breakinglight11 | Five years a survivor

My mother got the results of a brain scan today. We were on edge all week waiting for it. If she got a bad result, things would be really bad, because the treatment she had can't be repeated because it causes brain damage in excessive amounts. There's not a whole lot left to do if her lesions start growing.

We found out today that all of her lesion have either shrunk, are shrinking, or disappeared. Nothing has grown. Nothing new has appeared. She got about as good a report as we could hope for.

This won't last forever. Eventually they're going to start growing again, that's that nature of these things. But for now, for a little while longer, she's doing okay. In a condition that they thought would leave her three months to live ten months ago. A condition that grew out of another condition that they gave her four months to live almost five years ago.

In December she will hit five years with the deadliest motherfucking cancer in the world. She is a medical miracle. No other patient in the history of the St. Luke's of Bethlehem, PA oncology department has EVER lived five years with stage four lung cancer. Plus metastasized brain lesions. I wonder how many people in all history ever have.

I know most of it is the luck of circumstances, of biology, and being privileged enough to have the best medical care. But I'm damn proud of her will to survive. Because she does it for us. She's fought for five years out of love for us. And I'm damn proud of my dad, who loves her so much he's with her there every step of the way. She couldn't have done it without him. And without her own quiet strength.

Here's to five years, and every minute more we have.