So why does it feel like this?

Check. Done. One more cancer exam for Melanie is now history and as far as we know it was pretty great. (Blood test results won’t come for another week.) Still, she had her scan and Chris and I made it to NY in time to see her walk out of that with a tired smile on her face. (Maybe a bit too much partying the night before at her friends’ Mark and Myna’s wedding.) Dr. T has moved his office and is now only a couple of blocks from where she get scans so we had time to catch up, hear about the wedding and her time with old CC friend, Kristin and grab a bite to eat.

Dr. T’s new digs are a vast improvement from the old ones; eight doctors share a space that is quieter and much less crowded. Melanie and I occupied the usual one hour wait with a word game on the IPad—an early anniversary present from my hubby. She was called in, and after showing him a picture from the wedding (Yes, I do carry some at all times—along with pictures of the grands.) ;the visit was short and very sweet. Melanie’s scan was stable with just one little tumor hanging underneath the scar from three surgeries seven years ago, but it is long and so thin he’s willing to let it just stay unless something else grows with it. But the big news came when he said, “Well, why don’t you come back in a year.” Satisfying words, since we have been making this trek twice a year for seven years, and for the past two years that trek has meant a cross-country flight for Melanie. As I have said, her cancer grows slowly so since last year’s surgery to remove two tumors, nothing new has appeared.

Almost as exciting as the news of a year free of tests was seeing Dr. T’s face when we asked about his research. Beaming he said that he is having excellent results with a pill that might very well help Melanie in the future. It was the first time we have seen such enthusiasm and hope for something new. Melanie happens to fall into a relatively small number of thyroid cancer patients that has stopped responding to radioactive iodine treatments—the treatment du jour for most papillary thyroid patients.   Along with several other doctors, Dr. T’s has found a pill, which if taken a month in advance of radioactive iodine treatments has shown to allow 50% of patients like Melanie to once again have the treatment work effectively. In other words, down the road, he believes she might well be a candidate. This is exactly what we (and so many others) have hoped for—a new possibility where none previously existed. It is what every cancer patient and every one who loves them dreams of.

So I should be ecstatic, right? Chris and the rest of my family are. The messages on my Face Book page abound with cheers, hurray’s and blessings, and believe me, I AM grateful and happy. Still I have been in a foul mood since returning home and it took a while to figure out what is going on.

I think I am feeling a bit like Melanie as we left dr. T’s office when she said quietly, “It’s great news, but I just want to be able to have a party.”

“What kind of party I ask,” fully knowing the answer.

“A ‘My Cancer is Gone Party.’”

And there it is. More than almost anything in the world, that is precisely the party I want to be able to throw for my daughter. I want to have a party with cake and balloons and bubbles. I want to never have to celebrate another cancerversary with Melanie. I want to take those Livestrong bracelets that her father and I faithfully wear and bury them in the woods or toss them out to sea. I want no more scans or trips to the doctors or wondering when the next shoe will drop.

But that is not going to happen any time soon. Melanie knows it and I know it, too and that my friends, is just kind of an awful reality to live with. It stinks and it is part of her life and the lives of those who love her.  The good news is that we can all live with that. Her life is strong and vital and her cancer has made her more of both those things. She should not have to cheer because she can put off the inevitable for a year. She is allowed a moment of regret and sadness once in a while. And so am I.

I would worry for her if she lived her life in that space of regret, but I know she does not live there, any more than I do. Way deep down, we both know that she is lucky in her cancer journey. There are so many whose cancers are more debilitating—whose treatments are devastatingly painful and frequent. I feel such gratitude for excellent medical care she receives and for the abundant love that surrounds her on this journey, and I know she does as well. And I have seen my daughter flourish with spirit; grasping life and giving life to others. That is who she is as much as what she does.

But to my daughter (as well as anyone else dealing with this nasty disease), it is ok to be mad, or sad , or just generally pissed off once in a while, and I may join you in that space, too.  Only remember, just as we danced the night away not that long ago as you and Ben became husband and wife, there WILL be parties—many parties to come. That is a promise.