A Weekend Reprieve

We have been absent from our family blog for one month exactly as our son Thomas was diagnosed with cancer. We were publishing over at CaringBridge (https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/thomaslauer/), but are now going to try to bring the two together seamlessly in order to continue the family blog I have written for 14 years. This blog post is copied from CaringBridge and is being published retroactively. Please subscribe to our family blog to receive updates as I publish!

For those who cannot bear waiting . . . there are still no MYC-N results yet.

On Wednesday night before our intended Thursday appointment to find out the lab results and our treatment plan, I actually slept well after 20 straight nights of only three to five broken hours each. I woke only once that night and for no perceivable reason, immediately feeling different, better, and more peaceful--I don't mean to imply good, but not terror- and panic-stricken!

In that moment, I told God, "I'm willing to walk with Thomas on this journey, even if his cancer is Stage 4." Honestly, I had not thought I was fighting God's will to whatever degree I was until I felt a milestone of greater surrender inside.

Thursday night I slept very well all night as well.

Chris has told me he's experienced a similar shift and greater surrender to God's will about this outcome. We both realize that any cancer journey forward will require many surrenders, day by day, even moment by moment.

So, today was Friday and we surely thought we would hear the lab results today. We spent the day distracting ourselves as best we could. The house is utterly clean. Areas are organized that have not been organized in some time! I played with the kids. We spent time outdoors, them playing, me weeding. I obtained our groceries via an Instacart delivery. The children watched a documentary by Neil Armstrong. I did four loads of laundry. I napped . . . and when Mary (11) spotted me asleep on the couch, she did not say a word, but just made lunch for all the younger siblings! I read aloud to the children (currently The Magician's Nephew to the younger set and Pudd'nhead Wilson to the older crew). When Thomas felt dejected that he is not allowed to play on the playground equipment right now, Mary took him on a treasure hunt in the woods. John went to his hockey game.

And we kept waiting, basically never letting my cell phone out of my hands. My heart about pounded out of my chest each time the phone rang.

The doctor called Chris and me at 6:00 p.m. and laid out all the options.

The short of it is that we are going to continue waiting to begin chemotherapy because Thomas is doing basically well and the doctor reassured us that a few days is not a game-changer here (and that opinion was accompanied by lengthy discussion of cancer theory and citing studies--not just shooting from the hip). If we were to start Intermediate Risk chemo and were wrong, that would be an entirely wasted chemo cycle of 21 days. If we were to start High Risk chemo "to cover all our bases" and were wrong, that would be terrible because it comes with some life-changing, permanent side effects.

The doctor says that the MYC-N test is one of those in which cells are being grown for a specified number of days (in a Petri dish, I presume), but occasionally the cells don't grow correctly for whatever reason I don't understand and the whole process has to be done a second time. The doctor truly thinks the results will be back Monday or Tuesday and he wants us to relax this weekend.

So, we are putting on our thinking caps for how to have an enjoyable time and do something fun outside of these four walls on Saturday that also won't put us at much risk for getting sick with any bugs . . . because even a stupid common cold would seriously put a kink in starting chemotherapy or which parent accompanied Thomas.

We continue our regular prayers, I'll start the second round of the Surrender Novena, I'm still reading St. Francis de Sales' The Cross prayer each morning and wearing the holy card against my skin, and each night Chris is putting the relics to Thomas's belly followed by the St. Philomena sacramental oil.

🙏 🙏 🙏 

SPECIFIC PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray that Thomas's ganglioneuroblastoma does NOT have an amplified MYC-N octogene.