year 12

The last couple of weeks have been infused with too much emotion. I'm talking about the real life of being a mom to my beautiful kids and a cancer patient has finally converged and I think some days it's going to make my heart and soul catch on fire for being on overdrive.

Joe and Sophie are seniors. Need I say more? I really don't want this to happen- I've been joking with them for years but the reality is I never wanted our time together in my home to end and here we are on the final stretch. Them in a sprint laughing and nervous but ultimately excited for their life to begin. And me (now hobbled) trying to keep up  with them on their this final school year saying "don't go too fast you'll miss this so much some day". On the good days when I feel up to it  I go up to their rooms and make their beds and do some laundry. Like a junkie trying to get a last hit before going to rehab. Most days I haven't been able to keep up with our own laundry and they have been doing theirs for several years anyways. But right now it brings me back to a moment in time when it was part of my day and folding Joes jeans could be done sitting down...

Jack is going to suffer just like me I'm afraid. His sense of loss is heightened because of having  witnessed his fathers death when he was four. The four of us have never been separated and Joe and Sophie were like his mini mom and dad in my absence. He will grieve losing their constant company especially at bedtime when that floor in this big house will be empty except for him.

Yesterday was my first radiation treatment and regardless of my physical or emotional reaction to it we had Sophies Golf Banquet last night  which was paramount. So I found myself taking a much needed nap of several hours so I could truly take it all in... which I did.  She is so talented and well liked yet understated. Her quirky side comes out in subtle ways though- her team photo and her individual one was awesome- I'll have to try and scan one in later she never disappoints me with that sense of humor that makes me chuckle yet proud to claim her! She lettered twice! Go Sophie! One strong young lady almost ready to go out and conquer the world.

Joe Pat has his senior recognition for band at the football game tonight. I am really looking forward to that as well. As part of evening we were asked to make a poster board representing our band member that will hang at the school stadium. I made it. There I was in my closet (remember its huge) laughing by myself as I put the pictures together and added funny captions. I made it with so much love -- with a right hand that only works at 70% and all my fingertips numb from chemo I was like a 3 year old with the scissors! But no matter I had fun and I know that he will know that my love was in it and our inside jokes will remind him always of the relationship we have.

So here I am writing a scattered note to all of you today. I have 2 radiation treatments down and 31 to go. I was hoping this was going to be easier but after so many months fighting cancer my stamina is failing me... stayed tuned I'll get my thoughts gathered and update everyone when I pull it together.  For right now I'm riding on a dangerous mix of chemo, radiation, months of exhaustive thoughts and sadness over losing my oldest to two to the world.  I think love and my hope for their future will win over all of the other thinking.. 

When you let a positive emotion pull you there is so much more momentum in that movement than in the passive one of letting the negative slide you down. 

Heave Ho- everyone is going to have to pull!

ringing the bell

It was like a movie in slow motion all the way from the moment I walked into Panera Tuesday morning and started ordering pastries for the nurses in the infusion room, Dr B's office and the reception office. I felt elated inside... still not coming through to my face just yet.  

Sophie my heart, wanted to go with me since she was the only one that had not accompanied me to the infusion room  in all of these months, so with her in tow she was my walking streamer, balloon and noise maker all in one - SHE was excited for both of us. I am pretty even keeled even on my most joyous of occasions- thats just how life has molded me -- not Sophie she shines through my cautious demeanor every time and soon we are both skipping in her happy parade.

I have been at St Lukes Cancer Institute nearly every week for almost 6 months, everyone knows me and I know them. I know when they call me in that I walk over to get my weight checked, I pick a  chair-- I like the big plushy leather ones that are built for 250 lb. men. I sink right into them. When they aren't available I get stuck with the ones for petite patients like me and they feel hard and remind me I'm small and there for treatment and not to watch a football game at someone's dads house. 

It was different on Tuesday - as I seemed to notice the slightest details that normally wash out  when I go in there. 

I rarely look at anyone else that is there for treatment, giving them the privacy that I long for myself. I am not chatty - those of you that know me in person know that about me. But as I wasn't trying to soak up the images from my last visit to this 'healing' room something inside told me it was crucial to document it in my memory. 

I prepared a lovely card for Dr. B and set the words against the image of the tattoo that Sophie designed and we are all getting. I told the story of how the image came to be and how much we appreciated his staff. Doc was genuinely touched by it - but mostly he was pleased to see me walking out of his office against the odds of my triple negative diagnosis. I may or may not find myself back there again but he has used chemotherapy in its most aggressive way to combat the cancer within me and he was happy for me. I got a hug.

Soph asking a million questions and in my answering I looked around and noticed everything in living color in a place I go to normally with my eyes wide shut. 

The first thing you notice when you walk in is the 1000 cranes hanging in the center of the room...  the idea comes from an ancient Japanese legend which promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane, such as a long life or recovery from illness. Sophie popped up and took a picture of them.... how many times had I stared at them and thought of the beautiful significance of it as I felt the poison pumped into my chest - and wondered if I could feel all of my fingers if I shouldn't try to fold a 1000 for myself and quickly remembered that I'm catholic...

The infusion room always seamed silent to me but reflecting on it now I understand that I shut all of the noise out to help myself cope. On this last day when I was purposefully  present it was loud and busy and there were people with no hair on their head like me walking around. It was surreal... But still it was a backdrop to the sounds and emotions I brought from home my daughters voice resonated loudly and the rest was a background chatter. 

Part of the ritual of the last day of treatment is that you get to ring a bell--- so as Soph finished reading her home work book about fallen angels to me, this chemical angel got her wings and we skipped out of there!

I was in and out of conciseness the rest of the day- lets not forget that I did just have chemo and for all my celebrating I was about to get my ass kicked...

I'm not absorbing it all yet- the panic from the free falling without having chemo fighting any rogue cancer cells left hasn't hit me yet. Maybe it won't. During six months I really feel as if I was a trapped animal in a barbed wire fence and when I relaxed and stopped fighting my body slipped out of the barbs. I have made peace that Gods will trumps mine. I will know when its time to go- this was not my time. The radiation will be one last insurance policy before I put this painful chapter to rest.

I rang the damn bell, I did not make any cranes, I never walked around bald in the infusion room because it was too cold in there, and in the end when my kids were in the room, they were all that I could see. Yup I am ok I am still me, still have all my priorities straight. I have a lot of living to do. Life is to short to put things off or not forgive. 

Go Live!