We are waiting. Last week, James started a new treatment. It is most likely our last treatment option. It’s a treatment that comes with very high risk of complications, complications that can be major issues. It’s a treatment that comes with a low chance for working, especially for James, considering all we know and all that hasn’t worked to date. But, it was an option and we weren’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.

These treatments don’t function like chemotherapy. There aren’t predictable side effects, or even a predictable timeline for having side effects. Every patient responds differently and every patient has a unique set of side effects on a unique, unpredictable timeline. Treatment itself went fine. No immediate issue arose and we came home that afternoon. But we never know when something might arise.

He has been extraordinarily tired. Like he was in May. He barely eats, and when he does it is mostly all-liquid, so we are focusing on high protein drinks as well as those with extra electrolytes. He sleeps nearly twenty hours a day and has a very hard time getting comfortable just about anywhere but in bed, and even there it is sometimes difficult. He can feel the pressure around his abdomen from the tumor growth. I can see the difference in the shape of his body over the last month. It is frightening how fast these tumors can grow.

Our doctor and her team of nurses always remind us that we need to contact them with any changes. It’s the any that’s empahsized. From head to toe, side effects come in an array of variants, and they want to know as soon as we start to see or feel anything that is different.

Which is why I have become a persistent nag during the times he is awake. I want to know how he is feeling, how is his discomfort, does he feel like he can eat anything, how much liquid has he had? I’m all questions and nagging suggestions and I listen and I watch and I’m sure I drive the man crazy, but we feel like we are on hightened alert, waiting for something, something that could be catastrophic.

Tonight, I was updating his weekly medicine schedule that we print out and check off. He has been recording how many of the “take as needed” pain meds he takes a day in addition to all the other meds that he is prescribed to take at certain times of the day. We had intended to call the oncologist today, just to touch base and let her know that he was maxing out that “as needed” dosage and still in discomfort most of the day, but the call didn’t happen. As I typed up and printed this week’s schedule, I asked how many of those pills he had taken today.

“One.”

“One?”

“One.”

One and only one is something. Or maybe it’s nothing. But when the answer has been four, four, four, four for the past week or more, to hear him say, “One,” felt remarkably like something. We both noticed the change in the air. We both stopped and looked at each other. “That’s something,” I said.

This treatment can take weeks and multiple doses before symptoms start to subside or the cancer starts to shrink or to stop growing. Some people can react sooner, but we didn’t have our hopes set too high. And this may just be one good day, and not a true indicator that anything has really changed.

But when you live in the reality that we live in, everything feels like something.

And “one” is a very good something today.