Round 2

            The trick with putting these blog posts together is that I want to be a Writer, when sometimes the real priority is just getting the information out.  Maybe I just don’t get to express myself at work enough, or maybe I do have a deep, pretentious need to put myself at the center of these stories.  But there is the fact that this blog has a role to fulfill when it comes to sharing family news and there is the fact that I like to write long essays about my condition.

            So, if you want to go to just the facts, read on.  If you want the long, moanier version, skip ahead a few grafs.

            The news isn’t great, but it’s not awful either.  Christina noticed a lump in her breast a while back and her doctor wasn’t thrilled about it either.  She got sent to the cancer center and we got the confirmation on September 22 that it is indeed a tumor.  Because, apparently, we didn’t do our family cancer penance already. 

            That said, she’s had her first two round of chemo and is doing better than I would have expected, especially if I was the one getting chemo.  The only symptoms we’ve seen so far are exhaustion the day or so after.  Also, her face gets flushed the day afterwards.  Her odds are very good.  Although the tumor is of an aggressive variety, Christina caught it pretty early.  And this kind of tumor responds well to chemotherapy, apparently.  Combine that, and it doesn’t seem hopeless.

            But still … we’re doing this again.  We’ve got six months of chemotherapy ahead of us, checking blood counts and getting nervous every time Christina’s temperature is a bit on the high side.  We’ll have to watch what we see and what we do and revolve our lives around the medical side of things.  We know the drill.  I think we had just hoped we wouldn’t have to make use of our experience again.

---

            If you’re into the less straightforward version, let me go on about vacations for a while.

            It probably came to mind because, leading up to Christina’s first chemotherapy, there was, essentially, a four-day weekend here in Germany.  People drove off to visit friends and new cities.  People went to Sweden.  Or, if they stayed in Berlin, they had picnics (it’s been ridiculously warm for the start of October) or had a good time.

            We tried to avoid contact and tried to make sure we were set up for the start of this new nightmare.  We’re looking at everything from getting the guest room in shape in case I get sick and Christina needs distance to reviewing our last will and testament, which is infinitely depressing.

            But there was this lingering bitterness that, once again, everyone got to go on vacation and we didn’t.

            I know it’s ridiculous.  Some of the people who got to go on vacation just finished up their cancer treatments and couldn’t do much of anything the last year.  I know it’s the stupidest thing to focus on.  I mean, I’m still so American at the core and every now and then have to remind myself that I do, indeed, have these ridiculously long European vacation benefits.  Part of me still doesn’t know what to do with six weeks off work a year.  A lot of me still doesn’t get how central the idea of this vacation time is to the European psyche.  I’m still amazed that people couldn’t make it to Colin’s funeral because the clashed with their vacation time.  I’m not mad, it just seems like such a weird thing to prioritize.  But there you are.  They get a lot of vacation in this place and it’s not a benefit you mess around with.

            Unless you or a loved one gets cancer.  And then it all flies out the window.  We didn’t take a vacation in 2018 because we were just overworked.  Then Colin got really sick at the end of that year and 2019 was no longer a candidate for vacation and then came the plague years where we didn’t really want to risk a trip much further than southern Germany.  It was only this August that we managed to do a proper vacation in Sweden.  And we had fun and spent far too much money and now the only thing I can tell myself about not going to London at the end of this month as we had hoped is “Well, at least we’re going to save a little money.”

            It’s not much of a comfort.

            The thing is, I don’t really care if I go on an exotic vacation or not.  I’d be happy just having a week at home with someone else doing the morning dog walks and the rest of the time spent reading and watching bad science fiction.  But it bugs me that the kids are getting robbed time and again of the ability to see the world.  I grew up in Germany and my parents took every chance they could to get me to new places, even if it was just a quick weekend trip to France.  I saw so much of Europe.  And the trips to the States were weeks-long extravaganzas, where we saw Civil War battlefields and Disney World and every corner of San Antonio you can imagine.  They’re such good memories.

            Mind you, I don’t think the kids are bitter about it.  You can’t miss what you don’t know.  Right after Colin’s death, we took them on a mini trip to Leipzig and Dresden and one of the biggest clashes we had was, upon arriving at the hotel, they thought we would spend the time there hanging out.  They had no understanding that you went to a new place like Leipzig to see it, not to experience the ambience of an economy hostel that had the magic of a TV in the bedroom.

            So, we’re hunkering down again and we’ll get through it one way or the other.  We’re going to do the best we can within our limitations.  But don’t you misunderstand me, Mr. Cancer, I’m bitter about it.  Once again, everyone is getting to see the world and once again, we’re sitting tight.  It’s not fair.

            But I think we all knew that already.