Week #6 Roundup

To date, the team has raised $5331.00. If someone could donate $9, that would be awesome, as the uneven number is really bugging me. Many thanks to the new supporters this week. If you are still interested in donating to our ride, Stacey is 80% of the way toward her goal, and Matt is still at 0%.

Today, Stace and I spent about five and a half hours at the hospice and came home drained. Dad didn't eat, although he did manage to get down some fluids and his medication, which is always good. He still is up and down, but the downs are lower than they used to be, and the ups are less frequent. We also spoke to the oncology nurse, who let us know what to expect in the last weeks/days/hours/etc. I won't share, as it's not fun stuff, but it was nice to know that there will be no pain. The nurse also mentioned that we should be making a list of people to call when it happens. People to call immediately, within the first hour, within the first 24 hours, and so on. So many things to think about and to plan, and all of it is quite morbid. The trick is to try and make all these preparations while still moving forward and living our lives.

I mentioned in a previous post that I felt like spinning was okay and not necessarily fun. Now I'm addicted, and I think that it ties in with this whole experience. One of the worst things about cancer is being without control (speaking of control, I really wish Wallace could control his bowels a little better this past day). There is nothing that I can do and nothing that dad can do to make this better because believe me, if it were possible to beat this, dad would have done it already. That's just the kind of persistent and determined person that he is. As a result, cancer is a big reminder of how vulnerable the human body is, which can be an impossibly overwhelming reality to face. I think a lot of people think I'm a crazy person for training so hard when the ride is six months away, but it's like this: when I spin, I am in control. I set the resistance, I determine what kind of ride it is going to be, I work hard. I hop off the saddle feeling strong, and that's a hard feeling to come by lately. It shows me that yes, the body is vulnerable, but it can also handle incredible amounts of physical and emotional stress, and you can find stores of energy and power that you didn't know you had in you. And that? Well, that's pretty great.