Planning ahead

When we were first married, one of our newlywed arguments was centered around Cooperstown, NY. It's a cute little town - home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, but Cooperstown is a great little town to visit even if you're not interested in baseball. On any given Saturday (pre-kids, of course), I'd wake up and say "Let's go to Cooperstown!" Jim would balk and list the many reasons why we couldn't jump in the car and go. The primary reason being that he refused to do a spur-of-the-moment three hour drive. What if we got tired? Where would we stay? The car didn't have enough gas, so on and so forth. My argument was that we only live once (kid-free at that) and a three hour drive was a ridiculous barrier to fun. We never went.

Since then Jim has managed to loosen up a bit, and I've made less spur-of-the-moment requests. Having young kids changes the spur-of-the-moment map from cross-country to cross-the-street. Plopping Jake into a carseat for three hours to then plop him into a stroller to shop around and then plop him into a highchair for lunch isn't anyone's idea of fun.

Post-kids, I've become a real planner. I like to have planned activities so I know what to expect for the coming day. I'm not very imaginative with the kid thing, so I'm not good at creating giant origami falcons made purely from egg cartons, soap and food coloring. Mercifully I opted not to over plan our summer, which is an easy suburban/soccer mom trap.

Cancer wreaks havoc on myriad aspects of one's life, including planning anything in advance. I cannot tell you how many times I've counted the chemo weeks, then recounted the chemo weeks, then made a plan, only to have it fall through. I was notorious for my flakiness with friends before cancer, now I'm just downright annoying. I have to call people and back out at the last minute. I'll try and plan a weekend to do something, and we'll have a setback and we can't go. The chemo schedule is changing again. If we get into the trial, we have to figure that we'll be in Madison every week for three weeks after he's done his workup, and then every other week after that. But during some of those off weeks Jim might need to go in for bloodwork. If he doesn't make the trial, we have to figure out a traditional chemo schedule again.

July and August have been planning torture for me. We wanted to go to Rochester for a week for Jim's high school reunion. If he gets into the trial, we'll miss the reunion because we'll have to be in Madison for workup and/or chemo dosing. Jim has been planning on going to this reunion for at least the last six months. He's really been looking forward to it. Of course, I mapped out his previous chemo regimen so that he could have that week off. When that schedule changed, I replanned so that we could still make it within the same week. We still don't know if we can make the reunion because we don't know for sure that we're in the trial.

I traditionally spend a week at my parents' cabin with the kids during the summer. We had planned to bring our friends, the Howells, with us. Of course, I flaked out after a setback. Good thing my friend Judy and I only really got to know each other well since Jim's diagnosis. She knew I might flake. And we could move it to another week, but I looked at the calendar today, and I can't figure out when.

Rachel starts kindergarten this fall. Originally I was fretting because we were going to miss "Meet the Teacher" day at Kohler because we were going to be at Mayo. I'm not sure why I was stressed about it because the schedule has changed and we'll be at Mayo next week. I was planning on spending the last two weeks of the summer practicing getting ready for school with Rachel. Laugh if you will, but she's not a morning person and thus far I can't get her to eat a thing before 9:30 or 10:00 am. Sometimes 11:00. Obviously that's not going to fly when she starts school at 8:00 am. But the only time we'll have to travel will be the second to last week in August. That's provided the schedule for the trial works out as I've counted the weeks. That's provided he gets into the trial.

Keeping Rachel on a regular routine and providing her with the life of a normal three-year-old is of the utmost importance to me and Jim. She's got swim lessons, t-ball, and tennis lessons this summer. I am thankful for every bit for normalcy in our lives. Even if we can only plan into the next weekend.

When we hear NED, we'll plan a vacation and not change the plans. I bet Jim will be willing to do a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants trip to Anywhere, USA on any given weekend. We'll plop the kids in the car and not let a three hour drive be a barrier to fun. We'll look at the calendar and plan for the future like crazy. We'll plan things months and months and months in advance and relish in the monotony of a mapped out life. We'll savor the option to make or break plans on our own free will; not on what the chemo schedule dictates. Maybe we'll even go to Cooperstown. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.