What's Harder than an Ironman?

A few months ago I went to the doctor and she asked "do you have a family history of cancer?".  I said no. The next time I go to the doctor I can no longer say "no".  My mom has cancer.  The obvious question is what kind.  We do no know.  The doctors do not know.  She's been poked, prodded, scanned, and examined in every possible way over the last moths.  She has a rare form of cancer called Cancer of Unknown Primary.  CUP for short.

She has no symptoms.  She went in for a regular check up and showed her doctor a spot on her abdomen.  The doctor referred her to a surgeon.  The surgeon cut it out and sent it off for a biopsy.  The biopsy came back and it was sent it off to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion.  The pathology reports includes the phrases "vanishingly rare" and metastasized.

At first I was able to sit and wait and not Google. But as time went on and the tests showed nothing more other than she has cancer, Google became my friend.  Until one night about 2AM I finally stumbled on the prognosis for CUP.  6-9 months.  And then I unfriended Google.  There's still so much unknown about what kind of cancer it is, that any information on a prognosis isn't valid.

On one hand we can hope that it was caught early. That's key for cancer.  But on the other hand we know it's metastasized from the primary cancer site to other parts of her body.  And that means it wasn't caught early.  Sitting and waiting is the hardest thing.

My race report will be written soon.  Traveling to an Ironman race and throwing in a family reunion is hard.  But that's not what I did.  Because of everything, I traveled to a family reunion and tried to throw in an Ironman race.  The important thing was the family reunion.  People say Ironman racing is hard, but getting my entire family together has proved harder over the years.  It finally happened and giving the circumstances who cares about the Ironman race?  That's what I asked myself at mile 6 of the run.