It's Time

The tumor is growing despite 14 months of chemo, radiation, and Avastin, and is the likely cause of Torch's problems with speech, balance, movement, confusion, etc. There are no other reasonable treatment options and it's time to stop. When we tried to pin Dr. Smile down on the time she has left, he said to think in terms of weeks or months, not a year or more.

We cried some, laughed some, and talked to many of you (and wish we could have talked to you, too, who are seeing the news here for the first time). Torch decided that it's time to go home; at this time next week we'll be on the Cape to stay as long as we can be together.

This blog will be silent from now on unless there's major news to share. Torch asked me to end it this way, mostly drawn from the end of "Inside Her Brain...," the predecessor of "Risking Significance".

It's time.

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom
goes on as fruit.

Peace out.