Booked and Busy

Home, filled with programming

Grant made it back home Monday and is settling in with his new TV, remote in hand—an object that suggests control, even if only briefly. Life, on the other hand, doesn’t come with a pause button. My parents are back full speed ahead, focused on what matters most—fighting cancer. Beyond the adjustment of being home again, there’s been a lot of action happening.

Being home hasn’t meant slowing down; if anything, the pace has picked up. In just a few short days, my parents have been immersed in the kind of logistical whirlwind that comes with serious illness. This past week included an initial intake with a home health nurse, along with first meetings with physical therapy, occupational therapy, and palliative care.

Wednesday brought a four-and-a-half-hour marathon at the cancer center for labs, consults, and chemo. The good news: Grant’s numbers continue to trend in a positive direction, which we’re taking as a win. The week has also been filled with phone calls with his primary care team and the insurance caseworker. And Mary has managed not one, not two, but three trips to the pharmacy to juggle refills, new prescriptions, and medication adjustments—she’s officially on a first-name basis at CVS.

Next week looks much the same, if not busier. There’s a cardiology follow-up related to the embolism, an appointment with his primary care physician, another long day at the cancer center for labs, consult, and chemo, and continued visits from home health—along with what we hope will be multiple sessions of PT and OT. It’s a lot. The kind of full-body, full-brain exhaustion that doesn’t really lift at the end of the day. Much of this orchestration falls to my mom, who somehow keeps all the plates spinning while making it look easy.

I know it’s been exhausting and draining on both of them. And yet, there’s a quiet undercurrent of hope running through all of it. My mom put it best in a text she sent me this week: “We are lucky to be able to have so many people coming to work to improve his situation—and to do it in our home.”

Staying booked, busy and blessed. No pause buttons, just taking it one episode at a time.