Editor’s Note: This post documents events from June 2025. I’m writing from the other side of treatment, but as any survivor knows, “the other side” doesn’t mean finished. It means still fighting, still watching, still trusting. — Scott

I woke up around 6 PM and stumbled into the kitchen still half out of it. That’s not unusual for a night-shift driver — waking up when most people are thinking about dinner — but this wasn’t a normal week. It had been a brutal 24 hours.

I had slept. I have a unique ability to shut down when I’m exhausted, and after the diagnosis, the phone calls, and telling everyone I loved, that’s exactly what I did. I took a shower, went to bed, got back up, and kept doing what life required. Work. Food. Driving. Hooking trailers. One motion after another.

I was not living. I was existing.

By then, I knew one thing: cancer. I didn’t know the stage. I didn’t know the full treatment plan or what the fight was going to look like. Most of the cancer stories stored in my mind had not ended well, so I had to keep that door shut before the what-ifs consumed me. Around my family, I could stand tall. In the quiet, those thoughts could play hell on my mind.

That evening, the house wasn’t quiet.

Pam was trimming Charlie. Michael was being Michael — which, if you know Michael, that’s all you need to know. Brandy was there too, moving through the house the way she does, filling whatever room she’s in. And the grandkids — Lord, the grandkids — were bouncing off every wall they could find. I call them the little heathens, and I mean that with every ounce of love a grandfather has. Three-ring circus doesn’t even cover it.

I walked into that kitchen barely conscious and got hit with the full volume of everyone I loved making noise at once. For a little while, it worked. The noise gave my mind somewhere else to go.

I had just started drinking my coffee. My back was toward the door.

“Hi.”

That was all it took.

I knew that voice. I knew my baby was there.

The coffee went onto the counter. I spun around, and there stood Kbug. I wrapped my arms around her before there was time to process anything. I don’t know if I said a word. I just reacted.

I didn’t know she was coming. Pam did. She had been Kristen’s partner in crime and picked her up from the airport. Kristen had heard the news from New Jersey, stopped her life, caught the first plane she could, and came home. No announcement. No warning text. She just showed up because, to her, that was the only thing to do.

I went straight into emotional Dad. I broke down and cried.

I want to be clear about something: crying was not the same as falling apart. I knew I was going to fight. I didn’t know the size of the fight yet, but I knew I would face it. The tears came because my daughter had stopped everything and crossed that distance after hearing one word: cancer.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I had been the strong one for my girls. Now their first instinct was to rally behind me and become my strength. Pam came home. Brandy came home. Kristen got on a plane. None of them waited for me to ask.

This was still my cross to carry. I didn’t want to hand the mental burden to them. But having my family there brought comfort, joy, and reassurance that no phone call, text, or FaceTime could give me. Kristen was standing right in front of me. That was real.

After the hug, the room came back to life. We wanted to know how she had pulled it off, who knew, and how Pam had kept it quiet. We talked. We joked. For a little while, cancer was not the only thing in the room.

Then came the unfortunate reality: I had to get ready for work.

It absolutely sucked to walk out of that room. But in the infamous words of Monty Python, always look on the bright side of life. Kristen wasn’t leaving that night. She would be there tomorrow, the next day, and for the rest of the week. Leaving for work was the negative. Knowing I was coming home to my daughter was the positive.

Cancer doesn’t pause for night shift. The truck doesn’t care what kind of week you’re having. Usually, once I was alone on the road, the silence gave cancer room to start pushing through the cracks again.

Not that night.

I was riding too high from the simple fact that she was home. The unknowns were still there, but I kept the door shut so tight they never made it through.

She was home. Cancer didn’t exist. I let it go for a night.

Kristen didn’t bring answers. She gave my mind something different to hold on to.

Sometimes, it isn’t what we say, or how we say it. It’s what we do. When someone is facing cancer, loss, or the worst news of their life, we worry about finding the right words. But sometimes there are no right words. Sometimes you sit beside them. Sometimes you let them talk. Sometimes you sit together in silence.

And sometimes you get on a plane and come home.

I went into work different from the way I woke up. Fuller somehow. The people I loved had done what they always did — they showed up. Whatever was coming, I wasn’t walking into it alone.

Man. What a day.

Nobody Fights Alone.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13