If I have to hear “One day at a time,” “One thing at a time,” or “One step at a time,” ONE MORE TIME, I SWEAR IT WILL BE THE LAST TIME!!!

We’re sitting in the urologist’s office, one framed print of a vanilla-looking mountain on the wall for inspiration, one 3-d plastic model of male genitalia with various stages of prostate cancer on the shelf for education.  Bob, who says his freshman year of college was the best five years of his life on account of his penchant for failing tests, has, sadly, finally gotten positive marks.  Heck.  He’s landed in the AP class.  He’s tested positive for prostate cancer.  Advanced prostate cancer.  

It isn’t as though we didn’t expect this at some point.  It runs in his family.  He’s been going to annual check-ups religiously to screen for it.  But the screening protocol missed it.  

“We may have caught this too late,” the doctor explains blandly, as though he’s simply remarking on an over-cooked a hamburger.  Then, some bit of med-school empathy training seems to kick in, because he thinks to add, “Which is really a shame, isn’t it.  Cuz you’re a young and healthy guy.”

If it hasn’t spread, Bob can expect two months of radiation and two years of hormone ablation.  

“And if it has spread?”  I try to keep my voice calm.  I can tell Bob is about to faint in his chair.  I’m doing my best to hold my freak-out at bay and get as much information as possible.

“We might be able to try chemo,” he mutters and shrugs.  Then he remembers something else he must have learned in empathy training.  “You know, you really have to take these things one day at a time.  That’s all any of us can do in life, right?”

I’m a business woman.  I’m an entrepreneur.  One day at a time isn’t my job.  My job is to scan the skies for coming storms, to anticipate, to help our family and business change course.  

It’s the end of the day.  The staff has gone home.  Bob and I were the last thing on his schedule.  The doctor informs us his nurse will “try” to schedule at PET scan to determine how much farther the cancer has spread.

“Try?”  I repeat back.

“Well, there’s pre-approvals from insurance.  And then there’s the wait for the test.  They’re usually pretty backed up with scheduling.”

He walks Bob and me to the door and unlocks it to let us out.  We stagger to the car and I take the keys from my husband.

“I can drive,” he tells me. 

“You’re not driving,” I say quietly. 

“You hate city driving,” he argues.

I can’t imagine getting a cancer diagnosis like that and then navigating city traffic.  It’s bad enough I had to sit through it with my partner while he got it.

“I think I’m in a better headspace,” I tell him.  

And we drive back to the farm.  

“You’re calm,” he says in the quiet of the car.  I nod.  “You scare me when you’re calm like that,” he says.  “Cuz I don’t know when the damn’s gonna break.”

“I’m numb,” I tell him. 

We get back to the farm, where the girls have just finished chores.  They’re waiting anxiously on the porch.  As we pull in, they run to the car and fling their arms around us, sobbing.  Mom and dad are next.  I walk into the kitchen, climb on a stool and drop my head onto the kitchen counter.  “One day at a time,” the doctor said.  But I need to figure out how to keep my family and business together.  I need to figure out how to support my husband.  I need to hope and pray that we only face two months of radiation and two years of treatment.  

There’s a chicken in the oven when we get back to our house.  Lately, that’s my meal of choice when we have to be out at medical appointments.  I set it up before we leave, and it’s ready when we come home.  Tonight, we’re quiet around the table.   I’m choking on every bite.  Finally I give up and go to bed.

But sleep eludes me.  I slumber off, then wake every five minutes.  It’s cancer, I think.  I’m too young to lose my husband, I think.  I long for the peace of drifting off to the land of nod, but the pain of returning to the waking world is just too great.  I roll over and realize the space beside me is empty.  I wander out and find Bob sitting alone in the dark outside the bedroom.  Weeping.

I stand in front of him and pull his head to my chest.  

“I’m so sorry,” he sobs.  “I’m so so so sorry.”

That’s when my dam breaks.  Suddenly, I can’t stop crying.  

It’s worse than that.  I can hardly breath.  This is the love of my life.  And I can’t stand the idea that this love could be dying.

Corbie swoops in the next day.  “One thing at a time,” she tells me.  Then she starts pushing me to make the phone calls to schedule tests and start the paperwork with insurance.  

I don’t want one thing at a time.  I want to know when we can go camping with the kids.  I want to know if Bob and I will ever be able to take the walking tour of Ireland we’ve dreamed about.  I want to know that I’m going to have my best friend beside me for ever and ever and ever. 

But I struggle just to find my breath. Now that my dam of numbness has broken, I struggle to get through any conversation without breaking down in tears of hysteria.  

Bob, the kids and I go through the motions of our life: packing meat, cooking, drinking coffee in the woods beside the stream.  Corey and Saoirse and Ula’s friends come around and the house fills with teenagers, a great group of kids who circle our daughters, poking fun, laughing, hugging, joining the girls on adventures to the various swimming holes.  Bob and I throw ourselves into more cooking, feeding their hungry bodies, taking relief from the distraction they offer, laughing at their jokes.  Then they go away, and again we are crying.  Crying, crying, crying.

My friend Lisa shows up at the door.  She has a book called Radical Remission for Bob to read, the number of her favorite radiation oncologist, and a quiche so that I don’t have to cook dinner.  We take two tea mugs and a thermos of hot water down to Rossman Pond, where we sit and drink tea.  

She sits with me while I cry some more. 

“Are you angry with everyone who doesn’t have cancer?” She asks knowingly.  

I nod, and she laughs.  

“Been there,” she says.  “It took me seven months after my diagnosis to start to believe I wasn’t going to die.”

We sit and remember going through her breast cancer together.  Saoirse and her daughter Sarah were only eleven.  Ula was eight.  We were such harried moms.  So we decided that her cancer would be our chance to slow down.  We left the kids behind and I would drive her to chemo.  Only we didn’t call it chemo.  We called it our spa day.  I’d pack us a picnic: curried chicken salad and kale salad and herbal teas and dark chocolate.  She’d get hooked up to her drip and we’d take out our knitting and chat through the afternoon.

She brings me to the brink of a smile again, and then I remember that we still don’t know if Bob’s cancer has spread, and the panicked sobs return.

“One step at a time,” Lisa reminds me.  

She leaves, and I’m calm for a little while.  Then the anxiety swells in my stomach again.  In two days, we have to go for Bob’s PET scan.  And then we’ll have to find out the truth.  And my breathing gets shallow once more, and I start to cry.  Again.

I go to sleep that night, but am suddenly wide awake at 2am.  I feel like there are voices in my head trying to talk to me.  I go and sit in my chair, close my eyes and try to listen. 

Your anxiety isn’t helping him, the voice tells me.  He has enough anxiety on his own.  It’s time to do something about it.

And there in the dark, I have to give this serious thought.  What am I accomplishing by being fearful and anxious?  The feelings don’t help me to get my family to a place of greater safety.  They won’t help me make better decisions or enable me to give Bob the support he needs.  

They aren’t necessary to prove my love for my husband. 

But anxiety is a habit.  And it’s a hard one to break.  I need to train my body what it feels like to not feel anxious.  I need help.  I walk to my herbal medicine chest and fix a concoction for myself: valerian, passionflower, motherwort, St. Johns Wort, skull cap, ginseng.  I take it all.  

And a few hours later, I do it again.  And then again.

And I spend long periods of time in meditation.

And as my fight or flight response calms down, I start to realize something. 

I love my husband.  I don’t want to lose my husband.  

But that doesn’t mean our family is in danger.  There are things happening in my life that I do not want to happen.  But I have the life I want, I am surrounded by people I adore, and I have the resources to adapt.  

And we go forward to the PET scan.  One step at a time, I tell myself as we walk toward the hospital.

He gets through the test, but after, he’s sick.  He’s exhausted.  From being sick, he’s humiliated.  He’s vulnerable.  He’s frightened.  “One thing at a time,” I remind him.  “We’re here today.”

Slowly, I shift from a place of fear to a place of awe and gratitude.  This is not where I want my husband to be.  But this is a place where he trusts me to be with him, to walk beside him as he goes through this.  Our love is not dying in anyway.  This is just the next adventure in our story.  But we have to let it unfold, one bit at a time.

The next night, I check our voicemail for messages from the insurance company.  To my surprise, there’s one from a nurse. 

“Shannon, I just saw the results from the PET scan.  I didn’t want you to have to wait to hear from the doctor.  Bob’s cancer hasn’t spread.  This is good news.  This is very good news.  You two need to celebrate.”

So in the end, the prognosis is good.  We’ve got a lot we’re going to have to juggle to make things work.  But in the past two weeks we’ve gotten word from past employees who are willing to come back and help.  Our crew is willing to take on more hours.  My brother and sister-in-law are coming home from Ireland and moving in to Tibbets House to be on hand.  The help is there.  We just have to figure out how best to use it.  And we will.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next week.  We still don’t know what type of radiation or where we’ll get radiation or when.  All I can say is, well, 

One day at a time.