The ides of March, heretofore, has signified the beginning of March Madness – meaning my son is not answering his texts and college basketball seems to be the only thing on TV – finally ending three weeks later with tears of joy and despair to the tune of One Shining Moment.
This year, and possibly going forward, however, it may take on a totally different meaning, as we are so focused on the upcoming surgery and as we look back to the week of surgery as “a point in history.” Parents do it with the birth of their kids – “before Lucy was born…” and “after we had Lucas…” and we all do it with major life events (“Before the accident” or “After my mom died”).
So maybe, starting next year, there will be these hybrid descriptions like “By Sweet Sixteen, I was off drugs and a little more coherent,” “I went back to work about Final Four time,” or “Stace finally visited after the Championship Game.” (Not really; I think he’ll visit me sooner than that!)
So neither Tina nor I have done any brackets, I’m working 10-hour days to get everything done, and both of us are running around crazy trying to get everything done by Friday (speaking of which, I have to go get a blood pregnancy test tomorrow in my spare time!).
So I hope everyone else has a great time watching the tourney – I’ll be hunkered down in bed, watching House of Cards (during my awake moments) on Netflix instead. And next year, when it’s March Madness time, we’ll be remembering back to this week and how it changed our lives.
Karen's Cancer Journey & Beyond 