Long December

 

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leaving
Now the days go by so fast

Even though the writer of this song, Adam Duritz, of the Counting Crows, described this song as a ballad of "looking back on your life and seeing changes happening while simultaneously looking forward to positive change in the future", it always makes me feel a bit melancholy.  I think it's the mention of hospitals in the winter and, 

And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters
But no pearls

Either way, it's one of my favourite songs for the end of the year when we take a moment to reflect on our lives, friendships, hopes and dreams.  2025 was not exactly what I expected. 2026, you can do better! Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great things that happened in 2025: 

  • Owen graduated from Queen's University and started a Master's of Science in Anatomy; 
  • Faith moved in with her boyfriend in Sudbury and started teaching a grade 6 class; 
  • Julie got divorced and bought a cottage, aptly named the "Comeback Cottage"; 
  • Shawn and I took a trip with friends to Germany and got to see some amazing cities in Hungary, Austria and Slovakia while cycling along the Danube; 
  • our dog Ruby turned 15 (don't even do the math for dog years) and is as awesome as ever;
  • I joined a dragon boat team and met a whole new group of women who have become my friends and role models; 
  • I started a Thursday Night Book Club that met 9 times and had some very thoughtful discussions over some great books; 
  • I finally learned to knit (and probably over committed to doing a full Chicago Bears blanket!). my mom would be both proud and surprised;
  • I joined and stuck with a gym getting physically stronger than I've ever been; 
  • I curled, biked, walked, skied and skated; 
  • I returned to work and joined their book club with a focus on books by Indigenous authors; 
  • We bought a new trailer, with plans to spend more time camping next summer; and, 
  • I was released from my medical oncologist and had a good 1 year post-treatment mammogram.
But in between all the highs, there was an undercurrent of anxiety and sadness.  Friendships that were once so easy are still strained.  Big groups and parties are hard. I still over-think and freeze, retreat to the quiet and comfort of my home, instead of reaching out.  I wait for others to contact me, thinking that if they wanted to, they would (no thanks for that advice, Mel Robbins). And, through it all, I'm still desperately afraid for Faith.

When I started to think about writing this blog post, I knew that I wanted to update you on Faith.  I'm also purposely not including her on this (as you'll see why later). You might remember in July, she had a good CT scan and we celebrated that her cancer was behind her.  That celebration was short-lived as the results of her blood work, done every three months, have been getting worse, with higher Thyroglobulin Antibodies.  Her endocrinologist recommended an ultrasound "just to rule anything out" and we were devastated to find out, just after Labour Day that 2 new nodules had appeared in her thyroid bed.  A fine-needle biopsy (Faith's 4th) confirmed thryoid cancer.  How cruel is that to have a reoccurence of thyroid cancer, less than a year after surgery to remove the thyroid and radiation to kill any remaining cells?  Faith's positive attitude has kept me grounded, as has my sister's advice to "keep my head where my feet are".  Despite all the waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for appointments, referrals, scans, tests, call-backs, Faith has been amazing, never staying down for long, focussing on the present.  She's truly an old-soul.  As of right now, we are waiting for her surgeon to decide what type of surgery she will have, and when, to remove the tumour that is clearly still growing. Hospital visits are not yet in our rearview mirror for her.

And if you think that thyroid cancer is "the easy" one...think again. I've had to.  

As listed above, when I returned to work I joined a book club, organized by my friend Shannon.  I went to my first one a few days after my first day back, and, not surprisingly, without having read the book.  The discussion was fascinating - it was a book about a Tuberculosis hospital and the patients there.  I can't remember the name of the book but it was apparently very heavy.  Again, not surprising.  We think of TB as an old disease that isn't very prevalent and is curable.  Those of us who work in Indigenous health (or international health, for that matter), know better - it is still out there, infecting people in Canada and many countries around the world.  During the discussion, the book "Everything is Tuberculosis" by John Green was mentioned as a good one to read.  I was interested in the topic so took it out as an audiobook and listened to it driving up to Julie's cottage, and while knitting one of the countless squares I committed to doing for the Bears blanket.  At one point, John Green, the narrator of the audiobook, mentioned that he was also the author of "The Fault in Our Stars" which became a movie as well.  I remember this movie as being a teenage love story about 2 kids with cancer.  While the book was fiction, the female character was based on a girl that John Green met while he was a hospital chaplain.  My heart stopped when he explained that he'd met her before she died at age 16 of...you guessed it...thyroid cancer.  Esther Earl is the real-life teenage blogger, you-tuber and author who died in 2010 after a 4 year battle with thyroid cancer.  

I don't think I slept the night after I heard that. 

I'm not sure if Faith knows the type of cancer discussed in that book. I haven't had the nerve to ask her.  

So, yeah, its been a long December. Combined with the fact that neither of my kids was home at Christmas, it made for a low-key holiday.  While I'm happy that my kids have grown up to be thoughtful, loving and independent adults, and are both in loving relationships, I do miss when they are not here.  I'm not going to lie and say it was easy, but knowing that Faith and Owen are right where they need to be, did help. 

 In 2026, I'm going to continue to take my cue from Faith, get up each morning and put one foot in front of the other, make the best of things, fix what I can, be a good person, keep learning new things and look for joy in the everyday.  My New Years hope for all of you, all of us, is peace and health in 2026.  Nothing else really matters as much as that.

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