"So how is Kate *really* doing?"

It's a question I've been asked a few times over the last few weeks since Kate's diagnosis, as we've shared the news with friends. I get it. Kate is quiet and introverted by nature. She is not effusive. She doesn't feel the need to reach out to everyone she's ever known to share her news. She definitely doesn't take to social media to share every thought online. I had to create this private site and badger her a bit to start sharing, because it was getting annoying to copy and paste text messages to friends over and over. So how is Kate really doing?

The truth is, there's not an easy answer to that question. Mostly, things around here feel fairly similar to normal since we got the diagnosis last month. We get up each day. We go to work. We spend time with friends. The boys are both at home for the summer so our house feels full again, which is nice. As Kate said in her first update, they've been monitoring her closely for five years so this diagnosis wasn't a total surprise. So when we got the news, we started doing what everyone does in similar situations. You meet the doctors. You listen. You consider the choices. You get new information. You adapt. As Kate also mentioned in her post, she's gone into "fix it mode" so there's a few more consultations on the holistic side. She has an acupuncturist and goes to infrared sauna treatments regularly. That's new. My job is mostly to listen - to the doctors, but also to Kate. I help her think of questions. When asked, I offer my thoughts or opinions, but mostly I try to be supportive and reassure her that we will get through this the way we get through everything - one day, one step, one decision at a time. And I try to regularly ask her how she's doing. Really.

So when I ask her how she's really doing, the answer is usually, "I'm fine." Like I said, she's a woman of few words. And I think she is fine. Mostly. We have a lot to be grateful for - for good doctors, early detection, really great odds for a positive outcome, resources to meet her medical needs, supportive friends and family, and a steadfast faith in God and his assurance that somehow, some way, all will be well. Whatever that might look like. But a week out from the surgery, I think there is still the uncertainty that hangs and weighs on Kate. It does for me. It's the uncertainty of not knowing how things will go or what this journey will be like. What twists and turns it will take. Even the best odds are not a guarantee of anything. It's the "little black raincloud" that floats in the otherwise sunny sky of our lives - not obscuring the sun or darkening the day, just present, there and casting a little shadow over things. So we just keep facing each day, each decision, each moment as it comes. Trusting that in the end all will be well.

"And for the tender love that our good Lord hath to all that shall be saved, He comforteth readily and sweetly, signifying thus: It is sooth that sin is cause of all this pain; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner [of] thing shall be well."
--Julian of Norwich