I don’t know if Isaac had cancer this time last year. Sometimes I wish I knew, but mostly I long for the naivety that last fall brought. In January, we met his oncologist for the first time and she beckoned us to believe that this is a very treatable cancer. Her kind eyes made me want to believe, but I quickly learned that once cancer becomes a regular part of your vocabulary, treatable is not synonymous with easy. She told me that for much of treatment, we will be able to go about life as normal. Picture soccer games, vacations, a hair-covered-head back-to-school. However, for so many reasons, normal is something we left behind around December 17 of last year when we first noticed that mass on Isaac’s neck. We will never pick up that normal life again.

So, during the month, I will write about diagnosis, about childhood leukemia, about anxiety and God. About fear, about hope, about chemo and cancer in a pandemic. For some reason, it feels a bit scary, nerve-wracking to first of all, put words to all of this and second of all, to challenge myself to share it with others. But it also feels like obedience. It feels like healing. It feels like remembering that God has had us all along. I don’t know what’s going to come out, but I hope that through this, you feel welcomed into our story.

In his bath tonight, Isaac asked, "Did God give me cancer?"

"Hmmm." I said, "What do you think?"

"No," he said, "I think God is who is keeping my heart beating."

I can't think of a more important truth.

Breaking down seems to come in waves. In hospital bathrooms. PET scan rooms. Early morning hours when I wake up and remember the road before us. Sometimes I’m not sure that the fog lifting is helpful at all. I have a lot of fear surrounding the path of chemo. But I can surrender and breathe... or worry and go down that hole of chaos in my mind. I waffle between both.

But God has gone before us so far, and he won’t leave us. He is so so kind, my friends.

Cancer.

Isaac is tucked into my bed right now after this whirlwind of a day. There are still many questions and I think I am largely running on adrenaline and faith. Somehow, I am still raising a hallelujah in the middle of this storm. Right now, this diagnosis brings a calm where there once felt chaotic unknown. And it lays a path in front of us that lifts the fog a tiny bit.

The doctor called during lunch. Not expecting any results yet, I answered expecting him to just ask how he did. But quickly, I learned that we do have results and they are not favorable. Suspicious is the word they used. I also quickly learned that when it comes to making appointments with pediatric oncologists, they just call and tell you when to be there. And life suddenly has to revolve and fit around the people who we’re entrusting to make our child well.

This ask puts a pit in my stomach, but we don’t get to choose the hard in our lives. My sweet Isaac Lee needs prayer. Over the course of the last couple of months, Isaac developed a very large lymph node in his neck that grew quickly. We took him to the doctor a few times, and an ultrasound scan came up abnormal. Tomorrow morning at 8am, he is undergoing a biopsy to check for malignancy. His primary care doctor told us very frankly that he is 50/50 on the lymph node having cancer in it.