In which I spoil the ending to a movie no one has seen.

I’ve never been a big fan of sad endings. Now, of course, as you are reading this, you are thinking, “well, me neither.” And, I’m sure that is true for you, but I have to say that I REALLY don’t like sad endings. I remember reading Romeo and Juliet in high school and just kind of pretending that they got their act together before the final ending, because seriously, that should NOT have happened. Now, I tend to do a similar thing with movies I watch. One of my favorite movies is this joke of a thriller that came out in like 2007 called The Invisible. It’s about this kid that’s teetering between life and death and the only person who can hear him is the girl that beat him into the state he is in. The ending, and sure this is a spoiler but I don’t care, is a good wrap up to the story with the girl dying. The last scene the guy goes up to the little brother of the girl after she’s passed on and they fly a model plane together. It’s a good ending, but I always changed it in my mind. In my mind, the kid turns around and motions to his sister, and she comes and flies the plane with them and everything is happy. I like happy endings, really.

I’d always assumed that my love of happy endings would run parallel to Thomas’s treatment plan, and I really never thought about if that were to change. Last week, we went in for another round of chemo and during our stay, we explained how we had seen his chemo work over the last four rounds. For us, we saw it like a battle between two enemies. Our side would cut the enemy down a ton after the chemo, but like any good enemy, they had reinforcements and they would grow a bit before we went in for our next round of chemo. We explained to the doctor our theory, as we saw a growth in the tumor each time before we came in to get another dose of chemo. We assumed there was a net decrease in size of the tumor, and so we still felt totally confident in our little warrior. I had explained this the time before to the doctors as well and they had kind of just smiled and nodded. The problem with their smiling and nodding is they were just kind of fake agreeing with me because my statement on his tumor growing back was impossible in their eyes. Tumors do not grow back on chemotherapy. This is something that our doctors had never seen before, and it’s also something that every doctor they talked to had never witnessed. That… didn’t seem great for us.

The doctors assured me that I probably was just imagining things, because that doesn’t happen. When both Eric and I mentioned this a second time during this most recent time in the hospital, they took our claims a bit more seriously and looked into it. I could go on and on about the tests and scans we did over the next few days, but the end result is the same with or without this information: Thomas was not responding to the chemotherapy. Now, what does that mean? That means he has the most aggressive tumor our doctor has ever seen. He has the most aggressive tumor the great doctors of Philadelphia’s pediatric hospital has seen, and the same for those doctors in SF, and in LA, and all over the country. That would be kind of a cool thing, if it didn’t have such a sinister meaning behind it.

With this new information, we were given options. We could try a lot of experimental stuff that would add a few months onto Thomas’s life, but nothing could possibly cure it. It would only give us more time, but more time would be traded for Thomas continuing to do painful treatment. The other option was to stop treatment entirely and focus our time on Thomas and making him comfortable and happy. We decided that the best thing for Thomas would be for him to feel comfortable and be at home with us. It obviously wasn’t an easy decision, but it was a decision we came to because we confidently know that there really isn’t anything more to do.

They have given us about 4 weeks. They really aren’t sure what will occur because he has such an aggressive tumor. In a way, the aggressive nature of the tumor is a good thing because it makes me not worry about the what ifs. It also makes me feel better that this tumor, and perhaps the study of it (because they have a part of it already and we want to donate the rest to science afterwards) will lead to lots of new information that can help cure other neuroblastoma patients. Thomas has already contributed so much to the world in such a short amount of time, and his tumor, aggressive as it, has the power to change and shape research. That’s a really incredible thing.

I think when I reflect on why I dislike sad endings, a lot of it goes back to the idea that there was more that people could have done to change them. In Romeo and Juliet, they could have communicated better. In the Invisible, the communication thing is kind of a big part as well, also she could have just gone to the hospital and not done a ton of other dumb things before going there. In Thomas’s case, I truly believe that we have done everything in our power to treat Thomas, and now there is a new chapter opening. This chapter maybe isn’t one for “happy endings” but that isn’t to say that we are going to have a flat sad ending. I don’t like being sad. That’s why I change those endings, and I don’t want to spend my time without Thomas being sad. That’s why I want to focus on the good that I’ve shared with Thomas. He is such a sweet baby and I am so grateful that I’ve had this time to learn about him and love him. This “ending” we have in the upcoming weeks is one I plan on changing too. Sure, it may seem sad at first, but I’m confident that with efforts to preserve his memory and with efforts to turn bad into good, this ending will have a last minute addition to be something more than just “sad”.