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Diverging roads
I’m sitting here staring at the blinking cursor on my screen, wondering where to start.
We received a diagnosis from Johns Hopkins on Wednesday. The mass in David’s sinus is a rhabdomyosarcoma, a malignant tumor found most often in children. The news was a shock as our doctors seemed to have ruled out rhabo a couple of weeks ago, convinced we were looking at something benign.
We met with two pediatric oncologists, three radiation oncologists and a speech pathologists at Hopkins on Thursday. David will have more tests – a spinal tap, a bone marrow test and a bone scan – before the exact treatment plan is chosen. But we face a long road ahead, starting with weekly chemotherapy overlaid with five weeks of daily radiation treatments.
So much of what I think to write seems almost trivial, so I’ll keep this short. We need time to process our emotions, make plans and build up strength for our journey.
For some reason, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost comes to mind this morning. It's cliche, I know, but feels apt at the moment.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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