The C Word

It was exactly a week ago that we got the call from the ENT. We were sitting at the dining room table 10 minutes away from leading a zoom meeting. Cory walked into another room to take the call so I could focus and jot down some last minute notes on our agenda. What felt like only a few seconds later he came and stood next to me, set the phone on the table, enabled speaker mode, and mouthed the words, “It’s cancer.” 

I immediately switched from jotting agenda notes to writing down everything the voice from the phone was saying. The same voice who had assured Cory a few weeks ago that “your bloodwork is normal” and that the returned tumor appeared benign, was now saying things like “malignant’” “high grade” and “I’m so sorry.” Then the voice said “carcinoma ex pleomorphic adeonoma” and I did my best to sound out the phenomes and scribble down this new gibberish phrase. Now seven days later, I have that particular phrase memorized and my fingers could type that sucker into an internet browser in my sleep….and actually have done so during hours when I should have been asleep. 

My friend, Crystal, likes to tease me about my favorite genre of literature. She says a character has to die for me to like the book. It’s true. I like reading a good drama that involves cancer or some other terrible medical diagnosis. A few years ago I found Lisa Genova’s books, she is a neuroscientist and also an author who has a whole series of medical dramas. Each book features a different family and a different diagnosis. One of her most famous is Still Alice, about a young Harvard professor who gets early Alzheimers. It was phenomenal. Other Lisa Genova books I’d recommend: Every Note Played (a famous pianist with ALS.) Left Neglected  (A young mom before and after a stroke) Inside the O’briens (a police officer and his kids and Huntington’s disease.)

One of my favorite books of all time is still When Breath Becomes Air, a memoire about a neurosurgeon who gets lung cancer. And I can’t say enough about The Bright Hour and Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, both of which are “cancer” books.
You could see why my friend thinks I have a problem. ;)

At my core I am a planner. And I think my fascination with all these books was an extension of that. I’ve been around long enough to know how life works. You die. That’s how it works. Seriously, every one dies. We all know it. We've all seen it happen to others. It’s the one thing we have in common with every person on this planet, but no one likes to talk about it. Shockingly, not a single one of my friends ever wanted to meet for coffee and discuss our mortality and how to grapple with the emotions of it all :). So I turned to books. I read the stories of people, both fiction and non-fiction, who no longer had the privilege to ignore the frailty of life. I think I read them in part wondering and in a way envisioning or planning how I would react if I was in their shoes. The shoe drops at some point for everyone and I always wondered how Cory and I would handle it when it dropped for us.

Well, now I know.

We hung up the phone. We led our meeting in a weird kind of haze, we went by Chick- fil-a, and then got in line for home school co-op pick up. We got in touch with family and friends. Cory couldn't get ahold of his mom so he texted, “Got the biopsy results back. Give me a call.” I chastised him and said. “Don’t write that. You’ll scare her that it’s bad news.” He bust out laughing and said, “It is bad news. I have cancer!”

We fielded texts and phone calls from friends. We told the kids. We scheduled an appointment with the oncologist. We ate food that dear friends brought over. I read a lot of medical journals with terrifying statistics. I did the math to figure out how old each of the kids would be if Cory had 3 more years left…5 more years left….was it greedy to hope for 10 years? He told me, “We’re gonna be ok.” I told him, “I can’t do tuck-in every night without you” then cursed him for trying to skip out early and leave me to raise Naomi through the teen years by myself. 

We made inappropriate jokes and held onto each other in bed and laughed. I planned his funeral in my mind and assured him that I would hold true to my promise to play, “Go Rest High on that Mountain” as the opening song and I would laugh all the way through it. The same way he threatens to play ‘Shine Jesus, Shine” at my funeral because I hate that song so much. I told him in the midst of all his treatment expenses we’d need to save some money for my plastic surgery. I could possibly attract another suitor in my “as-is” condition if I had 3 or less kids, but if I’m trying to woo someone while also being a mother to 8, I’m gonna need some repairs. 

We stood in the kitchen together and cried. And repeated those tears and that fully embraced hold at spontaneous times for the next few days. We held eye contact in that way too long, meaningful way. We are still doing that. We assessed our life together and knew we wouldn’t change a thing. We realized how much we have. We remembered that we have today, Cory feels good today just like he did before the phone call. 

I read some more medical journals and learned the striking difference in prognosis if the cancer is encapsulated…case studies stopped using words like “poor” and instead said “excellent” all because of a few millimeters difference. We reached out to friends on facebook. We were prayed for and remembered fondly. We felt loved. We felt thankful. We got the best news we could hope for right now.

And so we sit at the precipice of the biggest before and after event of our lives. But no matter what happens in the coming months or years, I know this will not be the last dark night for us. It just won’t. That’s not the way life works. All I can speak for is this day -in this life- and in this dark day that we are in right now, I’m proud of us. No matter how this all turns out I’m proud that we didn’t deny the hard, we didn’t avoid the fears. We went there emotionally, and we did it together. I’m proud of us. I’m proud that we kept our sense of humor, we stayed connected. We stayed us. I’m proud of the family we stitched together. I’m proud of the way we live our lives. 

But mostly, I am proud of the man I married. When you lie awake at 2 am planning someone’s funeral you really start to reflect deeply on that person. There is so much I love about Cory Jones. I love the questions he asks, the intentional way he parents the kids, the mistakes he confesses, the sermons he’s preached, the lives he changed, the prisoners he inspires, the loved ones he has forgiven, the new hobbies he tries, the books he reads, the status quo he challenges, those ignored that he respects, the Faith he wrestles in, and the way he loves. I am proud of the fullness he has found in living a life surrendered to others. 

We all live and we all die. It’s how it works in the books and how it works in real life too. Mine and yours both. And no matter my story’s ending, no matter how much time is left,  I will always be immensely proud to have been Cory’s wife.