Five years ago feels like a blur. I went back through my pictures on Instagram just to try to remember. I didn’t post much as it turns out (which is pretty representative of the rosy-colored IG life most of us put on there.) They weren’t good days, of course. Trump had just been elected. We’d just had a devastating hurricane in NC (and a branch smashed my car), my beloved grandmother had died. And Preston had just been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

Looking back at all of that listed out, I guess it makes some sense that I don’t remember much about it.

But I do remember those first Googles. *

They weren’t pleasant.

“Stage IV colon cancer is difficult to treat. Stage IV cancers don’t have a good prognosis as their relative survival rate for 5 years is about 11%.”

Five years is a big marker in cancer-world. It’s the survival target most-often sited. If you’ve had “No Evidence of Disease” that long, they think of you as pretty much cured.

P wasn’t NED that long, but he is in that 11%. Let’s look at those 5 years by the numbers:

8 Surgeries, 4 with multiple-night hospital stays

80 rounds of chemotherapy – some oral, some infusion, some with a pump – all miserable

1 round of radiation

30ish scans (and the anxiety that comes with it!)

2 trips to Disney World

1 vacation to Yellowstone and Utah

Countless days at the River

1 boat

1 dog

1 house

18 months of weekday lunches when we were together during the pandemic

Lots of sushi dates

6 beach trips

5 mountain trips

Loads of long walks

Lots of time with friends and family

And thousands of little moments that mean a lot more when you’re dealing with all the rest.

Let me be clear – my experience is very different than Preston’s. What he’s been through physically is practically super-human. And he’s doing it for the benefit of me and Conor as much as anything. It’s grueling to watch. Watching your person suffer is agonizing. And yet, I have to hold in my heart that without all of that suffering, without the drugs and the surgeries and the misery, we don’t get to do the rest of it. So I have to be grateful and glad that he’s suffering.

(This is the kind of spiral that keeps me up late at night sometimes.)

In a similar kind of way, hitting this milestone feels strange. 89% of stage 4 patients don’t get this far! We’re so lucky! But does that mean that I was begging for the wrong thing? Is every day from here on out borrowed time? Has it always been? Will he have to suffer like this – once every 2-3 weeks – forever? 10 years? 20? Will something new come along? Have I remembered and catalogued and cherished the time enough? Have I taken enough pictures? Am I overthinking all of this? Should I probably go get a Xanax now? Because I’m not sure it was healthy to start writing all of these very internal thoughts out on paper?

OK look, I don’t mean to freak you out. But this, “We’re so fortunate! But this also sucks! But it could be worse! But it is really hard!” back and forth thing is fully exhausting.

I’ll abruptly change the subject now.

Preston got 2 tattoos to ring in the occasion – a big ‘ol panther with a rifle site in its mouth (it’s a punk thing having to do with Against Me! (a band). Their song “Teenage Anarchist” was one of Conor’s very favorites as a young tot. (Still is, really.)

The other is a number 5 on his forearm. He left room for 10, 15, 20, 25… and I want nothing more in this world than for him to run out of room on his arm.

* DO NOT GOOGLE MEDICAL STUFF. EVER. IF YOU LEARN ONE THING FROM ME, LET IT BE THIS.

Last night (you can see P’s 5 tattoo sneaking in by his watch)