October 4th, 2015

Back in December of 2014, I was miserable more often than not. The “easy, low dose” chemo did NOT agree with me (at least, not nearly like the potent stuff did, for whatever reason). With all the various unpleasant side-effects and symptoms I went through, the low odds of my surviving this cancer seemed very, very believable. I decided to not let myself be too excited about anything in the future, especially anything more than a month or so away. Just getting through one day at a time was more than enough to handle.

So when I first heard they were making a new Jurassic Park movie, I wanted to be really excited, but I figured I wouldn't live to see the film. When I watched the trailer and heard the iconic soundtrack, I would try to temper my excitement somehow, telling myself that it probably wouldn’t be worth seeing, or something along those lines. That way I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I died before the film came out. Sounds logical, right? More sensically, I didn't want people to have one more trigger reminding them that I was gone, one more potentially fun activity--seeing Jurassic World--tainted by the idea that I was missing out on it, or that it would have been more fun if I were there sharing in it. Let’s be honest here, I’m pretty much the life of any party!

Then as winter turned to spring, and my first surgery went well, and then my second, and then I met Chris Pratt (and got an autographed velociraptor toy!!!), I decided it was OK to look forward to seeing Jurassic World. In truth, I was always super excited to see Jurassic World. I mean, DINOSAURS! What I really decided was to let myself look forward to it, to plan on going, and to tell everyone multiple times how much I wanted to see it the day it opened in theaters.

When opening day finally arrived, we ended up going with one of the larger gatherings of Wisconsin cousins in recent memory, and though the movie could have been better, it was still a lot of fun. And sorry to those cousins who couldn’t make it. We’ll have to watch it together next time we meet up. But the only reason we were able to get as many of us together as we did is because we planned ahead. Through that movie night, I've learned that I should never feel like I can’t make plans for the future, no matter how unpredictable it may seem.

This lesson probably applies to Christina and I right now more than it ever has or possibly ever will. We're nearing the end of planned medical treatment, and with this new phase of life comes a bewildering array of options. We don't know if or when my cancer will come back. We don't know how much we should invest in ourselves and getting back on our own two feet, or how to balance that with staying flexible and being prepared to go back to "hospital life", should Prometheus regrow like it's namesake's liver (if you didn't know, I named my cancer/tumors Prometheus). If all goes to plan, we'll be spending the next few months visiting people, from New York State to Florida to Arizona to Vancouver and probably a few places in between, like Nebraska and Michigan. We'll also be researching and applying to gradschools. We're looking for somewhere I can go for Creative Writing that also offers Occupational Therapy for Christina. It would be helpful if it's a place that offers a lot of stipends too :) We'll see. All the while, we cannot help but remember that anything we plan could easily get thrown out the window in a hurry.

The future is always incredibly uncertain. It is merely our circumstances that force us to realize, or enable us to forget, this harsh truth. So rather than forgoing looking ahead and dreaming about what might be for the sake of realism, we should make plans with an asterisk attached, an implied assumption that these plans only get a green light IF we stay alive, IF everything goes as we all hope, IF nothing earth-shattering happens between now and then. It really shouldn’t be a shocking lesson. Anyone’s plans can be easily smashed to bits by the uncertainty of life. Simply using a ladder or crossing a street could alter anyone's plans for the future, just as easily as cancer could. Living life carries an inherent risk of dying. It is only when we get comfortable that we forget just how delicate our lives really are.