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                              July 7, 2013
                    

World journeyer July 2, 2013

Dear Jane,
  Woke up thinking of this image of Adler. Recounting the numerous times I have mentally taken this same "image imprint" as the months have bid adieu.
   Each chemo Tuesday greets us in such unimaginable emotional chaos that it is nearly impossible for me to articulate the dread and heartache that holds sweet Adler hostage. Such anxiety, such fear, such deep, deep, sorrow. The kind of sorrow that carves  canyons on the walls of your heart. 
   Despite the toil, somehow or another we do, in fact, manage to make it to clinic. For Adler, every aspect of the clinic experience is likened to the "molten lava" game I use to play as a young girl. Only certain surfaces are deemed safe. However, these "safe" surfaces are shape-shifters and they morph and elude based on perceptions and previous molten encounters. The only player who knows the rules is Adler....And Jamie and I spend each clinic moment in a frenzied state...pleading and perspiring as we search for the instruction manual that will show us the way.
    Once we find the "molten salve" and have defeated the soot and the ash, Adler hops on the Dr.'s exam stool and away he goes. Somewhere along the chemo line, Addy found out that the exam stool was actually a portal of sorts. Once he hops aboard, that shiny stool will take him wherever he longs to go. He scoots himself out of our exam room, into the stark hallway, makes it through customs, winks at the nurses and just like that... he's off like a shot. Each time he passes our assigned room, he grins and announces where he's been and where he's headed. "Just got back from Australia...Heading to Hawaii." "Went to see Mt. Rushmore...Now I'm off to Paris."
    Just as I was tucking Adler in last night, he pulled my ear close and asked if I knew where to get an exam stool..."Because that way, I can see everything I have ever wanted to see."
              That our eyes might see.
              Every. Single. Thing.
                                                                         Bon Voyage,
                        -Sara