Phorecast: Sunny and Buggy

Hi Phin phans! Dustin here with an update on Phin for February, 2025. Let's go! 

We've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating that spring has become an emotionally difficult season for our family. In it, we mark the anniversaries of Phin's original AML diagnosis (March 2022) and his relapse (February 2024). Because of these two grim milestones, spring has begun to shed some of its previous symbolism for us (warmth, light, rebirth) and to take on more ominous ones. Last week, as I presented "The Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia for analysis to my dinosaur-themed composition and rhetoric course, I watched as the shot returned again and again to the sun, with its relentless insistence, its indifference to the abject suffering below, its refusal to allow life to be restored without a sacrifice. After class, as I expanded the photos from Phin's class field trip to report the weather at the local television station, I could almost hear Stravinsky's dissonant refrain echoing softly in the background. 

Other than swarms of anxieties, springtime here in Savannah also brings for us swarms of bugs--mosquitoes and biting gnats the locals call "no-see-ums." We have begun applying the same approach to both: Don't stop moving. 

That sums up how spring has gone so far--maintaining a state of constant motion so that neither insect nor insecurity can land on us. Activities. Walks. Playing ball out in the yard. Movies. His sisters' performances. Events with our favorite cancer nonprofits. A hockey game. Keeping busy. Staying on the go. Hustling from place to place and moment to moment without pausing, like a runner plowing through a hovering bug cloud. We wipe out whatever gets stuck in our eyes without slowing down. We have to. If we slow down, that's when the rest close in.   

Medical Updates 
Phin has been cleared to space his clinic appointments out to one every three weeks. Not only that, he also gets to alternate clinic visits at CHOA with the children's hospital here at home. During his first clinic appointment in Savannah several weeks ago, we got to check out the brand new clinic building that we watched construction crews and cranes assembling from his hospital room window last spring. It's super nice, but Phin's favorite part by far was getting to hang out with his O.G. team again. 

Phin's counts looked good at that visit (Feb. 10). He goes to Atlanta so that his CHOA team can check him over this coming week, so fingers crossed for that. His stamina is still recovering, but he's finally gaining some pounds and his complexion is looking a little less ghostly and wan. His BMT team cleared him to play soccer in the coming weeks, and we're all excited about that.   

Phin On the Daily
Sometimes, lately, when we talk to Phin, it's like he's just woken up from a dream. 

"I was playing soccer," Phin has said, on several occasions, apropos of nothing. "I was goalie. You guys were mad at me because I was tired." 

Phin is referring to an incident from three years ago, one we hate to discuss because it is too painful. It was early March. Phin was dying. We didn't know that yet. He stood in the goal in his shin guards and uniform, listing slightly from side to side like a little sailboat. Ball after ball flew past. Phin only swayed and whimpered. What is wrong with him? we scowled. He was dying. We didn't know. 

Phin in March, 2022

"How long did I have cancer?" Phin asks.

We tell him he has been dealing with cancer for almost half his life. 

"You had cancer when you were four," we say, "and you beat it. Then, it came back when you were six, and you beat it again." 

"Now, I'm seven," Phin says. 

"You're seven," we assure him. "On your next birthday, you'll turn eight." 

"Do I have cancer now?"

We always pause. Pray. Gather our strength. 

"No," we say. Phin smiles.  

Often at this point the conversation veers into territory where all of our answers feel like speculative fiction writing exercises: "What would happen if...?" or "In the future, will I be...?" Neesha and I already spend our waking moments mentally drafting and redrafting manuscripts about these possible worlds in which we are all characters. We tend to share the sunnier versions with Phin. 

But lately, Phin has expressed more curiosity about what has been rather than what could be. He wants to know how old he was when various things happened--the time he was in the Child Life room and his ball disappeared, or the day he got his first CVL taken out. He's asking about the things he's seen and done on and off treatment and the litany of medical procedures he's undergone through all of it, but also these events' relation to one another in time: "How many days were between the time when we played Uno with the nurses at night and the time when we moved back home?" and "How long after we got back from India until I went back to the hospital?" That kind of thing. Fortunately, some of that history is recorded here. Much more of it is written down in my journals and notes. 

It's like he's finally emerging from a yearlong Groundhog Day-like loop of isolation and iPad obsession, a sanctuary he built for himself in his mind. In a way, he is waking up from a dream--one he forced himself to have because his reality was too frightening and awful. 

Imagine what it must be like for him. He was four years old, standing on a soccer field, feeling so, so tired. He blinked his eyes. Suddenly, he's thinking of playing soccer again, only three years have passed. He's roughly the same size (thanks to the chemo), but he's almost twice as old. How did that happen?

So, we believe, Phin is constructing a timeline--placing the events of his life in sequence, fixing the order, and asking questions. 

But really, underneath all of Phin's questions is one fundamental question:

"What did I miss?"