Now where did I put that?

Made it to work for half a day today. It was nice going in and doing the "normal" thing. Opening the office, greeting all the patients. Many already know about Zack and are offering their prayers, and personal survival stories. One woman's son 40 years old has been in remission for one year from testicular cancer, another survived breast cancer, the word seems to surround us. But, it's kind of like when your'e pregnant, all of a sudden everyone around you is too. It has always been, just are noticing it now. I lay my glasses down next to the x-ray machine, it takes me 20 minutes to re-locate them, My phone is "hiding" behind my coffee cup, I am staring right at it and yet can't find it, "oh there it is", like it jumped to hide from me.

I pick Zack up at 2 pm and we again head 45 minutes away to Asheville. This time for his EKG and Echo Cardiogram. We walk into the lower level, and the lady tells us "oh, you need to be in the pediatric section upstairs", I can already tell Zack is not thrilled! We go up a very noisy elevator, which prompts us to take the stairs down later, walk into the office and there it is... children drawing on chalk boards, running around playing with the toys. The walls are decorated with flowers, trucks and cars and bugs. I fill out the paperwork with the receptionist and she then calls Zack over to have his picture taken with the computer camera. HE has to hold it up because the woman is to short to do so herself. We all laugh, at 6'5" it's not easy to find someone that can hold anything up to him. We enter the long hallway, more flowers... and a nurse not more than 5'2" looks up at him, looks at her papers and says I thought you were 18? Zack says, "yea, I get that alot". She weighs him and then attempts to take his height. I step in and push the lever up to the top of Zack's head.

We are escorted into a room with machines. The first nurse comes in places all these magnets on his chest, hooks up miniature clamps and runs her tests for the EKG. A second comes in with her ultra sound equipment, looks at Zack and says "you were here when you were four weeks old weren't you", we say "no", she says "oh there must be another Zack Fisher".... (OK, Frank thought he was being original when he picked out the name back when he was 13, but by the time we actually HAD a child, it was more common, there is another Zack Fisher in our small town of Brevard that graduated last year). I sit in the corner ready to fall asleep. Even though I slept well last night (Zack's pain is finally tolerable), I guess I'm not catching up. The nurse starts the ultrasound, we see the heart pumping (or at least I think that's what it was, it looked more like a ghost from a scary movie coming out of the screen). She takes all her "pictures" and says everything looks really good ( of course we are not there because of his heart, thank God), she moves down to his stomach area, I look at her and tell her "if there is a baby in there, I DON'T want to know!!"" I can only handle on shock at a time, and this month's quota has been filled", Always with the humor, I don't know how I would survive without my smart mouth! We finish and decide to eat out, who has the energy to cook, we will bring Frank a dinner as well, everyone will be happy. I use the rest room, come out, we go downstairs, "oh, were is the umbrella?", Zack runs back upstairs, I had left it in the rest room, While he is coming downstairs, I realize that I can't find my phone again, so I run past him upstairs and there it is in the bathroom right next to where my purse had been.  This is also me lately. I remember Mom thinking she was loosing her mind when she cared for Dad who had Alzheimers. Our brains can only handle so much during times of stress and we can't stress about that too much, but I would still like to know where my keys are.

We eat dinner, drive home and present Frank with his gourmet pork chops in Styrofoam with plastic forks and cold rolls.  I'm so tired I could have eaten dog food and it would have tasted good. Zack is now in his room, making a date with a young lady for Wednesday, I am here typing in my blog and will then go chill in bed until I can't keep my eyes open anymore (too late) and Frank will eat dinner and sit on porch reading the same book he has read 100 times before. We all have our own ways of coping, for right now in this moment, until tomorrow when we know the results of the FINAL testing before Chemo starts. The meeting starts at 8 am, again in Asheville, 45 minutes away ( right now this minute it feels like 1000 miles). Tomorrow we will have the schedule for the treatments, tomorrow we will know what out "new normal" is. Today, we simply are!