In March and April my daughter had 33 proton beam radiation treatments to the tumors in her face and neck at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

Those were some of the hardest months we went through on this cancer journey so far. Mostly, it was the chemo side effects that made it hard during that time, but everything is cumulative. The months in Rochester held many really dark, hard moments. Moments I still think about almost every day. How did we get through that? I still don’t know.

We are back in Rochester this week at preliminary appointments for more follow up radiation, this time to the metastatic sites in her chest. I wasn’t sure how I would feel being back here. To my surprise, it feels a little bit like being with an old friend.

I did not expect that.

I can’t explain or justify it. This place holds a lot of trauma. Or at least it seems like it should. But as it turns out, it feels more like a reminder of how far we have come. It’s the same place and yet it isn’t. Even the physical place has changed. There’s construction, so the halls look a little different, the waiting room has changed. There’s a new building by the park with the eagle tree. The road construction on broadway is almost done.

It’s different and so are we. Last time we were here I pushed my daughter through the halls in a wheelchair. She could barely eat and weighed less than a hundred pounds. She didn’t have the stamina to walk from the parking garage to the clinic most days.

I wondered if anyone would recognize her. I wondered if anyone had seen her smile in the before.

This time, however, she walked all over the subway, to coffee and the shops and appointments – then shopping at the mall after and she still danced her way out of the shower this evening. More than once today we laughed until we cried. She didn’t just smile at the people we met – she sparkled. Other people saw it, too – a stranger at lunch paid for her drink and appetizer anonymously. All day I watched people notice her glow.

We got the call about scan results this morning. Our doctor doesn’t always word things in a way that makes sense to me and this time was no different, so there are some follow up questions to address. But I think it’s safe to say that the scan results are good – nothing new, all progress in the right direction. Chemo is working. The stuff that shows on scans is most likely scar tissue from treatment.

It is good news.

And yet…. I didn’t feel satisfied or relieved. I blame it on the information delivery but the truth is probably that I wanted it to be clear. I wanted a scan that showed no evidence of disease.

I wanted it real bad.

But I supposed learning doesn’t usually come from us getting what we wanted or expected, does it.

(This is the point where I sigh loudly and give learning the middle finger.)

And.

Here’s the thing: I don’t know if we are ever getting scans that show no evidence of disease. Because this asshole of a disease never doesn’t leave evidence. We have the scars – internal and external, physical and emotional – to prove it.

I don’t know what I expected.

But I do know that celebrating good news is a lot more fun than being upset I didn’t get the news in the package I hoped for.

I do know that sometimes good comes where you didn’t expect it to.

I do know that left right left, one foot in front of the other, is the only path between here and the future, and that we don’t get any real clues to what that holds, even if we try real hard to convince ourselves that we know what comes next. Even if we convince ourselves the right scan result will tell us what comes next.

Today was a good day. My girl walked and danced and sparkled and laughed and what more could anyone possibly ask for.