The beeping from the dashboard might as well have been saying, “Here we go again…”

The TPMS (Tire pressure monitoring system) for the 5^th wheel travel trailer I was pulling showed that the passenger side front tire of the double-axle trailer was about 20psi below what it should have been. At first, as I was watching it, it did not seem to be rapidly dropping and being only 14 miles from our destination, the thought crossed my mind that we might be able to make it. But then the “play it safe” version of me kicked in and decided to get off the road to check it out.

My wife, who was following in our other vehicle, pulled past me and exited the highway we were on to scout for a safe place to go. A 20-foot truck pulling a 37-foot trailer can’t just stop anywhere. There was a grocery store parking lot just off the exit that would work, so we pulled in there. The puncture in the tire was visible with an audible hissing sound. It was small, and we may have been able to go those 14 miles, but we were stopped and decided to go ahead and make the change.

This was the third flat on the trailer in around 4 months not including the faulty spare that went with the first one. As my wife and I are good at learning from previous experiences, we had the tire changed and were back on the road in 15 minutes. Our sentiments were the same – it was unfortunate that we were getting way too good at this process. Don’t get me wrong, we were grateful for our performance, just tired of needing to do it.

Nine days later it was the same book but a different chapter.

We’re on our way home between Texarkana and Houston and getting close to our mid-point break for gas. I feel the truck vibrating in a way that is not normal. Now, pulling something that big, if the road is the slightest bit rough, you’ll feel everything. But this was constant and not changing with the surface of the road. We made it to the gas stop and I was trying to explain what I was feeling to my wife (remember we’re in separate vehicles). We visually inspected what we could on the trailer. Tires looked good. Suspension seemed fine. We pulled out and kept moving. On a two-lane road she tried to observe everything she could from the outside while we were moving. She said the driver’s side rear tire on the truck (not the trailer) looked a little weird. I was checking the pressures on those from the dashboard and nothing seemed off.

But I was still shaking like a James Bond Martini. We knew there was another truck stop just ahead and made that our target. We got there and checked the lug nuts on the tire. All were good and tight. We knew we needed to get the trailer off the truck to see if the vibration was still there without the trailer. There were actually two RV parks in very close proximity. We talked to one, let them know about our situation and they allowed us to use a spot in the back of their property.

We got the trailer dropped and I took the truck for a spin. The trailer was quickly eliminated from the equation. The truck still had the shakes. We started calling around and found a shop that could take a look. Google had us diagnosed with a few potential problems led by a possible drive shaft issue or U-joint failure. We crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.

I waited for a diagnosis. An hour and a half later the answer was delivered. It was the tire. The same one my wife thought looked off. The shop told me it was literally coming apart and that was causing the shaking. No punctures and no leaks, just structurally failing.

That led to us calling around looking for a tire. We found one at a good price. It was not too far. We thought if we took it slow we could get the truck there on the existing bad tire.

But this is not about bad luck with tires. If you’re familiar with me and my writing, you know there are a few other things we have going on in our lives.

All of this was happening on a Tuesday, and we had to get home. Because first thing Wednesday morning I needed to be at an appointment with my oncologist for a visit to discuss prognosis and receive treatment. Furthermore, I’d been dealing with an abscessed tooth and had an early afternoon appointment with a dentist.

What wasn’t scheduled was the need to go to another clinic in between the appointments for a blood test. The medication I take causes low hemoglobin and severe anemia. The preferred remedy is a blood transfusion. That would happen the next day and it would be my third in just under 5 months.

All in all, we went from what should have been a 5-hour trip on Tuesday taking the entire day, Wednesday starting at the oncologist, directly to a clinic for a blood draw, then to the dentist for an extraction, into sitting for six hours on Thursday getting transfused.  And all of that because we’re three and a half years into an ongoing battle with stage four cancer.

By the time I hit the chair Wednesday morning for oncology treatment, I knew what the rest of the week looked like. And I was feeling both mental and physical exhaustion from the odyssey day before. Everything was rushing at me at once. That’s when something occurred to me.

I realized that if this were someone else’s story and I was hearing it for the first time, I’d have unbelievable sympathy for these people. My heart would break for them. I’d want to help.

But here’s the thing: It’s not someone else. It’s me. It’s my wife – my family. And the last thing we can afford to do is slip into the role of helpless victims.

Fortunately, we are in lockstep being hyper-aware of this. During the truck tire incident, we kept listing over and over about how much gratitude we had.

But gratitude alone cannot change the weight of what we’re carrying.

If I look at this reality from the outside, it’s heartbreaking. But living on the inside, it’s something else. It’s getting up each day and doing the things that it takes to keep going.

And that’s the part that’s strange to me: Conflicting truths exist at the same time.

On one hand – How do they do it? On the other – Can’t really explain it, we just do.

Zooming out and attempting to view our situation from the outside has revealed something that has happened over the last few years without us realizing it. Our capacity to deal with hard things has grown exponentially. Not because we wanted it to – because it had to.

It’s like the ability to change a trailer tire in fifteen minutes. That was never a goal. It was a result. The result of both experiences and learning from those experiences. 

Here’s another one – if I know I’m headed to the ER with a potential hospital stay, if I have the time and energy, I’m going into the bathroom to trim back the hair on my arms and chest. I’ve experienced enough situations where I know that makes my life (along with the nurses’ lives) a little bit easier and less painful.

I also know to bring a bag with some changes of clothes, long charging cables, and any essentials I’ll need for a night away. Anything longer can be obtained, but you always need to be ready for the first night.

No one wants to be good at these things. No one seeks out these circumstances. Yet the more you are forced to deal with them, the larger your capacity grows to hold them. That doesn’t diminish the severity of what any of us are carrying. It’s just, if you’re fortunate enough, you can grow with each occurrence. Again, not what you sought to do, but what had to happen to keep going.

I guess that if I could convey any message from our experiences, it’s this: You are stronger than you think. And that can mean different things. It might be digging down and finding more to give. Or it can mean knowing you’ve hit your absolute limit and need to ask for help. Recently I’ve experienced both multiple times. The most important thing is figuring out which is needed and taking the steps required to keep moving.

Now, it would be foolish to pretend that capacity is unlimited. That’s not what I’m saying by any means. But it’s more foolish to pretend you’ve hit yours when you haven’t.

I honestly don’t know where my limits truly are. Furthermore, I’d say they change from time to time. That’s just the nature of my reality with medications, treatments and the effects they have on me. But I do know this – I have every intention of continuing to push them every time it’s necessary.

And who knows? We might just acquire a few more helpful skills we never wanted.