Texas Is Coming

So…we’ve decided to head to Texas a little earlier than planned.

Originally, the plan was to finish this second induction here at VCU, have my Day 28 bone marrow biopsy, wait for those results, and then head to Houston. So why not just go to MD Anderson for the Day 28 biopsy? Whatever comes next needs to be done there anyway whether it’s a transplant or a clinical trial, I should be there.

My oncologist agrees. It makes sense. It gets me there, gets me established with the team that will be determining what comes next, and eliminates an unnecessary repeat procedure.

So, to Texas we go. The exact day is still TBD, but probably next weekend. Which is…soon.

This second induction has strangely given me back a little bit of normal life. I've been home. I've gotten to wake up in my own house. Drink coffee in my own kitchen. Be with my kids. I even went to work briefly, which felt absolutely glorious.

For little stretches of the day, I can almost forget that my life is completely upside down right now.

And now I have to give that normalcy up. Again. I have to pack a suitcase for an unknown amount of time. I have to move to a city I've never even been to. I don't know exactly where I'm going to live yet. I don't know how long I'll be there. I don't know what treatment will look like, because so much of that depends on what that bone marrow biopsy shows.

And the hardest part by approximately one million miles: I have to say goodbye to my children. I mean, they’ll visit. I'll FaceTime them constantly. Their lives here will keep moving, surrounded by people who love them beyond measure. But as their mom I have a lot f guilt about leaving them for a long time.

I've spent so much of the last two months focused on the next thing.

Get through induction.

Come home.

Get the biopsy.

Find out it didn't work well enough.

Go back in.

Do induction again.

Recover.

Get the next biopsy.

Get to transplant.

Everything is always about getting to the next step in this insane journey.

And now that is Texas, so that's what we're doing.

It's surreal because I don’t want to leave this tiny little piece of normal life I've gotten back. I want school mornings and golf cart rides and work and birthday parties and my own house and three kids yelling “Mom” seventeen times from three different rooms.

But the whole reason I'm leaving is so I can come back to it.

That's the part I have to keep reminding myself.

Here we go. ❤️.