Shortly after the Brusstar’s left in the early evening yesterday (see post below) we called a family meeting.
We had refrained from telling the boys that the end of chemotherapy for me would be a fairly long hospital stay. We didn’t see the point of burdening them, or giving them too much to think about way in advance, when we didn’t even know the exact time frame ourselves.
Now whenever I suggest we have a talk or meeting, Tim will ALWAYS say "Am I in trouble?" and he was true to form yesterday. Joe’s comment was "Is this bad news?"
After we settled down I assured them that the chemotherapy had gone extremely well. 99.99% of the bad cancer cells were gone, and the doctors were all extremely pleased. But now we had to do some additional therapy, to get the last "tough cells". Joe said "the last point 01 percent?" and I said yes.
To do that was going to require my staying in the hospital, but not just for two days, like before. I told them I was probably going to be in the hospital for about three weeks, starting in early January. Tim immediately said "Does this mean I can’t use my paintball gun for three weeks?" and Joe said "Make sure you leave the password for iTunes with Mom!"
Sheesh! Here Brigid and I were concerned for months that they’d be upset, but the first thoughts are, paintball guns and downloading music! They didn’t seem perturbed at all.
Which is good. I guess it means we’ve handled the past four months fairly well, for which Brigid gets full credit. Brigid thought after we went over everything with the boys, they might need some time to mull things over, and then ask some quiet questions. But 24 hours later, normal household situation, with nary a word about our talk.
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