Jonathan Larson famously told us that a year is 525,600 minutes. Lynette’s and my 2017 had just 496,800 minutes, give or take. I’m not sure how many entries it will take to tell the story of those minutes (plus 10,800 more), but here we go.

Lynette had a “maintenance chemo” infusion on December 29, 2016. We always had an office visit with Dr. Hightower a week later, so that would have been January 5, 2017. I don’t recall the specific details of the clinical picture Dr. Hightower drew, but Lynette said “So, our goal is to keep me here as long as possible.” I perceived that our living situation, with Luke, Lynette, and me living in Gulfport, while Sarah was in school in Jackson, three hours away and Lynette’s sisters living in Duck Hill and Iuka, 5 and 7 hours away, would not be viable for all of 2017. I communicated to my Pastor/Parish Relations Committee at Mississippi City and to my District Superintendent that I would be asking to move closer to Jackson, beginning in late June 2017.

Sarah and the Gospel Choir would be singing as part of Millsaps’ Martin Luther King Day observance on January 16. That was the first conversation I had with Connie Connie Mitchell Shelton, the East Jackson District Superintendent, about my next appointment. Our connection to Connie would become one of the great blessings of 2017.

Lynette had completed taking as much Herceptin as she could. Her next medications would be two oral chemotherapy drugs. It’s somewhat amazing to me that I can’t recall the names of either drug now, as I was the one who was responsible for her dosing schedule. I DO know that diarrhea was a known side effect of the medicine. We dealt with that, and had to cut back on the dosage. It’s possible that Lynette would chide me for disclosing that particular detail. All I can say to that is that everyone who has walked this path has dealt with uncomfortable stuff. We were not exempt.