I remember as a kid there was a circuit breaker (ok, I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was a box up on a pole) connected to the power lines behind our house that would catch on fire and blow every couple of years. As a kid it was pretty exciting to have the power go out. We’d rush around and find our candles and flashlights. We’d put my lizard next to the fireplace to keep him warm. And I’d obviously run out and meet my best friend (and neighbor) Brent in the middle of the street to talk about how exciting it was…but it was only exciting for a while. Eventually it got kind of boring. When power outage turned from an exciting moment to a dreaded reality (albeit a short term reality) things got incredibly monotonous.

There’s something about those exciting moments that give us something to hold onto as meaningful.  Granted, a power outage doesn’t create any sort of huge or life changing meaning, but for a time I found great significance in preparing for our new reality: Lighting a fire in the wood stove, figuring out what to eat for dinner without an electric oven or microwave, and figuring out what to do when the candles burnt out. But once the initial phase of excitement is over, once that initial flurry of activity has passed it turns out that electricity is pretty awesome and you kind of miss what it had to offer.

In a lot of ways I miss being in the hospital. I even, dare I say it, miss daily radiation and chemo. In those moments it felt like I was fighting something, like I was in the midst of an epic battle where I was the warrior leading the charge. In many ways it was exciting being able to fight something so sinister as cancer. I found great meaning and significance in doing all those things that just might kick cancer in the ass (vitamins, acupuncture, radiation, chemo, physical therapy, etc.). Essentially it was me gathering candles and flashlights for the power outage. But now the power’s been out for a while and the electric company hasn’t given us a timeframe for when it’ll be turned back on. Now gathering candles and flashlights doesn’t seem so meaningful–now that the epic battles of being in the hospital, of learning to walk again, of daily chemo and radiation, etc. are done the fight just seems so…ordinary. Monotonous. Not exciting. Meaningless.

The epic battle has now become just an monotonous way of life. The battle of Helms Deep is done and now its just a boring scene up on a windy mountain top city (sorry for the awkward lotr reference). It’s not that there’s nothing to fight, because sadly we all know that the cancer’s still there. It’s just that now there’s no end in sight, there’s no urgent or pressing battle to be won, and all my flurry of activity to beat cancer is now being stretched out from months to years with no reprieve. Swinging my battle-axe was cool when it was a few months worth, but now that we’ve been doing this for seven months with a chemo schedule that goes out another eleven, swinging my battle-axe feels less meaningful and is just downright exhausting. How long can a dude, even the most awesomest of warriors, swing his axe?

AND SO…and so I’m left with our new normal (whatever the hell that is). I’m left with the monotony of normal as its coming to be defined. Physical therapy twice a week, blood draws once a week, acupuncture once a week, being sick ten days a month from chemo, doctors appointments one to two days a week, a gimpy leg, numb feet, constipation (did I say too much?), a stiff/numb stomach and back, clothes that don’t fit, pills pills and more pills…with no end in sight. None of the above things have any sort of end. They’re like the Energizer Bunny in that they keep going and going and going.

Having cancer has obviously always sucked, but at least at some point along the way it was exciting to be fighting against it. Now I’m just left with the monotony of normal and it turns out that I don’t really like it.