Lately…

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to sit down and write, but every time I start, I stop. Not because there’s nothing to say — more because I haven’t known how to say it without it feeling heavier than it already is.

Life has been full lately. Not in a loud or exciting way, but in that quiet, appointment-filled, calendar-marked kind of way. The kind where weeks blur together and everything revolves around the next scan, the next lab, the next “let’s just check on this.”

From the outside, things probably look fairly normal. We’ve been working, spending time with friends, trying to keep some routine. And in many ways, we are okay. But behind the scenes, most of our energy has been going toward managing something that never really left.

After finishing an intense round of chemo earlier this year, we hoped we were entering a stretch of calm — a pause, at least. What we’ve learned instead is that this isn’t a pause so much as a new phase. There have been more scans, more conversations, more decisions, and eventually those conversations led us here.

Cassidy’s cancer is back.

That sentence doesn’t land with drama or shock. It settles in slowly. It’s heavy, but not unfamiliar. And it’s shaped the way the last several months have unfolded.

After chemo ended, life didn’t snap back into place the way I think we both hoped it might. Instead, it eased into something quieter and more uncertain. Cassidy transitioned into maintenance chemo, and we tried to settle into that rhythm — appointments that felt familiar, days that felt almost normal, a cautious belief that maybe this was the part where things stayed steady for a while.

Then numbers started to change. His CEA began to rise, slowly at first. Not enough to send us spiraling, but enough to keep us paying attention. A CT scan followed and came back clean, which gave us a moment to exhale. For a short stretch, we let ourselves believe that maybe the labs were just noise, that not every change had to mean something bigger.

Cassidy ended up in the hospital after his eyes began to yellow. He had persistent headaches and his blood pressure was high enough to be concerning. I remember sitting in that room thinking how surreal it felt to be back there — trying to stay calm on the outside while my mind raced through every possible explanation. Hospital time moves differently. Hours stretch, conversations blur, and you find yourself clinging to small reassurances while bracing for answers you may not want.

Around the same time, his CEA continued to climb. The unease that had been sitting quietly in the background grew louder, harder to ignore. Eventually, a PET scan was ordered — and that scan is where the picture became clearer. The cancer hadn’t disappeared. It had returned.

What followed was a blur of MRIs and conversations, specialists and options, plans forming where uncertainty had been. And layered into all of this was something that had already been on the calendar long before the scans changed — Cassidy’s ostomy reversal.

The surgery was planned well in advance, back when we believed we were moving into a calmer phase. Now, it exists alongside everything else — not as a response to the cancer’s return, but as a quality-of-life milestone we’re still moving forward with. His doctors feel confident proceeding, and Cassidy is genuinely looking forward to it.

From there, the rest of the plan began to come into focus. A radiation consultation followed and, thankfully, went well. The plan is for targeted, pinpoint radiation beginning about two weeks after surgery, over roughly four to five sessions. And in January, chemo begins again. His new treatment is set to start on January 12, 2026.

There’s also the strange disconnect between what’s happening in our life and how it’s perceived from the outside. Milestones that sound celebratory don’t always feel that way. Finishing chemo doesn’t mean finished. Surgery doesn’t mean cured. Good news and hard news often arrive in the same breath, and learning how to hold both at once is something I’m still figuring out.

The thing that continues to amaze me most is how Cassidy is handling all of this. He’s steady, grounded, and ready for what’s next. He’s eager for surgery. He’s prepared to start chemo again. He asks thoughtful questions, keeps his sense of humor, and shows up with a resilience that I don’t take for granted. He has been an absolute trooper through all of this.

Me, on the otherhand….  I’m not great, but I am doing the best I can.

This season has been emotionally exhausting in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. There’s grief in realizing this isn’t something we simply get past, and fear in knowing how much uncertainty still exists. Some days I feel strong. Other days I feel worn down. Most days live somewhere in between.

We haven’t shared much of this publicly until now because we needed time to process it ourselves before inviting others into it. This felt like the right moment to say it clearly and honestly, in one place.

This is where we are. We’re moving forward with treatment. We’re holding space for hope and reality at the same time. We’re taking things one appointment, one scan, one surgery, one day at a time.

Thank you to everyone who has shown up quietly, checked in without expectations, and held space even when there weren’t any good words. That kindness has mattered more than you know.

We’ll keep going — together — doing the best we can with what’s in front of us.