Once again, I was thinking what in the world do I have to write about. My life lately has resumed to pretty much the normal routine for most stay-at-home moms (and I’m grateful for that privilege). I guess one thing out of the ordinary was my visit to the Vanderbilt cardiologist. I may have my numbers off, but I’m pretty sure that his nurse practitioner said that out of 20 cardiologists only 2 have a special interest/education in oncology. Thankfully, while I was inpatient at Vanderbilt in the spring, one of the two were rotating, and I was able to establish a relationship with him.  When I met him last week, he had just returned from a few days at MD Anderson and he personally knows my cardiologist there.

In general, my heart has been very healthy which has probably benefited me during my treatments. One concern I had was that my CT in October showed that my left subclavian vein has high grade stenosis and occlusion (narrowing). The cause is from my left arm PICC line that delivered the toxic chemotherapy into my body last spring. As I learned this week, a vein behaving this way is nothing compared to an artery doing that. There are several veins that can return my blood from my left arm to my heart, so if that one’s a little slow, others can do the job. It sounded ominous to me in the CT report, but the expert has allayed my concern. My appointment went well, and I will be monitored from here on out for any cardiac side effects from my chemotherapy treatments.

Saturday night I woke up around 3:30 am. Sometimes my anxieties can wake me up and I just lose valuable sleep, but other times I think they are quiet, intimate times with God. Saturday night my awakening involved a clear realization that this life is short. Really really short. The Bible verse, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8) kept going through my head.

I got out of bed and walked around the house, I even went to the girls’ room and rearranged their blankets on their ever-growing, pre-teen bodies and gave them kisses. (Our little boy was at my parents – but I did peek into his room and saw the glider where we read him books and noticed his wooden train set.) I had the realization that this will be brief. What will we do with this time?

I told Jonathan about my insomnia on Sunday morning as we had a cup of coffee before the girls woke up. He said that it sounded a lot like his 1 am waking last Tuesday. He had the same strong urge to live differently, that this time will go quickly.

Earlier in the week we had discussed what our hopes are for the kids, all the academic and social pressures they are under and questioned if we are doing it right. Is our goal as parents to live in the suburbs, go to the best public schools, so that our kids can get into the college of their choice, then marry and raise their kids in the suburbs, go to the best public schools, so they can get into the college of their choice, then marry and raise their kids in the suburbs . . .?

Jonathan and I agree, whatever minor or major change we are to make, it must be made prayerfully AND with a one-year waiting period. We know our emotions are raw right now, and we shouldn’t hurriedly pack up and move to a 3rd world country. It’s just a growing awareness in us to step aside from the ordinary, all of the good distractions, and see how we can utilize our time best.

I don’t have any answers to share. I don’t know if whatever our change is will be visible to others. But, I do know that we are all in the same boat. We can live our lives unaware of the finite number of breaths we have and purely seek the comfortable in life, or we can try our best to be alert, seek God’s calling in our life and dare to live dangerously.