The news from MD Anderson’s surgical team came quicker that we expected.  They won’t do the surgery.  Maggie’s tumors are too many, too big.  That was her last known opportunity for a cure.  The news is not a surprise but it crushes that little glimmer of hope.

The icy cold reality of the situation makes my heart swell in my chest and tears wet my cheeks.  The game we are playing has now changed.  We are no longer playing chess to cure Maggie.  Now it’s a game of beat the clock and the only tools we have are faith, luck, laughter, and chemo.  We also know that the chemo will stop working sometime in the future – it always does.  We can only hope that someone, somewhere is right now working on the next treatment that will help and they’ll have it ready in time.

Dr. Eng said that when the tumors stop responding to the chemo they’ve got another trick up their sleeve which they’ve seen have some positive results.  It’s not a cure, please understand, but it might give Maggie a little more time.  They inject a specific type of chemo drug called oxiplatin directly into the liver.  Two people have recently benefited from this procedure.  Maggie’s eligibility depends on a couple of things, including whether or not her cancer is constrained to her liver.  If they appear any where else then she won’t be eligible.

We are entering a strange place now.  It’s a place where no one breaths and hearts beat a little higher up in the chest.  It’s like a hazy film has been wiped over even the prettiest flowers and there’s this constant weird buzzing sound in the background.  And we wait….