My Tidal Thoughts

Your brain covers a lot of distance in many different directions when mortality is on your doorstep. I truly believe Lou will be around much longer than the ominous sentence most pundits prescribe. But when time is an unknown, it keeps your brain humming.

If you knew you had months, years or decades, you would do things so differently for each and every time variable. If Louise doesn’t respond to any treatment, the best and worst case scenarios differ by such a significant margin. If she does respond; then to what treatment, for how long and how well will she respond? What state will her body and mind be in throughout the battle? It’s impossible to strategise, it has to be day-by-day with an optimistic outlook.

So what is my washing machine brain doing as my neurons fire off wildly thoughts?

The kids obviously dominate my thinking. How can we manage the ongoing cancer rollercoaster without disrupting their innocent day-to-day lives? I’m always wondering how they will respond to different scenarios. It’s challenging to control your thoughts, so you often think about their precious little faces in the worst case scenarios. It’s just how it is.

One thing I encourage my brain to address is that this is my life now. Lou’s disease is currently incurable but treatable. That sounds like a conflict of words but the reality is until they find a cure, we will be forever focused on treatment and survival. The geniuses will find a cure for MTNBC in about five years. So it’s five years we will fight like Spartacus and rest easy when we are free. I’m ok with this.

Because advanced cancer is our life now, for the immediate future its hour-by-hour, day-by-day. Many of the materialistic objectives are replaced by health and spiritual values. Sure we still want to take the kids on epic holidays and do fun things as often as we can, but many of the business, financial, aspirational and material goals have to be parked.

Money is always a massive worry. Money is a big worry for most families without throwing the cost of cancer into the thought blender. Lou and I built a great business that had several years of doubling annual growth. We never missed mortgage payments, we travelled the world and the wants we possessed continued to outgrow our needs. My motorbike accident followed by 15 months of cancer has crippled our trajectory. The truth is, if it wasn’t for family support we’d be beggars on the street. For that, we are extremely fortunate, downright lucky.

I think about life after death. I like to think there is something there.

I’m always thinking of the less fortunate. The people that die unexpectedly, shit out of luck children that get taken by an illness, individuals that have no financial or social means to survive their unfortunate situation. Often random things like citizens in North Korea or innocent children in war-torn countries. I guess that these thoughts are constant due to a combination of never-ending unpleasant media and my brain searching for markers to make me feel more fortunate about my own situation. It gives you perspective. The fact that life can be brutally cruel to some makes me feel like I’m a lucky one, regardless of Lou’s struggle.

My brain often worries that I’m not doing enough about our personal war on cancer. Who should I be talking to? What other options are out there? What should I be learning? It’s a very tough line to walk managing family, business and battling the Big C. I think about creating more options and prioritising those options so we’re always on the front foot. Australia is behind the eightball with cancer treatment, so where should we be? Are we doing the right thing? Where is another stone to turn over?

I appreciate special moments more than I did a year ago. Time with the kids, happy thoughts, the life that I have lived, days on this earth. Their good thoughts to stream.

I think about my own health, physically, emotionally and mentally. I have my own interests and techniques to reset my brain and keep my mind strong and motivated. Some activities like spinning laps on my motorbike carry their own risks, so I think a lot about this too.

When your children are sick or unhappy, you wish you could own that pain. Trade out. I wish I could do that for Lou. I can handle pain, physically and emotionally, better than anyone I know. I wish it was on me.

I think a lot about how loved we are. This keeps Lou going like fuel to an engine. The tsunami of support is immense, it flows in each time Louise needs a hit of love. I’m perpetually surprised when she gets smacked to the canvas how many people are there to pick her up again. This monopolises the thoughts I prefer not to entertain.

I think about winning. There is nothing like the satisfaction of winning when you have left absolutely everything on the pitch. Not another breath, another stride, another single effort. I think about the fulfilment of winning the toughest of battles, I think about our battle, the battle we are in, the battle for life.

I think we will win.