It’s conference week at school, which means I’ve been stressed and working even longer hours than usual. I’m overdoing it, according to my co-teacher, but I know parents want to see examples of what I’m discussing, and so I’ve been collecting work and giving assessments to have the most current data and evidence to share.

I’m out tomorrow, the day before conferences, for our monthly oncology appointment at University of Michigan, which doesn’t help my school load. So, as usual, I was at school early, worked through my lunch and planning period and still didn’t leave until 5:30, nearly two hours after the students left. I’m more ready than I was, but I still have a stack of writings that need feedback, so I brought those along to work on in the waiting room(s) tomorrow.

I texted James to let him know when I was finally leaving school and he texted back that he would get dinner started. He’s always so understanding of my need to stay late or go early and he has never complained about holding dinner until I arrive home, whenever that might be.

On my drive home, I noticed the moon. The time change made it just dusk enough to really notice it’s huge glow low on the eastern horizon. I voice-texted Jacob to let him know it might be a beautiful night to see the moon over Chicago from the top of his apartment building. I pulled into the drive, past the empty pasture which reminded me of a conversation I had with a new colleague at school this morning. She was talking about loading cows this past weekend and the long and short of the conversation left me having to briefly explain why we no longer have any. The long day, the full moon, the empty pasture, the whole thing didn’t help my tired heart as I arrived home.

I pulled into the garage and grabbed my lunch bag, leaving the papers right where they were for tomorrow. I glanced at my phone to see Jacob’s text back and was responding as I walked to the back door. At first, all I heard while I texted was the air fryer through the stove vent, but then I heard the sound that just shatters my heart every single time. James was vomiting. I stood with my hand on the doorknob and cried.

This disease feels like the worst rollercoaster a person could live on. We were filled with optimism after our last oncology visit – more hope than we’ve ever had. And James had a couple great weeks where he feels really good and seems his normal self, if just a much skinnier version, but then we plummet again. This nausea and vomiting has been going on fairly steadily, but without an obvious cause for nearly three weeks. He is tired again, going to bed just after dinner, which he barely touches, and the reductive changes to his pain meds last month have left him in more discomfort. Tomorrow we will meet with the doctor who will remind us once again of the reality of this ride. It’s torturous.

And I will sit with families on Wednesday and Thursday nights and I will discuss what feels to them like the most important things possible, but which in reality don’t matter at all. And then I will go back to the business of teaching. All while wondering, what difference does that even make?

He is my beloved and he is suffering and there is absolutely nothing I can do to make any of it go away. He stood on the ground and held the ladder while I climbed on the roof to blow leaves and clean out gutters, neither of us happy with our position or task. He has run the mower and the leaf vac several times this fall, keeping up with the leaves, assured that I would lug the blower and clear out the beds and the backyard on the weekend, but both of us knowing how worried I am that he is overdoing it, and how worried he is that I will be trying to do it all alone next year.

Tomorrow, doc will adjust his medications, hopefully finding a new combination that eases his stomach and helps him eat so he has more energy and a combination that will also makes him pain and discomfort free once again. And, tomorrow he has a follow-up CT scan of his neck, looking more closely at a section that gave the doctor pause in October. There is just always something. Always. Something. Always.

When people ask how we are, or how is James doing, there just is no simple answer. I usually say, “We are hanging in there,” and while I never elaborate, it would be more accurate to finish that with, “…by a gossamer thread.”

We are hanging on by a gossamer thread.