Change is in the air

I have two big developments that are possibly in the works. One is potentially very good; the other one is less so.

Bad news first, so I can end on a happy note: my husband has to go through more chemo. His new oncologist (whom he’s sticking with) says that he has a 70-80 percent chance of cancer recurrence without more chemo. After looking at the CT scans, it sounds like he agrees with my husband being stage IV after all. But the upside of continuing chemo is that the new doctor says that if J stays cancer-free for three years on chemo, he will likely never have a recurrence.

Three years of chemo sounds like an arduous ordeal that I can’t even imagine. What gives me hope is that it implies that he’ll be around for at least three years and possibly much longer. Of course, it’s definitely not a guarantee and that’s the part that terrifies me in every way. But I can’t let myself think about the scary “what if’s.” I just can’t. If the worst happens, I’ll deal with that at the time. Or to borrow a phrase that my oldest has used: that’s a problem for future me.

On the good side, my husband got a message through LinkedIn out of the blue from his former boss at his last job, who’s working for a different company now. He has to hire someone to run the IT department and he thought of J. That’s high praise when your former boss thinks of you first to run a department.

It would come with about a 25 percent salary increase and a better title, the latter of which he’s really wanted (and deserved) for a long time. The salary increase would make a huge difference in our quality of life, which is already pretty good. It would mean he’s literally doubled his salary since his first job after moving down here from Michigan. It would also mean that I wouldn’t have to worry as much when I have slow periods in my freelancing, which are common in December and January.

The potential risk is that J has to tell his former boss about being on chemo, which requires him to take a day and a half off from work every other week. The health benefits situation is another possible snag (damn why don’t we have universal healthcare already?) because obviously J needs benefits ASAP.

This is what I would call a God thing if it works out. We’ve had other experiences with big life changes that have happened to work out so perfectly that they couldn’t be explained by coincidence. These were all things where the odds were stacked pretty high against us and everything turned out in our favor.

Maybe this will be another one of those things. If it’s meant to be, everything will line up just right. If it doesn’t line up right, my husband won’t have lost anything (other than perhaps the hope that something like this brings.) He wasn’t looking for another job now, especially because he hasn’t even been at his current job for a year yet. His current employer treats him pretty well.

But still, it’s hard not to get excited about the serendipity in this potential opportunity. The former boss wants to move quickly on this, which means my husband could be working someplace else within a month. My husband also really liked working for his former boss. And J definitely feels excited about the pay raise and better title. He deserves it and I’m proud of him for even being considered.