“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

These wise Jimmy Buffett words have played in my head in the last few weeks. A lot.

The rest of this week has been filled with “normal” stuff–or our current versions of what “normal” looks like.  We’ve tried to find some humor and grace in the ordinary stuff.  EB and Wilson each had a good first week of school.  Long car lines. High school tennis match.  First baseball practice.  Mowed lawn. Grocery store runs. Hamburgers on the grill.  Some nice time with family.

Because Heath wasn’t feeling bad after his infusion on Tuesday, we were able to spend much of the rest of the week working on navigating his school situation– he is going to be able to work with Duke Hospital School and his current teachers at Lakewood to do school at home for now. The hope is that it will set him up to be ready to head back when he is finished with treatment!!  And we’ve also been working on setting up his “Heath Cave” (safe space bedroom if he feels rough or just needs to be away from others.)

I don’t really know what “normal” is at this point, but I felt it creep in a bit this week.

Many folks have been wondering about next steps and treatment.  First, know that the plan is a bit of a moving target.  At this point, he’ll be doing 6 cycles of 3 weeks each of chemo, which takes us through most of December.  He’ll have his 3rd infusion on Tuesday.  The next week, probably Tuesday or Thursday, Heath will have a bunch of scans along with annual heart catheterization.  That will help the team know whether we’ll stick with the current chemo meds OR if we’ll change up the “cocktail” a bit.  And we simply won’t know much more for a couple of weeks.

So, in the meantime, we’re just going to try to find a little more humor and grace in the ordinary moments–even in the “normal” chaos.  Goodness knows we have a renewed appreciation of all of it.