Beating cancer no matter what

It's hard to believe that the most challenging part of the journey started only four weeks ago when surgery was cancelled. Even harder for me was the following day when Robin decided to close her massage practice. In the ensuing ten days I lost ten pounds and I was slowly losing my ability to get things accomplished. The evening my Dad first arrived we ordered pizza for dinner and my appetite returned! That same week I started to meet with a counselor (Alex) who gave me (and Robin when she's had the energy) an outlet to start talking about what we have been going through and where we are going.

Over the years Robin and I have learned how to communicate as a couple and I expect we have enough skills that we could have learned how to talk about the cancer and talk about death - but we no longer know how much time we have to gain these skills. Having Alex guide us is like hiring a skilled outdoorsmen to teach you about backpacking - sure you could learn everything on your own, but hiring a specialist accelerates your learning and helps you avoid wasted time.

Robin seemed to be holding up better than me until just before Christmas. Her stress began to come out at the end of each day when she would start crying after getting into bed. Several nights we just held each other in the dark, oftentimes I massaged her face and arms until she fell asleep. She remained sullen through the first two weeks of December. Fortunately she got her positive energy back halfway through the month, and her positive spirit is once again visible each day in her smile and laughter! We seem to have concluded that no matter how much time we have left together there is no reason it still can't be positive! It seems like this attitude is how people beat cancer no matter what the outcome…