Tuesday, September 17, 2013

The Best Laid Plans...

2013...truly an annus horribilis, to quote the Queen.  We were going to spend our last year in China traveling, spend spring break in Paris or Rome for our 25th (and first) wedding anniversary celebration, and thoroughly enjoy those last months with Cameron and our friends before moving on to the next phase of our lives.

Here's what happened.

Mark had a wicked appendicitis attack that knocked him off his feet for several weeks.  His eventual appendectomy found a tumor that turned out to be an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Of course, that whole appendix thing turned out to be what alerted us to the fact that he had cancer.

Mark needed a LOT of chemotherapy, meaning he was sick for most of the spring.  We were so fortunate that the chemo could be done in Beijing where we could be together and have the support of so many friends!  And he bounced back enough to be able to be at Cameron's graduation!

Changing jobs meant a stressful and frightening coordination of multiple insurances and the uncertainty of how our new school would react and support us.  We had such great care and assistance from both ISB and ISG as well as the insurance reps that negotiated all the challenges for us.

Mark needed a stem cell transplant and we needed to be together.  We had wonderful care at the University of Iowa hospitals and the overwhelming gift of being able to spend the summer with family so that we could be together.

I was set to leave August 19th with the kids for our new jobs and schools, leaving Mark behind and hopefully joining  us by Christmas.  Embassy bureaucracy meant that we were/are delayed indefinitely, leaving us unsure about what to do and eventually enrolling the kids in their first American schools, where they started 2 weeks late.  I was able to take Cameron to college and get him settled in.  We had over a month together as a family with Mark, and the kids have found that they are very well-prepared for school, thanks to their time at ISB!  We've been able to follow Cameron and send him care packages as he settles in to college, too.  There are doctors in our new city in Saudi who can do the checkups that Mark will need for the next couple years.

Now I'm set to leave for Saudi tomorrow night...alone.  The kids will have to wait until I get my work permit and then come.  Mark will be applying for his visa shortly, hoping to fly by the end of November.  It will be so hard to adjusting on my own, away from my family--but it does allow me time to get settled into a job that I'm a month late for, so that whenever the family does show up, I can spend my time and energy helping them get adjusted.

I don't know why all of these things have happened.  I would not wish this year on anyone.  It has pushed all of us to the breaking point over and over.  I'm sure that the recovery will be much more than Mark's physical health.  But there has never been a time in my life where I've seen the rough places made plain like they have been for us.  I'm a slow learner, but I have more peace about going alone and Mark's potential visa issues than I could have had in the past (which is not to say that I'm not worried, because I will ALWAYS worry), but to those who wonder...God does have a plan for us.  I don't know what that plan is, and I can look back and see all the intersections where things could have thrust us into a much darker place...but the path has been cleared for us as we've needed it.  And the things that have tested us have yielded other blessings and opportunities.

I will continue to plan, and continue to worry, and continue to not trust fully, I suppose.  Everyone has their weak spots, or their sins, and these are mine.  My goal is not only to seek out the blessings in life, but to seek more peace with the unknown.  After all, that's what's ahead of me!



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