Living in Limbo

When cancer is in your life, your life is a constant state of limbo. You wait for the next pain, the next PET scan, the next drug cycle....you can't plan anything really, cuz you're not sure how your loved one is going to feel. After the crushing news of having stage IV cancer, we grieved and waited to hear what our next move would be. So today, we hear that Barry qualifies for a trial at St. Mary's hospital in San Francisco. Its a study where one group gets the PLX4032 (the B-RAF inhibitor that is showing promise) and the other gets a form of chemo. We don't know which one he gets. But both will inhibit the disease for a bit, which is good. And if he gets the chemo and it doesn't work, maybe we can go to another trial that UCSF will be starting sometime in the summer specifically for the B-RAF gene....where everyone gets the drug. My oldest daughter Julie is on a mission to find everything she can about this new drug and to find a trial her dad can get on. My kids are soooo not ready to lose their father. They depend on him more than they realize. We have an appointment for a consultation in two weeks. Its strange to have a loved one handed a death sentence. You look at things differently. You try to hug your loved one more and more and try to drink in the smell, the hug, the warmth....everything, cuz you know you have a limited time to enjoy it. There is also a panic thats involved too....a "what am I going to do without you?' How am I going to get by? Will I get to keep the house? How do I pay this bill online? What are all your passwords to all your sites? ATM's? Where is the life insurance, the bill file and how do you do the taxes? My life will change....very quickly and very radically and I'm not looking forward to it at all. My hubby may get a reprieve from this illness if the right drug is found, but ultimately, it will take him. We just don't know when.....and THAT's the part that's hard to deal with. Just waiting....waiting....waiting....in Limbo Land.