Not the news we were looking for

My little brother Gid has cancer. He was diagnosed in April, and since then I've almost gotten used to it.

Almost.

Now today he went in for an assessment, (to see if he would need surgery), and they found something new. It's growing, though really nothing should be growing, he's been on chemo for so long, and it's growing fast, comparatively speaking. What it boils down to is that this thing is a different strain. The older strain is reacting well to treatment, the assessment showed it shrinking, but this is new. The Oncologists are "concerned", (on a list of things you don't want your medical provider to say, that has to be up there.) Gid is going in for surgery as soon as they can find a slot for a lung surgery. However, to put things in perspective; when he was fist diagnosed his lungs were so full that the x-ray slides showed white. He was on oxygen in normal life. Now they could take out a full lobe of his lungs and he'd never miss it.

Man, it's hard.

He's so ALIVE, and now this. I just haven't looked at the possibility that he might die for the past 9 months or so, (put it away, we aren't acknowledging that,) and now it's back in my face.

It's funny/interesting/awful reacting to cancer. Because it is such a long treatment program, you really can not postpone your life until "everything is all right." With almost every other type of injury, you can sit by the bedside, drop everything, put your life on hold. until it's resolved. With something that has a 18 month treatment schedule, you can't. And that doesn't even include the assessments after treatment. You have to go on living normally. It goes against human nature. No, that's not entirely true. There are circumstances when the patient is only in treatment for a month or so, and then they stop. When the disease is at one or the other ends of the spectrum. Since Gid presented with so much cancer in April, he will (please God) have a very long treatment plan. You have to go on living all the while.

At the same time, you can't make any long range plans, because things change so fast. Case in point: See above. It makes me very glad that I didn't apply for any colleges over Christmas. I almost did, but in talking it over with my Dad, I realized that I was looking at them for the wrong reasons. Incidentally, I think Lamd, who is looking at English Lit, is also looking at them for the wrong reasons. I almost talked him out of it today.

me: Why do you want to do this?
What will do the most for you?
Could you get that some other way?
Why spend the money? (Cause he doesn't have to count the cost at all.)
Do you want the jobs that piece of paper will allow you?

Good times, harassing Lamd. Anyways, I probably didn't convince him at all, but I did convince myslef not to going something solely for the sake of "doing something." Hey, going to Europe is "doing something", and it costs a whole lot less! At any rate, I have applied for nothing, and now come April I have no commitments. I don't know, the school would understand, I think, if I dropped classes, and headed home to help out sooner. I just don't know.

Still;

God Knows.