On Sunday Dec 18th, I noticed the swirl of uncertainty coursing through as I questioned whether or not to teach my Monday morning yoga class. Jack had been in struggleville for weeks with unexplained abdominal pain, sleepless nights, and missing important days of his junior year of high school. He was scheduled for a procedure during my class and it was silly for both my husband and I to hover over the next test result. The week before, he received a new diagnosis and another medication. Neither left us confident we had resolution, nor did the medication provide any relief.
I ate my own words that morning, choosing love over fear, and carried on. I taught my class. I spoke about setting up tiny altars, ceremonies, little moments of holy. By the end of class, a text arrived. A moment of brief knowing, a seemingly tidy ending. He received another diagnosis, another medication, but he was going to be okay. They were on their way home.
We ran hope through our system for another sleepless night. Jack declared the pain would never leave. As my faith tanked again, I urgently called Mayo Clinic in Rochester Dec 21. By 6am, I managed to get on the schedule for the next day with a GI doc. The winter solstice arrived today, the darkest day, (max tilt away from the light) affirming THIS might yield an answer.
We never made it to Mayo. We landed back in the ER in Minneapolis at 5am and finally learned that Jack had a large mass in his abdomen, a diagnosis of PTLD (a type of lymphoma in the organ transplant world). We learned the mass was present on scan just 3 months prior, half the size.
Jack and dad spent the next 8 days in the hospital undergoing a surgical biopsy, bone marrow biopsy and spinal tap to understand the depth of disease. Alarms reverberated inside and out again. We learned it was aggressive, but contained. Amen. There was a path forward.
This energy, this dance, is not unfamiliar to us raising a boy with chronic kidney disease. Covert coping mechanisms intact. This crisis was different though. I also had two teens at home who were deeply present to our new reality. There was no hiding. Christmas was 2 days away. I was frozen, literally. Both my nervous system and the furnace came to a halt. The blizzard MN was making national news for, had left air temps lingering around -25F this day. Resolving the furnace quickly, (Perfection Heating!) and narrowing the gap between holiday expectations and Truth was the task at hand. Harry and I brainstormed over Facetime in the hospital. Sadness swept through. It was so clear to me how all the accumulated "little t” traumas had silently piled up for each one of us, just before it topples over.
We are now allowing space for phase 2 of treatment. The mass continues to be active, contained, and still unreachable via surgery. Jack will begin 4 rounds of chemotherapy, every 3 weeks. We will continue to meet the moment, as gracefully as possible.
There is much unknown ahead, but Jack's team is cautiously optimistic this treatment will work.
Mark the moment. Make it sacred. Dance it out. Light some fireworks. This is how we do it. Thank you for keeping us in a circle of love.
Ali
