I arrived back home from my trip to the Dominican Republic on Thursday night. On Friday morning, Seth received a phone call from Mayo Clinic notifying us that we needed to be there for two days of appointments for further evaluation of his eye cancer starting at 8:00 Tuesday morning.

There wasn’t much time to prepare, so we quickly arranged child care for our two oldest and decided to bring the three-year-old “baby” with us. Because of the timing of the first appointment, we knew we’d need to travel to Mayo the night prior. With that in mind, I got right on the task of reserving two nights in a hotel. I spent two hours scouring the internet for an affordable hotel room that had decent customer ratings and was also a reasonable distance from Mayo Clinic. It didn’t take long for financial implications and worries to set in regarding this medical journey on which we were embarking. Two nights of hotel. Cha ching. Meals for three people for two days. Cha ching. Gas two and from. Cha ching. Parking. Cha ching. Deductible, then 20% coinsurance for two days of appointments at Mayo Clinic. Cha ching. Even with financial implications looming large, there’s clearly nothing we can do about it. The costs are a necessary part of restoring health. So we press on, even so, knowing that medical bills will be the least of our worries if we can just pull through the other side of this health crisis.

Tuesday morning came before we knew it. There we were in the hotel’s breakfast nook eating scrambled eggs, sausage and french toast. I noted a heaviness in the air the moment we walked in. I recalled the fact that it was a Tuesday morning, and most, if not all of the people in the room were visiting because of significant medical concerns.

Maisie, our “baby,” coughed while she was eating breakfast. I held a large, white napkin up to her mouth as quickly as I could and told Seth in a whisper “We need to cover her mouth when she coughs in here. We need to be as careful as we can.” Moments later, I got up to get more orange juice and overheard a lady speaking quietly to the hotel’s breakfast attendant. “We just can’t afford to take a chance. I’m here for eight weeks of chemo the way it is.” It was then that I noticed, the woman and her husband had moved tables AWAY from us, to the back corner of the room. Yep. I was right on that coughing.

We knew we were getting close to Mayo Clinic when we started noticing an unusually large number of hotels downtown Rochester. And we passed the “Limb Lab,” the biggest and most beautiful store we’d ever seen dedicated to prosthetic limbs.

Mayo Clinic was on our right as we pulled in. The parking garage was to the left. When we got out of the vehicle, Maisie said “Is this where you work, daddy?” Seth responded, “No, this is where they’re gonna make my eye better.” Maisie probed with another question, and Seth gently tried to pull some wool over her three-year-old eyes by responding with some vague, not-really-true answer. I noted quietly that it would probably be developmentally appropriate to share that his eye has “an owie” and the doctors are going to help him fix it. I figured there was no reason to beat around the bush. Eventually, she was going to realize daddy has “an owie” on his eye, so we might as well begin addressing it now. Seth agreed and all was well.

We proceeded to patient check-in, which was more like a gigantic hotel than a medical clinic. Seth received a detailed schedule for the next two days, but we were reminded that the schedule is subject to change at any moment. That first day, he was booked in back-to-back appointments from 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. which consisted of multiple vision exams, special photography and imaging of the eye, and blood work.

We made our way back to the area Seth had most of his appointments for the day. Seth was greeted warmly and called back immediately. I stayed in the waiting area with Maisie, trying to keep her quiet and entertained. Several individuals with thick eye patches came through as we waited. I couldn’t help but believe this was a glimpse into our future.

After we’d been there a while, an elderly gentleman came over, sat down beside us, and gave Maisie a small bouncy ball. To be honest, I thought he was a little crazy. Give a three year old a bouncy ball in a waiting room at Mayo Clinic? Disaster in waiting. But it was great. Maisie threw the ball much more gently than I would’ve ever guessed, and the scene brought smiles to people waiting near us and with us. I was wrong, so wrong. There was power in that bouncy ball, and there was power in the presence of my three year old playing innocently amidst such medical struggle. The fragility of the elderly woman seated in a wheelchair next to us struck me. She smiled ever so slightly as Maisie threw the ball. I wondered how much she could see. I wondered when the last time was that she was able to throw a ball, catch a ball, or get down on the floor to pick up a ball.

After two to three hours of waiting, Maisie wasn’t tolerating the waiting room anymore, so we went out into the long hallway to change things up. I sat down on a couch and made my sleepy self comfortable. Maisie walked the windowed ledge. The dichotomy between Maisie’s innocence and the medical world was evident once again. There she was walking the ledge as people talked about catheterizing, chemotherapy, “this is all we can do,” and “I’m hanging in there. I’m tough you know.” I pondered all the things Maisie doesn’t know about life yet. I pondered our perceived strength vs. our real-life weaknesses. We’re all walking on the ledge, really. We’re all hanging in there as best as we can. We’re all making the best out of situations that are less than ideal, whether this month’s reality is chemotherapy or living paycheck to paycheck.

I finally gave up. Maisie had been walking the ledge for who knows how long. And I was getting sleepy sitting there on that couch. The exhaustion was really setting in from my trip to the Dominican Republic, four days acclimating to home, and now the trip to Mayo Clinic for Seth’s eye cancer. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d fallen asleep while Maisie watched some silly kids surprise egg video on YouTube. Just as I dozed off, Seth approached. He was done, but needed to head down to blood work. So off we went.

Blood work was crazy busy. Chairs and couches were lined in rows. I invited Maisie to pick a seat, and she invited daddy to sit down next to her. They enjoyed a few minutes together before he was called in.

All in all, Seth spent 4 1/2 hours in appointments that first day at Mayo Clinic. We ate lunch, took a nap in the hotel room, made a best effort to bring Maisie swimming, and joined Seth’s cousin for dinner.

As we got ready for bed at the end of the day, I told Seth “I can’t quite seem to get my bearings. I feel like I’m totally out of routine.” “You’d better get used to it,” he said, “we’re going to be out of routine for a while now.”

Yep. Out of routine, we most definitely were. Out of routine, we most definitely are.

I brushed my teeth three times that first day. The familiarity and predictability of the habit I’d had since toddlerhood was oddly refreshing to my spirit in the midst of the unknown medical world to which we were quickly acclimating.

Less than 48 hours before I was scheduled to leave for my trip to the Dominican Republic with Compassion International, my husband called to share the news that he has choroidal melanoma. Eye cancer. I’d just finished my morning workout when he called, and had a whole day of packing and preparing planned for the day ahead. But as I talked to my husband at the entrance to the gym, I began to feel sick. Literally sick. Packing and preparing for my upcoming trip was urgent, yes. But this was life altering and needed my attention today.

The day before, my husband, Seth, had gone in for a routine eye appointment. He shared with the optometrist that he’d been experiencing constant, but dim strobing lights in the corner of his right eye. She evaluated further, told him he likely had a detached retina, and made him an appointment with an ophthalmologist the following morning at 8:00 a.m. We were told he’d need surgery to repair the detached retina that afternoon, so I was ready for anything the way it was. Little did we know, it wasn’t a detached retina at all. It was eye cancer.

Seth didn’t go into work that day. And I didn’t pack or prepare for my trip as planned. We spent time together. We processed together. We ate lunch together. We called our parents together. We made a few key contacts together. We rested together. And in the evening, we shared the news with the kids together.

Needless to say, by the time Friday came rolling along, I was in panic mode. I now had one day to do what I’d originally planned to do in two days. Not only that, I was battling confusion and emotion related to the fact that I was about to leave on the trip of a lifetime writing on behalf of Compassion International, while also facing the reality of my husband’s cancer.

Immediately following Seth’s diagnosis, the ophthalmologist had contacted Mayo Clinic to see if Seth could be scheduled with one of the nation’s leading doctors in the treatment of eye cancer. Apparently, the doctor hadn’t been taking new patients, but they really wanted to see if there way any way Seth could get in with him. Fortunately, we got in. Well, at least we got penciled in for January 29-30. Our appointments weren’t confirmed, but likely.

My husband and I agreed. While this was absolutely NOT an ideal scenario, there was NO reason for me to cancel my travel plans. The appointments had been penciled in at Mayo. In the meantime, there was nothing we could do but wait. So we decided to proceed. As planned. I would go on the trip with Compassion International and live my dream of writing on behalf of children living in extreme poverty.

So yes, back to that Friday when I was packing and preparing like a maniac. I was non-stop all day long. In fact, it wasn’t until 9:00 p.m. that I finally finished everything and tucked myself into bed. Unfortunately, I’d packed, prepared and worked myself like a maniac so much so that I didn’t get a minute of sleep that night before the trip.

Seth and I refused to let this diagnosis get the best of us. I wanted that to hold true for my trip to the Dominican Republic with Compassion International, too. So Saturday morning, with zero minutes of sleep in me and a big trip ahead of me, I said good-bye to Seth in the dark of 2:45 a.m. and left to meet family friends who had graciously agreed to drive me to the airport. Later that afternoon in the Miami International Airport, I published a blog post explaining the state of my heart and soul at the start of this trip that meant the world to me. It was vague, but as specific as I could be without revealing the recent eye cancer diagnosis. My goal was to embrace the trip whole-heartedly, so I was bound and determined to keep it free of cancer talk.

The trip was amazing and an honor of a lifetime. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. But I shouldn’t have been surprised when I experienced another near sleepless night mid-way through the trip and wasn’t able to get the day’s blog post published as I’d hoped. I’d come to the end of myself. I was basically a wreck for the first part of a day. I was on this trip to give, yes. But I also needed to learn how to receive. Planning, preparing and executing had been close companions. But now, I really needed to surrender it all. God was clearly at work, transforming me simultaneously and uniquely through my husband’s eye cancer and the trip of my dreams.

It’s been ten days since I returned. We’ve already been to Mayo Clinic for three nights and 2 1/2 days of appointments with doctors. I’ve spent most of the past ten days in a foggy, exhausted state. My emotions have been all over the place. Neutral, angry, sad, distant, distracted, empty, and finally two days ago, back to normal for the most part.

We’ve debated extensively how to share medical updates with family and friends. A Caring Bridge site was recommended, but for a couple reasons, we decided it wasn’t a fit for us. Seth considered starting a blog to document the journey. He even brainstormed titles, had a vision for his posts, and researched available URLs. But he decided the commitment to maintain a blog while managing his health and work would be too difficult. That left us with my blog. While this blog was never, ever intended as a place to “update family and friends about our life,” it is a public forum where you can pop in and read as you wish.

So we agreed my blog would be the best place to share this journey. But I still needed time to discern. I pondered in silence through days of exhaustion and uncertainty. I journaled the days I wanted to write, but wasn’t in any mood to type or edit. I contemplated a scenario in which I’d remain completely silent about Seth’s eye cancer on the blog, but realized quickly that a silent approach isn’t in line with who I am as a writer and would ultimately feel disingenuous to my readers. Plus, I was confident that this journey fit perfectly within my new blog vision, to “love what you live,” even when it’s less than ideal.

Mid last week when we were at Mayo Clinic for three days, we finally decided to make the news public on Facebook. When 230+ people responded with words of encouragement and promises of prayer, I knew right then and there that we had to find a way to update the caring circle of family and friends around us. Practically speaking, I’m in no emotional state to field non-stop calls, texts and emails. So the answer became clear from all angles – blog it will be.

I’m approaching this series gently, with as few expectations as possible. Because the truth is, we have no idea what to expect along the way. So I’ll write when I want to write, when I need to write, and when I’m able to write. This series will include basic factual updates, but won’t be full of jargon you’d have to look up in a medical dictionary to understand. This series will include insight into my feelings throughout the journey, but won’t reveal every detail of my private thought life as wife and caregiver. And last, but not least, I’ll definitely be telling stories and making observations about the world of medicine and cancer, caregiving and loving, believing and trusting in God’s goodness, even when life’s thrown you a major curveball. And yes, there will be vague references to patients and doctors, spouses and families, visitors and helpers along the way. Because we’re all on this journey of life together. We’re all here to learn from one another and love one another, even when life’s hard.

So please join us here for updates as you wish. For the next three to four weeks, I’ll be blogging our journey through eye cancer. After that, posts will be occasional as significant updates arise. As with any major series I write, I’ll put “The Apple of My Eye” graphic on the right sidebar of my blog. Anytime you’re looking for an update, get on your laptop, click the apple graphic (picture) on the right side of my blog, and it’ll connect you to this post. Scroll down to the bottom (just below), and I’ll include links to ALL posts I’ve written in the eye cancer series. The most recent post will, of course, always be on my home page.

He’s positive. He’s upbeat. He expects to get through this without a hitch. He’s approaching this with bravery, courage and hope for best possible outcomes. He’s not looking for pity, sadness, despair or hopelessness. Plentiful words of affirmation will suffice just fine for my man. Yes, he has eye cancer. But he’s still the apple of my eye.