It has become something of a tradition for me to write about the Trophy Husband each Father’s Day. Over the years, those posts have typically been lighthearted tributes to his role in our family and his ever-expanding legacy of captaining an improbable number of USTA League teams. More recently, they have also become annual progress reports on a medical journey neither of us expected to take.
The good news is that the Trophy Husband continues to do remarkably well. His MRIs remain encouraging, and there is still no evidence of residual or recurrent tumor. He is basically his normal self but is operating under persistent extreme fatigue. It is an exercise in energy management and patience.
We are currently in the phase of the treatment plan that calls for twelve monthly bursts of chemotherapy. At this time, we still have four of those cycles remaining. We are not sure if it is fortunate or unfortunate, but Troy’s body continues to respond aggressively to that treatment. That has introduced a few pauses and delays into the timeline. As of this writing, another round of chemotherapy should already be underway. Instead, we find ourselves in yet another pause while we wait for his platelet and white blood cell counts to recover to the point that the next cycle can be safely administered.
So the finish line moves. At the outset of this protocol, the nominal timeline was for him to complete all chemo by the upcoming Labor Day. After the first couple of delays, we still held out hope of being done by the autumnal equinox. As of today, we are hoping for sometime before Thanksgiving and certainly by the end of the year. The exact date remains uncertain.
One thing we have learned on this journey is that cancer treatment is best navigated without an overattachment to the schedule. We look forward to the day when medical considerations are no longer the organizing principle of our lives. For now, it remains present. Every treatment cycle still carries its own challenges.
The Trophy Husband has returned to many of the activities that are important to him. He is back on the tennis court for both recreational and a few league matches. We have traveled on a few short trips. Troy is once again filling his days with the kinds of projects and routines that existed long before either of us had ever heard the words “brain tumor.” He does most of the grocery shopping and runs short errands. He even ventured out to do a little yardwork this week, and is currently enduring the indignity of muscular soreness from… gardening.
For Father’s Day, I bought the Trophy Husband a new rollerboard suitcase. On the surface, it is a boring but practical gift that is the hallmark of what you give to a guy who doesn’t really want anything. However, it represents something larger.
The new suitcase is not really about luggage. One of the realities of the ongoing chemotherapy is that travel is logistically constrained. The treatment schedules dictate calendars, and the dynamic unpredictability makes planning difficult. We have spent much of the past year living within those constraints. The new suitcase is a quiet declaration that adventures await us when this phase ends.
Additionally, this new suitcase is intended to replace what I regard as the Trophy Husband’s emotional-support green rolling duffel. That bag has carried him through countless tennis tournaments and family trips. It has also reached the point some would call “well-worn,” though I prefer the adjective “ratty.” It is not TSA carry-on compliant, but not sturdy enough to be checked.
One of the daily duties that the Trophy Husband has resumed is ferrying our household donations to GRACE, our local community relief non-profit. I strongly suspect that he will balk at dropping off the green duffel. At some point, I may have to take matters into my own hands.
The awesome thing is that just contemplating that scheme feels remarkably normal. It is nice to start moving beyond all the medical details to think about how an aging duffel bag can finally be gently transitioned into retirement. That may not sound like much, but it’s a milestone.
The finish line remains visible but not yet crossed, and we are not pretending otherwise. At the same time, our lives have steadily reclaimed ground that cancer once dominated. Tennis matches have returned. Errands are being run. Travel plans are in the works. Even debates over the future of mundane household items are back.
This Father’s Day is not a celebration that the treatment journey is over, but rather recognition that we can finally spend some time looking beyond it. The light at the end of the tunnel is bright enough now that we are making plans for what comes next. And if one of those plans requires me to quietly smuggle a ratty green duffel bag out of the house and into retirement, that seems like a perfectly reasonable problem to have.