So here it is.  7:30 p.m.  Sam and Gabe in bed.  No eruptions so far.  And I am…actually, I don’t know what I am.

Katie comes home tomorrow.

I have another 20 hours to make the grade.

Gabriel has been an incredible boy while Mommy has been in England.

Samuel has also been incredible – in a satanic fashion.  I’ve taken to calling him Beelzebub.

Overall though, since last Thursday we’ve had great fun.

Tonight kind of caught up to me though.

I had just trod on a stray piece of LEGO – it was a chicken.  I had stifled an expletive.  That doesn’t come easily with me.  I had descended to the floor and was gathering the detritus of the day and sorting it into the LEGO bucket and the HOT WHEELS bucket.

Ooops.  There’s a police car under the ottoman.

Oh my.  A pick up truck and a LEGO Sir Topham Hatt appear under the sofa.

The red leather club chairs prove to be an ideal sanctuary for Bertie and Lightning McQueen.  Mater lurks by the kitchen table just daring me to come in pursuit.

So, my 59-year old corpus rests nearly recumbent on the floor and I think – WTF?

How in the name of the sweet baby Jesus did I end up here?

I don’t even have a Martini nearby to assist with my reflection.

Actually, if you’ll excuse me for just a moment – I’ll be right back.

……………………………………………………………

…………………………………………..

You still there?

O.K.  Where was I?

Oh.  WTF?

These few days have truly been great fun and if the shadow of the cursed cancer didn’t hover over our home I would not be pausing to reflect at all.  I’d be chalking up my Brownie points and planning some golf outings and several end-to-end philosopher’s club sessions with Homer at the Goose.

But all that strikes me is this – what if this had all turned out differently?  What if Katie didn’t fight this as effectively as she has?  What if that miserable bastard comes back?

Can I even envision myself as a single dad?

Maybe if I were a few decades younger.

Maybe if I were more fit.

Maybe if….

Here’s what the caregivers and shotgun riders and co-pilots need to know – the unimaginable lurks in the dark alleys of the mind at all times.  We need to work mightily and positively to shed bright lights in all the blackened corners of the brain.

For me, those lights are two little boys.

Yes, I am completely knackered.

Yes, they just piss me off mightily from time to time.

But when I saw my 100-year-old Mom today light up when Gabe and Sam walked (OK, stormed the beaches) into her apartment today I thought I am well and truly blessed.

And, we’re going to never rid the presence of the horrid cancer from our lives but we can give it a sound thrashing and encourage it to truly piss off back from whence it came.

So, actually I do know what I am.

I am a very tired but extraordinarily lucky man with two wonderful boys looking forward to welcoming our beautiful wife and Mommy home tomorrow.

Sleep well lads.

Tomorrow we climb Pearson!

This is turning out to be a really great day.  Enhanced by the pure joy of my boys.  Marred only by the absence of my wife.  But then again, made joyful as she is in England spending some well-deserved quality time with her best friend in the world – Alex – and surprising her brother with an unexpected visit and illuminating her own father with an ambush Father’s day celebration.

Gabe got the festivities underway at 4:15 a.m. when he thought it would be a good idea to make sure Daddy was sleeping OK while Mommy is away.  He crawled into bed with me and after a little chat we both drifted off to dream land until Samuel thought he should be part of the parade at 5:45 announcing himself with his lungs full and yelling “DADA.  WHERE ARE YOU?  GABO.  WHERE ARE YOU?”  I retrieved him and since then we have: replanted the front garden; visited Tim Horton’s for some much needed nourishment (yeah, TimBits); rode the tricycle;  rode the scooter; rode the dump truck; road the bicycle; threw stones into Lake Ontario; visited Hanna at the garden store to buy a trellis and some more pea seeds; planted the pea seeds; placed the trellis; chased the neighbour’s cat;  chased the other neighbour’s dog; spent some nice time visiting with Silvano; had a great chat with Joan and her dog Lily (as Gabe described it – that old woman who gave us candy); had peanut butter and jam sandwiches, pretzels and veggie straws for lunch; killed another chocolate Easter bunny; changed two poopie diapers and one simply wet one; exchanged wardrobes for both boys (we did do gardening after all); watched Disney; and now Samuel is sitting on my lap asking for Thomas the Tank (the ghost one).

Oh, wait:  breakfast, lunch and dinner prep and feeding; two loads of laundry, drying and folding then sorting into outfits; cleaning up (kinda sorta – will admit there was less disinfectant involved than when Katie does it); get the bath ready; play chase; change another diaper; wash hair, brush teeth, read stories, apply lotions and potions, scare away the ghosts, close the proper doors, turn out the lights in the proper order and descend the the kitchen – where I now sit – and contemplate pouring a rather large Martini.

So there you go.  My excellent Father’s day.

Oh.  Forgot.  Got to do FaceTime with Mommy and friends from England and that was most excellent.  Oh. Forgot. Sent a couple of videos to Mommy so she wouldn’t forget us. Oh. Forgot – oh hell I don’t know but there must be something.

Regardless – that was Father’s Day.  In other words, I did today what my wife does every freakin’ day with one exception – I didn’t fight cancer.

I didn’t do a 30 minute, 5K jog on the treadmill.

I didn’t do my 45 minutes of Mindfulness Meditation.

I didn’t do any Yoga whatsoever.

I didn’t even do Yogi Bear.

So on Father’s Day – I salute my darling.  You amaze me and recreate my sense of wonder.

That’s how you make every day Father’s Day and why I love you so completely.

P.S. If you even think about taking off to England a year from now – I’ll support you completely.

Sometimes the entire cloud is silver.  Not just the lining.

We attended a consult with Katie’s surgical oncologist at PHM today.  It was the two-week follow up to her last surgery where she had a boatload of lymph nodes removed.

OK. Boatload may be exaggerating but until today we didn’t know.  They removed 13.  Along with the five removed at the time of her mastectomy she rang up a grand total of 18.  Of those, as we learned today, only one from the original surgery had any evidence of the cursed cancer.

No strep.

No nasty nodes.

This was a good day where the clouds and the linings were silver.

Commanding the co-pilot seat on this flight creates many learning opportunities.  Some are most welcome.  Some not so much.

One thing that I have learned, that you might – there is zero reliability in predictive indices in this trek – is that you may redefine what is accepted as ‘good’ news.

For example:  yesterday, I received a call from Gabriel’s school.  They advised that he was feeling hot and he had a very sore neck.  In fact, it was bringing on tears and he was lethargic and clearly in great discomfort.  He would only be carried by his teachers (who are wonderful) and was on the verge of falling to sleep at almost any moment.

I drove prudently to the school.  Curiously, it was one of the VERY few times I have seen a radar setup on Lakeshore but I was absolutely within the limit.  This is a behaviour I learned from a doctor at the camp I attended for years back in the dark ages.  Dr. Peter would amble from the Doctor’s cabin to the infirmary in all circumstances.  He was never panicked.  He never ran.  He never raised his voice.  He was the very picture of calm.  This had a noticeable impact upon his patient who would figure that if the doctor wasn’t too wired then I’m probably in pretty good condition.  It worked a charm.  On the other had, Doctor Jack was a frantic person.  Maybe it was his years working at the ‘hospital’ in Penetanguashine (sp?) that did him in  but every patient he saw was pretty much sure they we’re gonna die on the spot.   Jack was an awesomely good doctor but the difference in demeanour was palpable.

Anyway, back to the story.  I picked up Gabe from the school and he was clearly in distress.  I had to keep him chatting all the way to the doctor so that he wouldn’t pass out on me.  Hell, all I could think of with his symptoms of an incredibly stiff neck, a sore tummy and a fever was MENINGITIS!

All caps on purpose.

I was literally, figuratively and imaginatively trembling.

So, we get to the practice.  They agree to see him.  Not always a sure thing at this practice. One of the nurses was very kind.  They got him water.  They got him an electrolyte freezie.  They got him an ice pack.  They got him a doctor.

He did finally fall to sleep in my arms just after the doctor swabbed his throat.  And then the wait ensued.

Everyone who visits this site knows about the ‘wait’.  It’s the G.D. worst part.  The unknowing.  The imagining.  The fretting.  The searching the web.  The – ah hell – the ignorance.

Then, after what seemed like hours (5 minutes!) the doctor came back with the news that Gabriel had strep.

Holy crap.

STREP.

How fantastic is that?

Whoot.  Whoot.

Here’s the point.  As perspective changes your view of what constitutes good news alters dramatically.

Months ago,  before Kate’s diagnosis, Gabriel’s strep diagnosis would have freaked me out.  But, after the desensitizing or enhanced sensitizing of this cancer trek, I was able to take great comfort in the fact the Gabe had strep and not meningitis.

When you allow fear to enter your life and rule your consideration of possible outcomes very little good can come of it.  Fellow bloggers on this site – of note – BothSides, LovelyKatieLumps, and Catherine Brunelle – have helped me immeasurably in understanding that we can find good in almost any circumstance.  Not only CAN we but we must and for the person riding shotgun it is even more important to have this sensibility.

For our own sanity we need to find silver linings.

For our partners we need to find encouragement  balanced with reality.

Here is something good that can come out of all this shit.  Excuse my French here but I am kinda wrought up.  Fear can dominate only if we let it.  We can all help each other in forums such as this to learn how to address to unimaginable.  @Cancermom – you are an ideal example and I so admire you.

Let the learning continue.

P.S.  Thanks to all of you for being here.  You make a real and lasting difference in many lives.

There’s no polite way to put this – my butt hurts.

Yes, the old gluteus maximus is making itself known to me as it hasn’t since the last time I rode my bike through the streets of Boston and surrounding territory.  Some day I will share with you the special horror of riding cobblestone roads at the 22 mile point of the event.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far you might be wondering why.

The really excellent people with whom Katie works formed a team to participate in the Run for the Cure in September.  I of course agreed to participate and launched the fund-raising activities some time ago.  So far I’ve managed to accrue $3,845.00.  That impresses the hell out of me and many of the commitments have come from folks with whom I’ve had little contact over many years.  They are so very kind.

I would dearly love to hit the $5,000.00 mark so if you’re feeling up to it any help is appreciated.  Just visit http://www.runforthecure.com and search out my name…Don Kerr.  I know you’re all probably overwhelmed by this sort of request but I just need to get the word out to as many folks as possible.

Now, back to old gluteus.

While the fund-raising effort has been going swimmingly I had kind of (o.k., completely) neglected the fact that my 59-year old body might not just willy nilly up and run around for five km without some preparation.  Katie, almost since her diagnosis last November has been pounding the treadmill and she is the very picture of fitness and fine discipline.  I am the very picture of – well….

So, yesterday I strapped on the New Balance shoes and went for a stroll down treadmill lane.  Just 20 minutes.  Picked the endurance program which is essentially 20 minutes at 3.9 mph on a 5% grade.  Easy peasy lemon squeezie as Gabe would say.

Yeah, not so much.

Will be back on the road again today and if Wakonda wills it I shall endeavour to match Kate’s current 30 minute jog during which she covers in excess of the required 5km.

If you hear loud groaning noises that appear to come from the shores of Lake Ontario here in Oakville, that will be me.

Now, if I can just stand up….