Two years ago

September 7, 2017. Two years ago today.

Hillary had an ominous feeling. She went to work. I was at home with the kids as my two months of summer off were coming to a close. Well, kid.

Paige went to daycare so I could have a day with Isaac alone before he started Kindergarten the next day. The plan was for a pool with a waterslide. That failed as it wasn't open until something like 5pm that afternoon.

I ad-libbed and decided to take him to see Cars 3 at the Landmark Cinemas.

We, of course, took the skytrain as that always added to the enjoyment of a day out. Hillary left work at 11:30 and didn't have us abort from the plan. She got a last minute appointment with our family doctor and headed out to that.

We watched the movie. Isaac loved it.

Isaac and I took the train back, then walked to pickup Paige. The walk home from daycare involved stops at a couple of different parks. Hillary was waiting to see our doctor. We messaged back and forth as I made dinner for the kids and got them slowly through it.

Then an hour of silence. Then a message that she was headed home soon.

I've mentioned before that we knew something was wrong. Certainly by March of 2017 and if we were really critical about it, probably as early as December 2016 Hillary was starting to notice that something wasn't right.

Nothing she could put a finger on. But she was an athlete and in touch with her body and knew something just... wasn't right. We talked about it. We were worried and were, we thought, being fairly proactive about seeing various specialists.

I don't remember how late she got back. I think it was far later than I was expecting. I remember the specifics of that conversation less than many other ones we'd have in the coming weeks and months. The main beats have stuck with me.

"The CT scan came back. Dr. B was expecting my gastro doc to contact me, but it had been a couple of weeks. I have cancer. There is more than one tumour. It might be pancreatic cancer."

And life changed.