tension

I've been thinking about the word "tension." It's not a word that evokes happy thoughts. It sounds negative, hard, something to do away with; it's unpleasant or disruptive to ideas of ease and harmony. But in a writer's world, tension is highly necessary, expected, and desirable. Reader's want stories that have good tension, otherwise they quickly loose interest. Stories without tension can be boring, lame, or just not real enough. Life is full of tension, so stories should be too! And it goes without saying, many of us prefer happy endings. 

In my last post, I talked about how we are at the half-way mark and will await results from the PET scan. Today we got to hear those results in the doctor's office. Not via a phone call, but in person, and even better, masks were optional! 

We learned there is a scale when measuring things like this. Five is bad, no progress whatsoever. One is great, perfect, excellent in kicking cancer out of your body and life. As our doctor was explaining this, I thought maybe we were at a 2-3. My mind has wanted answers for seven days now, so I was quickly deciding what to expect. I would not presume.

I was right. We are not at a perfect one, but there has been good progress, and we are not in the bad 4/5 range. It is not time to throttle back, to throw a party just yet. The report was good for me to remember that little thing called tension. I decided this will help me stay focused, stay sharp, stick with the helpful things I know I can do to promote healing. There's still work to do, but we are thankful progress has been made. God knows the ending to this story. In the meantime, we get to walk this not-always-smooth-road hand in hand, and that is not a bad thing.