years ago. So it is relative and ever changing.

Logan now requires twenty-four hour, round the clock, care and that sucks.

Every day brings something new and the reality is, one moment you can be speaking with your oncologist who is telling you to breathe and the next the respirologist is calling to tell you your kid failed her breathing test and you need to come back for another follow up (Yes, that happened today).

Feelings can really mess with you if you don’t understand them.

I am only just beginning to figure out my own.

Today I feel sad, when I should feel happy and that is OK, because it is the truth.

I am sad for every single time I have to move the bar, or accept what is unacceptable and celebrate when all I want to do is crawl in a hole.

I want my kid to beat cancer, and be normal and healthy and independent.

I want this to be a bump in the road of her life and not the whole fucking highway.

I want to cure her and shelter her from all the pain.

I want to protect her.

I want to log into to her social media and clear her fucking newsfeed of cancer stories. I don’t want her to know anyone else who lost their battle and for fuck sakes I don’t want her to lose hers.

I want to run upstairs into her bedroom out of breath and tell her all of her strength and hard work has finally paid off. She’s winning her fight.

I want tell her, the cancer has shrunk and she’s beating this. ONCE AND FOR ALL!

I want to hug her brother with good news.

I want to see the relief in Jared’s eyes.

I want to feel the joy deep in my gut and I want it to replace all the fear and sadness forever.

I want my conversations to start with “When Logan HAD cancer….” and reflect on it in the past instead of knowing it is our present reality.

And, for now, it can’t be this way, and ALL of this pains me. ALL OF IT.

I need to suffer and cut myself some slack because I am. I am fucking sad and angry and today, I am bitter.

So I need to show myself some compassion, and do so without giving into pity.

I don’t need to rally to be strong today and I am not going to.

I have asked for some time to be alone to be sad and that is what I am doing.

I am being a friend to myself. I haven’t spoke to anyone about this today.

I have thought about what I would say if I was a friend of mine instead of just me.

If they called me and were sad and hurt and had a terrible day, what would I say??

I would never tell them to suck it up (ok well maybe I would…. but not right out the gate). If someone truly needed my shoulder to lean on I’d give it to them and I’d tell them how sorry I was for their pain. I would feel it with them.

I owe myself that much.

So today I am giving it to myself.

I am talking to myself like a friend.

“Jenny, I am sorry for your pain. It is ok to be sad and not feel strong. It is ok to feel terrible the MRI isn’t better and that you aren’t happy for even the smallest positive/‘stable’ comments. It is ok that you are still afraid of what the future may bring. It is ok to not want to bear this burden any longer and it is ok not to feel like the best cancer mom ever. You are heartbroken for yourself and for Loggie and for Jared and Brody all at the same time and it is ok.”

“Feel that shit Jenny. Own it. let it penetrate and let it bake….feel it all so fucking hard and deeply….. so you can let it  go and move forward….”

Feelings can be a paradox, but what I know for sure is there is no space to manage all of them for any length of time.

Each vie for your undivided attention. They are as relentless as a toddler wanting to be heard.

Feelings need to be honored and acknowledged for what they are.

Suffering screams for recognition.

When you are sad, you need to hold yourself tight and give love and when you are happy you need to hold yourself up and ride that fucking wave.

Trying to juggle and tell yourself ‘you should’ is messy.  It only causes anxiety and unsettledness and a feeling of inadequacy.

I know that. For sure. I know it to be true.

So today, I am giving myself some much needed compassion while I cry through this blog and through my feelings. It is what it is. My feelings are a paradox.

I appreciate all the love I know each of you following will send our family tonight.

These quotes from German philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche remind me of my sweet Loggie and often give me strength.

I pass them on to you tonight.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

“Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”

And we will stumble forward….

With Love,❤️❤️

J

Today officially marks the half way point in Loggie’s chemotherapy protocol.

76 doses down. 76 doses to go.

I think today is supposed to feel like we’ve reached some sort of pinnacle and it is all down hill from here.

The truth is, however, it has felt like it has been ‘all down hill’ for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to think going downhill could be a good thing.

The days just are what they are.

Each day is different.

Some days are ok. Some days might even border good (relative) and some days are just total shit.

I am sure Logan’s medical team think I am crazy, because on the ‘total shit’ days even I know I can be a complete lunatic.

There is no rational when your kid is sick.

I call in to the hospital but my calls are always the same.

“Hi, Ummm, sooooo, this treatment is stupid…..It is totally not working and I hate it. Yes, I know I have to give it time but A. I want to know what your back up plan is because B. This is not good enough and C. You can’t expect us to accept this BS or do this on our own anymore (insert tears and hives). P.S. I want you to know am totally losing my shit”

There is always a long pause, and I am sure a slight eye roll at the other end of the phone but somewhere between those tears, and hives and my stuttering and shaking, and swearing somehow I am always talked off the ledge.

Or at the very least I am pacified enough to be reminded- the goal has always been to hit the half way mark of this chemotherapy protocol and then reassess.

So, now we’ve hit the goal.

We are officially at the half way mark (gold star?? victory lap??) and now I wonder what does that even mean?

I think it means we are at fork in the road.

Do we keep on traveling this path? Or do we take another direction?

Five weeks ago, I would have said with definite truth we would NOT continue doing this chemotherapy after we hit the half way mark.

Logan was not getting better, in fact, I believed wholeheartedly she was getting worse by the day.

No one disagreed with me, which only heightened my fear.

Every visit to the hospital I was encouraged to explore our options at Canuck Place. Our trusted therapist even suggested our sessions needed to shift as we prepared to accept the inevitable and as I wrote in my last blog, I felt like I was having nothing but hard conversations.

Especially with myself.

The start of Logan’s seizures have taken an incredible toll not only on her physically but on all of us mentally.

Not going to lie, this latest blow has been torture.

And

Five weeks ago, I just felt like I couldn’t do any of ‘it’ anymore.

I had a breakdown.

A complete and utter, fall apart breakdown, and so did Brody, and so did Jared.

For me, I couldn’t stop crying.

I must of cried a million tears.

It started in the parking lot of the hospital and I felt like a ton of bricks had been thrown at me.

I was shattered.

It was raining and Logan needed blood work done. There was no handicap parking spot and we needed to take the wheel chair across the parking lot in the slush, and snow and sleet.

I cried as I struggled in the freezing cold to pull that chair I loathe out of my car and stuff her in it. I cried as she had her tests done, watching them put a warm compress on her veins. I cried as I drove home through ridiculous traffic trying to calculate how many kilometres I’ve driven back and forth. And when I got home and finally got Logan settled back into her warm bed I cried as I returned to sit alone in my parked car just to be alone.

It was all too much.

Logan could hardly be moved out of bed. She could hardly eat anything. She was choking on her food, having difficulty with her breathing, and her walking was getting worse. She hardly engaged with any of us and I felt desperate.

Brody was also not his usual, sweet self. He was bitter and angry and nonstop back talking me and Jared was like a bomb with a lit fuse.

No matter what anyone said or did, he seemed like he was going to explode at any moment. Edgy, exhausted, angry, and so incredibly irritable. Honestly, he is usually pretty easy going but I couldn’t even look at him the wrong way and he’d snap at me.

Yep.

The inevitable collapse of The Lay family…..totally happened.

And all I could do was cry my way through it.

“Fuck this” I thought. “Fuck it.”

I didn’t know what to do or where to start.

So, I did what I always do and I started to write.

Not a blog. Not to all of you, but to myself.

I picked up my journal and I started to go back to basics.

How did I want to feel in all of this?

It took some time to figure that one out because obviously I don’t want any of this, but once I found a few words I started taking baby steps to explore what I needed to do and how I was going to get there.

Here is what I came up with.

“Tell Logan the truth. She is dying.”

Oh Fuck.

“Now, tell her how her dying is making everyone in the family feel”

Oh Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.

“Also, take Brody for some alone time and force him to talk to you”(Insert- know ahead of time you are going to feel like an even shittier mom 😩)

“And book a couples therapy session and get our therapist to tell Jared he needs to get his shit together, and maybe focus on what he can do instead of what he can’t ” (Not entirely what happened 😳)

But it was a start.

And so it went.

I called a family meeting.

I told Logan- straight up- I am pretty sure she was dying.

We all cried.

Like, really cried.

Like, actually fucking bawled our faces off.

Thinking about you all reading this I can almost feel judgement. You might think this approach is harsh, or not my right, or negative or like I was ripping away her hope, but I am her mother and I just knew at the very depths of my soul this was the right thing to do.

I had to be the one to tell her.

She needed to hear it. Hardcore. No fluff.

I could see her slipping away before my eyes and I feared she thought time was still on her side when the reality is, we all know it’s not.

She is going into autonomic system failure and the only thing that will help her now is hard work, moving her body, and pushing herself. We need to work against the clock. Buy time while this chemo does what it can.

Her cancer is only one part of her problem.

The doctors all agree unless we do something to help combat her blood pressure issues, the seizures will continue and other health problems will also manifest. Ultimately if we don’t retrain her brain and get her moving it may not be the cancer that she succumbs to. I just can’t bear to live with myself and let that happen.

But I also knew it wasn’t going be an easy task to get her moving.

It had been five months of her being stagnant and I needed to shock her into understanding her reality.

Extremely low BP, plus feeling like crap from chemo and low blood counts combined with the sadness and pity she felt around her would make pulling her out of this slump difficult.

This wasn’t going to be a dramatic turnaround. We all needed to be prepared but I also knew it was imperative we tried.

It was ‘go time’ as Jared put it.

Do something, or give up.

I knew I had to be harsh and push her or there wouldn’t be any quality of life (god I hate that term) in time she has left.

She asked me how long I thought she had to live.

I told her at the rate she was going I doubted she would make her 20^th birthday. Her birthday is June 20th. It is supposed to be her champagne 🥂 celebration this year- go figure.

We cried some more.

Then, Jared, Brody and I each took a turn telling her how her dying was making us feel and how it would affect our lives.

Listening to Brody was the hardest. He basically just cried and begged her not to die. But being the kid he is, he also presented a work out regimen to help her get stronger (and an action plan for our doctors, and the new surgeon at VGH👊🏻👊🏻😉)

It was in this moment, I could feel, we all had a shift.

Logan looked at Jared and I and through her tears she asked “What do I have to do to live?”

Then, she looked at Brody and said “ Don’t worry buddy, I am not ready to go yet. I will try and get stronger”

And so it started.

The very next morning we mapped out a plan to get her up and get her moving and eating whole foods and we made this plan to work around our own realistic goals and terms.

Not going to lie, it has been the hardest, most draining 5 weeks of all of our lives.

And most days, everything has totally sucked

BUT,

We’ve kept at it and there is progress to report.

So much progress!!!!

Logan is now eating 3 meals a day by mouth. She is choosing her meals (always smoothies for breakfast) and I although I am so tired of cooking random shit, she is almost getting enough calories to remove the overnight feeds. Most days she gets only fluids and electrolytes through the tube.

She requires 3000mls of fluids a day to help her blood pressure. Ensuring it happens every day is a big task within itself.

Second, we started an exercise routine (otherwise known as the JJB home physio program) and each day two or three times we get her out walking, doing squats, and lunges and using her hand weights. Sometimes, just for fun, we have a dance party.

But, regardless of fun, rain or shine, we commit to the walking.

No excuses, it doesn’t matter if we are having a bad day or the weather sucks (which it always does 😩) we go.

When the walking first started she couldn’t even make it from the house to the first lamp post without needing her wheel chair.

The first time we tried to walk up a small incline she needed to sit down on the road twice. She was shaking and crying. Jared and I both had to hold her up.

Now, almost five weeks later, she can do the entire walk (over 1.5 km a day) without her wheel chair and she is now attempting lunges on the sidewalks.

Progress. Yes!

Huge progress considering just over a month ago I told her, and I completely believed, she wouldn’t live for another three.

Now, today, I feel like she could, maybe, just possibly, once again, see better days.

We still have so far to go…

But this is a start.

Most days start out the same. Her blood pressure in the morning vibrates somewhere between 50/40 and 70/50.

It is a two hour process to get her up and enough fluids into her and her meds leveled out so that she is stable enough to start pushing herself to exercise, walk and eat. It is a delicate balance of not pushing too hard while her body is preparing itself. Without enough time and support she can have a seizure and then our efforts for the day are sabotaged. There are times when we are all tired and we want to skip exercise but we do it any way.

The days she does have a seizure are exceptionally hard to stay positive and chemo days are the absolute worst to try and get through but some how we manage to push forward.

Logan is still tired all the time, but I can see she is also trying harder every day and this is what is motivating us all.

I see glimpses of the old Loggie and I feel alive and inspired and encouraged.

Brody is also doing better, he comes on every walk he can and when I hear him arguing with his sister about stupid shit, like who plays ‘that song’ I actually feel happy because there is just a little bit more normal these days in our lives, whatever that is.

The JayRod has taken up a new hobby of making industrial shelving and furniture and he’s also started selling them which is alleviating a bit of money stress. Sales in his industry are such a grind so this is a a win, win.

What I learned (when I listened) is part of the reason he’s so stressed has to do with the additional costs associated with Logan’s illness. He doesn’t want us to have to give up the ‘fun stuff’ we do (who does??🍻) so this new endeavor is giving us a few extra bucks and reducing some of the stress.

We both agree, now, more than ever, our 90 day plan of escape and cool experiences isn’t just ‘a nice to do’, it feels like a necessary part of the treatment regimen.

He’s also decided to join crossfit.

So, again win, win. Not only will I have a super hunky ripped hubby by summer, I think it will be good for his mental health.

Hopefully, fewer explosions all around.

And so it goes.

We continue to try our best- even when it sucks.

The half way point is officially here.

It has been a grueling struggle to reach this milestone and we have literally been clawing every inch of the way but I am proud because we have not given up.

We refuse to give up.

Instead, we are taking a time out.

To regroup.

To recover

and to restore.

We decided to give our doctors some time to review Log’s progress and to discuss what they think moving forward. Maybe they will have new plan when we get back. Maybe this won’t be the half way mark of this chemo but the beginning of something new.

Who knows….. but either way, we as a family need another time out, and a break from all of this cancer crap.

So, we are enacting ‘The 90 day Reid Adkins Program’ and we getting the heck out of dodge. Period.

We are going back to Mexico after Loggie recovers from this dose of chemo (next week) and we are happy our oncologist agrees this is the best possible plan we could have.

She actually cried today when she saw Logan walk into her office without the wheelchair. She hugged super tight when I showed her the videos of Logan lunging and she told me how very proud she was of us all.

She also shared with me that since I haven’t been entirely honest with her about our plan to jet away at the half way point, Logan’s MRI would have to wait until the week we came back from holidays instead of next week before we go.

I got a bit squirrely, but she calmed me down.

“I don’t want you to spend your holiday analyzing pictures and test results. You do that enough” she said, “I want you to have a few cold margaritas, sit in the sun and be with your family. Look at your daughter, she is the only perspective you need right now”

Of course, I cried. (Again)

God, we’ve come along way in our relationship.  I pretty much love her more than life and think she’s totally rad. (This week anyhow 😜)

We are also bringing someone to help us on our trip so we don’t have to juggle everything all on our own and we can come back feeling like we’ve had an actual break.

YES, again…progress. BOOYA!

I am learning I don’t have to do it all on my own to be a really good mom. There are no awards for overachieving and running myself into the ground. (Who knew?)

Auntie Betty has agreed to fly down at the half way point of the vacation so Jared and Brody and I can spend some time together surfing, and maybe doing some yoga.

Loggie is thrilled. Our last trip was great but she said she always feels like she holding us back from enjoying our favorite things.

The truth is…. she is right.

Cancer does hold you back, and it sucks, but cancer also pushes you, expands you, and at times, it also leaves you needing nothing more than a solid, super indulgent, and super fun, release.

We chose perfect words for this year so we might as well live them, I guess.

Adios team,

❤