How do I handle this again?

At this point we have met with Dana's primary oncologist for his treatment recommendation and a radiation oncologist at the IU Cancer Center. Next week brings a trip to Northwestern to see the lymphoma expert there and the week after is a trip to the Cleveland Clinic to see their lymphoma expert and radiation oncologist.

So you may ask how do you handle the stress of this? Well, in part you don't sleep. I have found that I cannot shut my brain off now. It is only from pure exhaustion that I eventually fall asleep. As I talked to a friend of mine this week who watched his child undergo pretty stressful testing you start to wonder how do we do it? Not only to both of us work full time, but we have 2 young children and we are both incredibly involved parents. I found the first time around I existed on pure adrenaline and a constant state of confusion. I am hoping this time around I will be able to get rid of the confusion part.

As a husband I want to have this aura of strength for Dana, and as a father I want to have that strength for my kids. They know mommy is sick and will have to get very strong medicine, but at their young age it doesn't seem like they understand the severity of cancer. That is a probably a good thing at this point in time. After writing all that I look back and wonder where I am going to pull that strength from again. After watching the new Transformers movie tonight with friends I wish had some alien energy source like the Autobot's to save everyone. At least my son and I would think that was cool.

Over the past several weeks in relaying the events leading up to this with friends a common theme is apparent-you do what you have to do to get through things. You look at your wife and see her fighting through things and you know you can't let her down so you push a little harder, you unload the dishwasher when you want to crash, you read an extra story to your kids or lay down with them to get them to sleep even though you have a couple of hours worth of work to still to do.

Bottom line is that it isn't about you, at least not primarily. It is about taking care of your wife as the patient and your kids because one of their heroes is laid up in the hospital or in bed. I didn't take care of myself the last time around and I have to fix that. Maybe I will pick up running again and find the relief runners always talk about, but has always escaped me.

I guess whatever stressful situation you find yourself it seems like we always find a way to get through it.    
I would be willing to bet that if I surveyed my friends and co-workers we wouldn't be able to accurately state how you get through something other than you just do. My apologies for the rambling this evening, but in my defense is it 2:30 am.

Todd