So we received confirmation that Annie’s cancer has returned on the same day I find water all over the place in the basement from the tiniest of holes in the copper piping leading off the hot water heater. And I mean tiny…it was so small, I couldn’t find it at first, searching all around until I suddenly felt a light mist on my face. A flashlight showed the aerosolized water and light steam coming from this tiny hole.

Seriously, some days life really sucks.

Ok, let me back up a little. For those who don’t know the backstory, when my wife became pregnant ten years ago, our joy turned pretty rapidly to terror when she was diagnosed with a soft-tissue cancer; malignant fibrous histiocytoma to be specific, or MFH for short (I rapidly referred to it as, “Motherf***er From Hell”). Please note on the linked page the line, “Rare signs and symptoms include episodic hypoglycemia and rapid tumor enlargement during pregnancy.” That was not well-established ten years ago, and her cancer was considered an anomaly - her oncologist was then convinced there was only a temporal relationship between her pregnancy and her tumor. While it’s nice to be proven right about something in the fullness of time (I maintained there was no way the relationship was merely temporal because of the anomalous tumor growth - it had to be a reaction to the changing hormones), it didn’t really mean much back then…it was odd that someone so young would present with this, and odder still that she would present while pregnant. (Hum…you know, I just realized it’s likely that she was one of the case studies that proved the rare but clear relationship between this ugly thing and pregnancy… More after the jump.)
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