Cancer is like Mario Lopez. (Hear me out – I have nothing against him, truly! I want to play this analogy through.)

It’s like when you’re in a hotel. For me, it’s usually a work trip. And you flop down on the bed between conference sessions and think, “YAASSS. CABLE.” and you grab the remote control (likely incredibly filthy – do you think they clean those things?).

Bam. Mario Lopez. Telling you about the latest movies that you can now get in your room.

You finally find Chip and Johanna Gaines or House Hunters International and things are good. You hate-watch the couple from Indiana that has a $2.4 Million budget for a house in Tahiti and you snark to yourself that Johanna’s totally going to use subway tile in the kitchen and things are good.

When it’s time to go to the networking reception, TV goes off.

You get back to the room, exhausted, and grab the remote. But do you go back to HGTV? NO.

Mario Lopez.

And on it goes until finally, you check out of your room feeling slightly resentful that A.C. Slater wouldn’t stop stalking you.

Maybe it’s just me?

Cancer is like that. You’ll have some really great times. You’ll giggle. You’ll play. You’re living this amazing life filled with so much laughter and love.

Then, BAM. Mario Lopez. (I mean, cancer.)

I find that these days, I’m good for about 80% of the time. Which, given what we’ve got going on in the background all of the time, is pretty damn good. I’ll tell you, though, that other 20% is not a picnic.

I haven’t given a full update on the last scans. Sorry for the delay. That 20% has been holding me back from writing here lately. I mean, who watches that weird TV channel intentionally?

We got P’s mid-treatment scans a couple of weeks ago. The waiting was AGONY. Y’all, I cannot express how stressful that was. We had some good distractions – a trip to Asheville with Preston’s parents, a trip to Build A Bear, Conor’s last week at his preschool – it all helped to pass the time.

When we got the first call from Dr. Moore’s nurse (Carol? Carolyn? I can’t ever remember) she sounded alarm bells by letting us know that “Dr. Moore wants to take it to Tumor Board.”

That’s a conference where they sit around and talk about your scans, and when things are going perfectly normally and you’re getting the results you expect, you don’t really do that.

So yeah. Mario freaking Lopez.

As it turns out, there was a debate between the radiologist and oncologist about what “progression” means. The radiologist thought the cancer was growing. Dr. Moore insisted (and I believe her) that teeny tiny growth on teeny tiny lesions is actually “stable,” because without the chemo she would have expected them to grow a lot more.

So, we are staying the course. It’s not exactly what we had hoped (which was, of course, that they melted away never to be seen again) but it wasn’t bad news, either.

Four more chemo treatments until we figure out what’s next. Scans will be in November before Thanksgiving and then… well, we don’t know just yet.

And while we plow through the next few months, I’m grateful that most of the time will be spent watching Conor play T-ball and learn Chinese (immersion is SO COOL) and the violin, going on some quick trips together, doing the jobs we love, spending time with family and friends, and generally finding as much joy in the between times as we can. We have so many more good days than bad.

And every so often, Mario Lopez.