This has been a year of cataclysms, not only for Team Moser (including their happy hobgoblin Alvin) but for the world. For many people, COVID-19 and its consequences – ranging from personal loss to social division – has made the world seem like a much less certain place.
We build structures to tame the unexpected, tasks or to-do lists that order our days, or make plans that inevitably need to change. We even tell ourselves that we’re clever or adaptive when we engineer in redundancies, contingency plans and escape hatches. This is a form of imaginary control we exert over the world.
One of the early lessons we learned from this cancer was how small changes can cascade out in enormous (and unexpected) ways. The sullen expression of a single cell can ruin the entire party, yet we also wonder at the simple way unexpected events can lead to lifelong love, a shy glance setting off a chain reaction, minutes spilling into decades.
This is life, folks, and we forget to marvel at the stumbles that turn into sprints. Or turtle marathons.
Just a week ago, we had a plan for the next several months – something solid. We colored in that time in our minds, making plans and laying gardens (both figurative and literal) in the space between Julie’s last consolidation chemo that begins this week and her transplant, which we believed was set for mid- to late-July.
Then we received a call. Julie’s transplant is now scheduled to begin June 1.
This not only means that our plans must shift, but also requires more doctor appoints to fit in a shorter time frame. We are scared, of course, and also grateful that we’re getting to a transplant – which sometimes takes years because patients can’t get to remission – in just four months.
Julie has already packed her suitcase for consolidation. This is a small piece of child’s luggage we picked up for our trip to Spain several years ago with unicorns woven into its design. At the time, it was the only baggage we could find small enough to fit on the puddle jumper we took from Ireland to Spain, but we wheeled it all over that foreign land.
It’s such a small thing to pack full of so much hope, so many dreams and aspirations, so much love for the world. She will barely have time to unpack it after the upcoming consolidation chemo before going back to Dartmouth for the transplant. How would you pack for this life? She’s bringing the essentials: things we learned from leukemia, a pocket fan, a “Good Vibes Only” sign and a print of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw from friends (look at Lady Agnew – she’s not your typical Singer Sargent painting and has a ‘tude of empowerment), and, of course, art, love, light, and music.
We’ll make more regular posts beginning the week of May 10, and we’ll kick off Julie’s T- countdown to transplant time at that time, knowing that things could change again.