So, There's This Girl

It was winter, two years ago, Joe and I were driving home from Minnesota after Christmas.  Rita, my daughter's best friend from college, has written me from time to time.  This time, she was lamenting the difficulty of finding the right guy.  The drive is long, and I was mulling over her letter.  I think Rita is a marvelous young lady.  Smart, beautiful, good natured.

So, I turned to Joe, out of the blue.  "Joe, you'd date Rita, wouldn't you?" They'd met just once, he was fifteen, she was twenty.  Through Kate, they had become friends on Facebook.  "Sure", he said.  "I like Rita."  So, I called Kate.  (Northern Iowa makes for an uneventful drive...)  "Kate, should Joe date Rita?"  "Absolutely", she said.  "I think they'd get along wonderfully."

So, I wrote Rita back, telling her there was at least one good guy in the world willing to date her, and where there was one, there were more.  I figured that was that, but thus, the seed had been planted. Joe and Rita started to text.  Nothing serious, they lived 1000 miles apart.

Over the next year, they continued to write back and forth.  Both were single, both weren't finding the one they were looking for.  Somewhere in there, things turned a bit more serious.  She backed off - age and distance seemed to be insurmountable barriers.  So, things turned un-serious, they continued to be friends.

Joe has always wanted to visit the annual Tucson rock show (which is where Rita was living).  So, late last year, I suggested he take a trip on out there.  (the show is held in late January.)  He could see if Rita would like things to turn more serious again, and if things didn't go well - well, he's always wanted to visit the Tucson rock show.

He proposed the idea of a visit to Rita, who said, "That sounds wonderful, but I'm moving right around then.  I've taken a job in Lawrence."  (which is about 45 minutes from our place.)  The wheels of the Universe were turning.

They made plans.  Joe flew down, had a wonderful time at the rock show, helped her pack up and they climbed in the truck to move her to Kansas.  Tucson to KC is about a twenty hour drive.  At the end of a twenty hour drive, you have a pretty good idea whether or not you want to spend any more time, ever, with your driving companion(s).

I waited with bated breath.  Would the sparks they'd felt online ignite when they met in person, or would they fizzle and die?  I didn't hear much while he was down there.  I waited some more.  Joe texted just a little - they were getting along just fine.

When next I saw them, my questions were answered.  Yes, the sparks had met ready tinder, had ignited and were merrily burning away.  A couple of months later, they're still burning bright.

Young love is beautiful.  And fun to watch.
Good Is.

When the Storm Comes

Storms come into all lives.  Illness, accidents, poor choices, good choices gone bad.  Sometimes even when we've done everything right.  Sometimes, lightning strikes out of the clear sky.  Sometimes the morning is beautiful and we leave shelter and the storm catches us unaware and there we are, praying to find a haven where we will be safe until the storm passes.

The storms are terrifying, and rightly so.  They are fierce and so much larger than we could ever control.

But control is, at best, an illusion.  God Is and Evil Is and I remember again that all we can control in this world is our response to what happens to us. (to paraphrase Viktor Frankl.  again.).

Yesterday was harder for Kate than I can imagine - going in healthy, coming home heavy, bloated, sick to her stomach.  (The day was long.  The infusions were nausea-inducing.  Next time, she will remember to bring her noise-canceling headphones and some soothing music, so she doesn't have to listen to blaring televisions while also trying to cope with a headache and upset stomach.)

Yesterday was harder for me than I had anticipated.  And while it would have helped if I could have been there, it wouldn't have helped.  For I have confidence in the ability of her care circle to love and care for her and to be there.  But it's the part that can't be helped; the counterintuitive part - that making herself sick is the best bet that she will stay better - that roils my soul.

I feel so helpless; I can't fix it.

This storm is fierce and she is in the midst of it and I am much afraid.

so afraid.

but I CAN choose.

I can choose to look for the beauty in the storm.  

I can choose to trust her doctors, who are doing the best they can to keep the cancer at bay.

I can choose to trust that God Is, and to trust that Good is watching over her and will guide her through.

I can choose to remember that this, too, shall pass.

Chemo

patio in progress

My talent for research has deserted me when it comes to Kate's chemo drugs.

The regimen starts tomorrow - four doses, hopefully three weeks apart (assuming she's able to tolerate the drugs), of Taxotere and Cyclophosphamide. I tried to look up the side effects, so I could know what she's in for, but I found I couldn't do it.  I'd read a bit, picture the drugs going into Kate's veins, recoil instinctively, and quit reading.  I just couldn't do it.  I'll take it as it comes - I don't have to know in advance all the yucky stuff that could happen, because not all of it will.  I know the drugs will most likely help the cancer stay away, but the part between here and there is going to be not pretty.

But.

Her Christmas Elf struck again - this time with a daffodil bomb.
The kind people who help people with cancer showed up and cleaned her house today, so she won't have to feel bad tomorrow AND look at a mess.
There are other people lined up to do whatever she needs done if she feels awful.
She doesn't have to do this alone.

She doesn't have to do this alone.

that helps.  a lot.

I took all my excess energy on Saturday - and I have a lot of excess energy when mentally avoiding the picture of my daughter starting chemo - and dug a lot of the subgrade for my flagstone patio and path out back.  (Joe was helping with the project, but spent much of the day on parts of it that didn't involve shoveling.)  I can't do it as fast as he does, but I was steady, working my anger at the fates out on the poor defenseless dirt.  It's amazing what a mess one can make with a shovel and six hours.  I think the entire back yard is going to get raised a couple of inches by the time I get the dirt spread out.

Exercise helps, too.

She will make it through this.
We will make it through this.

God Is.

Real Cancer

When they did testing on my tumor to see how likely it was to return, the answer came back as low - I have a low chance of recurrence.  Which is why I didn't have to have chemo; for me the likelihood of the cancer returning was balanced by the likelihood of damage from the chemo.  So, I've 'just' had hormone therapy as treatment.

At some point, I was telling someone all this, and they said, 'So, you didn't have real cancer then.'


say what???  whatever.

I'm sorry to say Kate won't have trouble quibbling with the distinction.   She definitely has real cancer.  Her tumor test came back in the intermediate range, and since she is so young, they highly recommended she go through a three month round of chemo, just to make sure they catch any stray cells. 

I don't have the details of the treatment regimen they're recommending, but know it's a three drug cocktail and yes, it will make her sicker than a dog and all of her hair will fall out.  She'll start the treatment soon; within the next week or so.  And the extra delay in her ability to start that California job that's been waiting for her is likely to turn this bump in the road into a real detour.  I'm not sure how long they'll be able to wait.

Part of me is railing at the fates.  again.  It couldn't have waited six months!  By then, she'd have been done with school and settled into her new job for a bit and surely they'd have worked with her.  But the other part of me thinks the timing - if there's ever a good time for cancer - worked just fine.  She has a wonderful support system where she is; family and friends to help, doctors she trusts.  Good insurance.  It could have been awfully lonely there in CA, just settling in only to be hit by the cancer truck.

So, once again, I find myself working on the trust thing.  To trust in her doctors to prescribe the correct treatment.  To trust her support system in Minnesota, since I can't drop everything to just go up there and be there with her for this whole ordeal.  (trusting her support system is one of the easy ones; they're great people.)  To trust that when one door closes, another opens - that should her current promised job fall through because of this stinkin' disease, another will come and the road will circle back around to a place where she is happy and healthy once again.

** sigh **
cancer sucks.

Shower Blues

You know, sometimes, I don't do things right the first time.

I'd actually done a pretty darn good job on the shower floor.  Except for one teensy tiny detail.  When I poured a bucket of water in the basin to test the drainage. there were a couple of little pools of water; low spots in the floor.

Not a big fan of mold and slime, I knew I'd have to take it back out.  I HATE taking stuff back out. So, I pouted for a bit, then, a couple of days later I tried the bucket-o'-water test again.  Can you believe it didn't magically fix itself?

I managed to procrastinate for another couple of weeks, but then managed to convince myself I'd be a lot happier trying to fix it before the shower door was installed.

So, yesterday morning I bit the bullet, got out the tile-digger-out tools and set to work.  I dug out grout, managed to slip a pry bar under the edge of the leading tile, and poof!  An hour later, I was done; the tiles reset and ready for action.  (If I did it wrong again, I won't be admitting it in this space, I can tell you that...)

All that procrastination, wasted on a 60 minute task.  I hate it when I do that.

Kate update:  we are waiting, still, for some test results that will let us know if she needs to do chemo.  The timing of all other treatment depends on these results, and so we wait.   again.  There are times the wheels of medicine grind aggravatingly slowly.  **sigh**

Goodbye, Bessie!

Goodbye...

I knew when I got home last fall that it was time; probably past time.  My camper van, who I began to call Bessie sometime back, deserved more than to be parked 11 months out of the year.  She wanted to be on the road, seeing new places.

So, somewhat reluctantly, I created a CraigsList ad in January, just to see what would turn up.

Within a day, the emails started trickling in.  Some were serious lookers, others were hoping I was desperate to sell since I'd listed it in mid-winter (Sorry, Charlie!).

It was just a few weeks before I got a message from someone serious about purchasing her.  We traded emails back and forth.  I checked him out on Google; he did the same with me to establish our bona fides.  Still, when they wanted to come look at her, I did the prudent thing and set up a meeting at a public place.

Then came the day we were to meet.  I drove up to where the van is parked, got there an hour early, only to find it still cushioned by better than a foot of snow.  I started shoveling, and then decided there comes a time to trust.  Besides, if I pulled her out of her spot, she wasn't going back in.  parking on the street is NOT an option up there.  So, I called them en-route and had them meet me at the house.  If they didn't like her, I wasn't going to move her.

They got there just as I was finishing the shoveling.  (a good task on a warm winter afternoon.)  They started looking at the exterior.  I must say, I was quite the salesperson.  I started with the standard spiel about the excellent shape she is in (which is true), but somewhere in there, my ambivalence got the better of me. "There's a ding here where she got bit by a curb.  This back bumper goes in just a bit; someone did that before I got her.  I think the back marine battery might be going bad.  Did you notice here, where the paint is coming off a bit?"

He ignored me, asked me to start the engine, which hadn't been started in a month.  I crossed my fingers, turned the key - and the engine roared to life just as it's done every time I got in.  She passed the initial inspection, so we took her for a drive.  She passed that inspection, so we went inside, did the necessary dickering over price, money and title traded hands.

She's gone to a good home.  Mike and Kathy have more free time than I do; they will take her on the road way more than I can.  (I wouldn't be surprised to find they've already taken her out for a week.  somewhere south, if I were them...)  He knows cars; will take good care of her mechanical needs.  In the short time we talked, the care between Mike and Kathy was clear - they will fill her with their laughter and the joy they bring to life.

Bittersweet, but it was time.

Someday, Good willing, I will be on the road again.  Until then, I have a storehouse of wonderful memories to delve into whenever I need a smile.  Can't ask for more than that.

Remember to Breathe

As I was hunting through old emails today for a message I was just SURE was there (and I found it!), I stumbled across this forgotten message my sister had sent me several years ago:

Remember to breathe.  Deeply.  Slowly.  Until you feel the unhurried
pulse of the sun and the earth and the moon and the stars.
Be at peace.
Be who you are.
Do what you can.

Breathe.
Slowly.
Deeply.
Slowly.
Breathe.

And smile.  It will help a little bit.

In the midst of my spinning workday, I stopped.
and took the time to breathe, slowly, deeply, just a few times
and something inside uncoiled and relaxed and let go.

In times of stress, I sometimes forget that it's not all on my shoulders.  I try to control it all.  Of course, in trying so, I manage to control nothing.

It's good to stop and remind myself that I can't control it.  I didn't cause it, I can't fix it.
Which frees me to do what I CAN do.

Breathe.
Slowly.
Deeply.
Slowly.
Breathe.

Healing Begins

cats in boxes

The drains came out with her return visit to Rochester last Tuesday.

As was my experience, she immediately began to feel better.

She got some questions answered.  That other breast?  The doctor feels it's a matter of when, not if.  The scary part is that nothing showed on the scans.  Even after they knew where to look, nothing showed.  Her tissue is young and dense; the errant cells well hidden by their healthy peers.  But Tamoxifen should keep any cell changes at bay for the five years she's on it and 2-3 years to follow, so nothing needs to be done now.  She will see an oncologist on 3/10, get more information, and make a decision about further surgery after that.

She went home and rested for another day or so, then was done being sick.  (perhaps, just perhaps, she takes after her mother in this, too.)  She found a gentle yoga class she could go to, she's started making plans on how and when she's going to ease back into work.

Predictably, I suppose, she overdid it this weekend - and came down with a cold to boot.  Back to resting for her.  I know she doesn't appreciate the speed of her healing; she's impatient and wants life to be back to normal.  But it's only been two weeks since surgery.  I think her recovery is proceeding wonderfully.

My week was one of recovery as well.  As always in crisis, I think the world should stop, or at least have the courtesy to slow down a bit while I regain my balance.  As always, the world shows no awareness of my desires and proceeds along its stately path towards entropy.

In some ways, the plunge back into the normalcy of work was good for me.  There is comfort in the rhythm of normal days.  The weekend was good - I set some order to my mess here, and took a few baby steps on my project.  But I still took today off.  I needed an extra sleep-in day, or I was going to come down with a cold of my own.

Today, I plan to write some, read some, work some, rest some.
Not think some, not yet.  I'm not ready to reflect on all the implications of what's happened in the past few weeks.  But that's OK - the time will come, and short-term willful denial has a firm place in my list of coping mechanisms.

Please keep her in your prayers.  Her road is not yet clear.

Surgery Successful. But, Still Waiting...

Browning, MT

It was one of those experiences where you just wish it was a bad dream and you could wake up but you know you're already awake and it's just not good.

We went down to Mayo Clinic last Monday so Kate could get some final blood work and tests done.  In the one at 2PM, scheduled for a 45 minute window, they were going to put a seed in the smaller tumor so it would be easily found during surgery the next day.

They called her back in good time, and we waited.  and waited.  and waited.  (I wasn't allowed to go back with her.)  At five minutes before five, she comes rushing out, running to her final appointment for the day, where the surgeon's nurse was waiting for her to explain her final prep.

I gathered my things and hers and followed her upstairs on the next elevator, still wondering what had happened.  It turns out they couldn't get the seed placed, so left a 10cm wire snaking under her skin for the surgeon in the morning.  Usually, this procedure is done immediately before surgery - people don't generally leave the hospital with the wire in.  There are good reasons for this.  She spent a very uncomfortable night; perhaps it is good that it was short?

We were back at the hospital at 5:45 the next morning for her surgery.  Hers was the first case of the day; they thought she'd be done before 11.  So I waited.  11:00 came and went.  11:30, 12:00.  ???  12:30.  still no word.  The board showed me the procedure had started in good time, at 8:49, but no word.  I kept checking my phone, just to make sure I hadn't missed the call - no word.  The nurses at the desk started to give me sympathetic looks; they knew it couldn't be good, and it wasn't.

The surgeon finally called shortly before 1:00.  He had the defeated tone of a man who'd done his best, but just couldn't make it work.  It turns out the cancer was invasive after all.  And he couldn't get clear margins for the lumpectomy because her entire breast was riddled with DCIS and pre-cancerous cell changes.  He was going to have to do the mastectomy after all; there wasn't enough tissue left to save.

My legs carried me around the corner, then gave out.  It was the family cancer after all.  I sank to the hallway floor in tears.  The friend who had come with me for support came back from a trip down the hall to find me huddled in pain for her.  He put his arms around me.  Then, one of the nurses stopped by and asked if she could help.  I stood up, and started asking all the questions rattling around my brain (whatever they were).  She answered calmly where she knew, deferred what she didn't, calmed me down enough to go back to wait for the next call.

When the surgeon next called back, he had better news - he'd removed all her breast tissue, and her lymph nodes were clear.  The cancer hadn't spread.

A mastectomy is a more involved surgery than a lumpectomy; it's a good thing we'd already planned to stay in town for the night because now she was going to spend the night in the hospital.  (I really felt for the patient who was scheduled for the second surgery of the day - they'd been waiting since ten in the morning - it was after four when they finally began their procedure, whatever it was...)

I went up to her newly assigned room to wait.

There I found a picture of Saccharine Jesus waiting on the wall, watching the room with a poor pity look on his face.  I couldn't stand it; I didn't want Kate to have to stare at that thing all night.  I found a paper towel, drew a smiley face on it, and begged a piece of tape from the ever-cooperative nurses to cover the picture.  (When they saw what I'd done, they just smiled...)

And I waited.  She finally came up after an interminable time.  She was groggy and in a lot of pain - and most of it came from her rear end where she had a deep new muscle bruise.  (from catching her rear on a rail as she was being swung onto the operating table?  I couldn't figure out how else it could have gotten there; she didn't have it when she went in.)  The standard pain meds weren't doing it, and the nurses couldn't reach the doctor to order more.  I hurt to watch her.  Finally, a resident stopped by to see how she was doing - and got her some anti-anxiety meds to relax her muscles, and another type of pain reliever that could be stacked on top of the Oxycodone.  It worked, she finally went to sleep.  We went back to the hotel.

The next morning we went back to find her still unable to eat, still nauseous from the anesthetic.  Regardless, they checked her out, and we bundled her into the car for the 90 minute trip back to Minneapolis.  I drove as carefully as I could, and she did well - made it the whole way without throwing up.  When we got back to her apartment, she promptly fell asleep - the best medicine.

When I left yesterday, she was much on the mend, but the drain was still in place.  (The drain is there to gather the blood and nutrient fluid her body is sending to the breast it hasn't yet figured out is gone.  Painful, but essential for healing.)  Until the drain is removed, she will be in pain.  (speaking from experience here.)  She has friends bring food, to stay with her and to care for the baby until that happens.

I sat in the back seat the whole way home (Joe  drove, his girlfriend kept him awake), still trying to absorb what happened.  The new diagnosis opens a whole new trove of questions - first and foremost, what does this mean for her other breast?  I asked the surgeon when I had him on the phone - he will review all the films and test results and talk with her about it when she goes back for her post-op visit on Tuesday.

And we wait.

As I wait, I am thankful.

For the nurses who took good care of her.
For the medical team at Mayo who took her concerns about the family cancer seriously and had her agree to a mastectomy on a hunch, just before she went under, just in case.  (Can you imagine waking up to hear you needed to go under again as soon as you were medically able?  Yowsa!)
For clear lymph nodes.  For clear lymph nodes.  For clear lymph nodes.

I was right - these next few months aren't going to be easy, but I think she's going to be OK.
I hope.
I pray.

and we wait.

Check It Out

frosted window

I interrupt my waiting to bring you an important message:

It's not a new message; it's one I heeded, it's one Kate heeded.  You can probably guess where I'm headed.

Women:  know your breasts.  Know their lumps their bumps their sags.  And then, once you know them, check back in with them every so often - in bed, in the shower.  (Probably not in the supermarket checkout line, even if you are bored.  That sort of behavior is frowned upon.)  You're checking for something new.  A lump that doesn't feel like the other lumps.

I always wondered how you'd know.  Not to be too graphic or anything, but there were lumps and bumps all over in the tissue.  How was I supposed to tell this lump was different?  Well, now I know.  I still can't tell you exactly what was different about the cancerous lump - but I can tell you it WAS different.

And should you find that different lump, get it checked out.  Go to your doctor - they won't laugh at you for your suspicions, or yell at you for wasting their time if it turns out to be nothing.  (That's actually the preferred answer in these cases...)

Kate was too young to get mammograms; her tissue too dense for the machine to tell good from bad.  I was just due for mine; it would have shown had I made it to the appointment date.

Finding the lump, getting it checked before it has a chance to grow too big; spread too far - it's the difference between surgery and detours and...  I still don't like to think of the consequences of not having found it in time.

So, check it out.  It could save your life; it did mine.

back to our regularly scheduled waiting...

All the test results are in.  Hotel and operating rooms reserved.  Child care set up.  Car serviced and ready to make the trip.  I'm pretending to focus on work this week; in short spurts, it even works.  But the refrain of please-make-it-not-be-true runs futilely through my brain and even though I know it will be OK, I also know it's true-even-though-I-REALLY-don't-want-it-to-be.  And it sucks.

Keep us in your prayers, please.