Thursday, July 13, 2023

 REMISSION

I have been in remission from cancer for six months. Six wonderful, glorious months. 

I feel ... oh, what's a good adjective? Blessed. Happy. Thrilled. Ecstatic. Grateful.

Mostly grateful. For every single day. 

However, remission isn't like it is shown in movies and books. I don't run around screaming, "I beat cancer!" I don't feel like David after he slayed Goliath. I don't feel like a warrior or even a thriver. I'm just someone who worked hard to get through cancer. 

And I am thankful for six cancer-free months. 

Of course, I hope I will have more. I hope I never face the monster Cancer again. But I'm not stupid. I know I have a 40% chance of relapse. I am living now in six-month chunks - six months between PET scans. 

I feel like I'm living with a bully who may jump out of his hiding place and beat me up at any time. Or maybe not. I don't know. I live with uncertainty. Hoping and praying my cells will not mutate. 

But in the meantime, I live with joy, enjoy my newly grown hair (short and weird, but there), and love living in the real world again, enjoying the possibility of growing old and seeing my grandchildren grow up. 

It is enough. And I am grateful. 



Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Take That, Cancer

 

I have always wanted to go to Cologne Cathedral. 

The facts are impressive – the largest Gothic church in northern Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage site. It took 600 years to build and has the largest bells in the world. 

It’s magnificent. It made the travel agenda five months after I finished chemotherapy. I barely had any air, and I wasn't sure I had enough energy to take the trip, let alone climb a bell tower.

Nonetheless, I decided to climb the tower. All 533 steps. Tiny steps in an enclosed spiral staircase. No place to rest until you’re almost at the top.

It’s a commitment for anybody, and I wondered briefly if I was foolish. What if I got tired? I was no stranger to fatigue these days. What if it was too much? I was still anemic and occasionally felt lightheaded. What if, what if, what if…

I started up the steps, slowly and carefully. And kept going and going, relishing the view along the way. I marveled that I was able to walk that narrow staircase, when months ago it was a challenge to walk from my bed to the kitchen. Tears stung my eyes as I put one foot in front of the other and felt the real healing of my body.

When I got to the top, I soaked in the view, as the city of Cologne spread out far below. “Take that, Cancer,” I said.

Take that, indeed.  



Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Chemotherapy is Weird

I knew chemotherapy would not be fun. Everybody knows that. 

But I didn't know how bizarre it would be. Until my first treatment. 

First, a few stats: 

    Total time for treatment #1: 10.5 hours

    Total medications put into my body: 12

    Total allergic reactions: 1 

    Total percentage of time feeling terrified: 100% 

I arrived at the Colorado Blood Cancer Institute early in the morning, prepped for ... well, for what? 

I knew there would be nausea. I knew there would be needles and infusion machines and syringes. I knew there would be fatigue.  

I didn't know I'd get a bright, red drug with the name "Red Devil." I didn't know I would shake violently when one of the drugs dripped into my veins. I didn't know I would freeze, unable to be warmed - on a 90-degree August day - by four heated blankets. I didn't know there would be a medication that has to be carefully measured because a person can only receive a lifetime maximum dosage. 

I didn't know there would be warning labels with words like "cytotoxic" and "danger." Nor did I know  nurses would dress in the medical equivalent of HAZMAT suits, triple-gloved, double-masked, and gowned from head to toe. They explained they had to be careful in case any of the drugs got on their skin. I said, "You mean these drugs you are pumping into my body?" 

The kind, reassuring nurse laughed and said, "Yes. It's basically poison." 

Okey-dokey. 

Weirdly, I was okay with that, reasoning that poison is needed to kill cancer cells.   Of course, it kills other cells too. But like Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow.  




    

Monday, August 1, 2022

Lympho-What?

 What's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? 

That thought has been spinning in my mind since May 2022. Spinning while I sit in medical centers waiting for scans and biopsies. Spinning while I sit in hospital rooms awaiting surgery to have a port placed in my chest for chemotherapy. Spinning while I go to endless doctor appointments at nondescript places with beige rooms and pleasant pictures on the walls. 

I'd never worried much about cancer. My world was cracked loose three years ago when my vegetarian, non-smoking, marathon-running brother died of lung cancer. But I figured that was an anomaly. Cancer didn't run in our family. 

The only problem is nobody told cancer that. 

I was hiking one beautiful May day and took a tumble. I broke a couple of ribs, sprained my wrist, and gashed my knee. It was embarrassing and painful, but I figured a trip to Urgent Care would fix me up. And it did. 

A week later, I went to my doctor to have the stitches in my knee removed. As part of my follow-up, she did a chest x-ray, even while saying chest x-rays usually don't show broken ribs. 

She was right. The chest x-ray didn't show my two broken ribs. They were discovered later. But it did show a mass in my lung. 

The tests began. Painful, nerve-wracking tests. CT scans. Biopsies. PET scans. X-rays.  

The final diagnosis: Diffuse Large B Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. 

Such a long name, but somehow it sounds better than Cancer. Even though that's exactly what it is. 

Let the games begin. 



Monday, August 7, 2017

Saying Good-bye to Mom



Nobody wants to spend time in a hospice center. We might imagine hushed hallways, weeping family members, and quiet conversations. We may have vague notions of uniquely kind nurses who minister to the dying, but we think of them as sad, dreary places. At least that was my impression of a hospice center, before spending time in one, at the end of my mother’s life.

Hospice was all of those things. And more.

My 87-year-old mother entered hospice care after a serious heart attack that damaged her heart. Another pressing problem was the damage inflicted by CPR.

On television shows, CPR looks like a miraculous, magical technique. Indeed, it is miraculous, and it saves lives. However, it also shatters ribs, damages muscles, and yanks tissue away from bones. After CPR, every breath she took was excruciating for Mom. She groaned when she had to take pills and shrieked in pain when the nurses moved her arm or performed the most minor of procedures. Even when in a heavily drugged sleep, the grimace of facial muscles gave away the degree of her pain.

My mother was never one to fuss much about pain. She’d had eleven spinal surgeries, and many, many medical procedures. She didn’t complain. But this was different.

It is terrible to watch a loved one suffer. When I learned that pain relief is the goal of hospice, a sense of relief filled me, because I knew they could make her comfortable. Once it was clear there was no hope for recovery, Mom made the decision to go to hospice, and I’m grateful she was able to do that.

The first time I walked into the hospice center, peace settled over my fretful soul like a warm blanket on a winter’s night. At first glance, it looked like a hospital. The walls were beige and tan; paintings of Colorado landscapes adorned the walls. Waiting rooms were large, with cushiony couches and overstuffed chairs the color of coffee. Boxes of tissues perched on every table. A beautiful chapel, with a vividly colored stained glass window, was visible at the end of the hallway.

There was one difference though. It was quiet. Blissfully, peacefully quiet. Beeps and alarms did not punctuate the air every few minutes. Busy nurses did not rush through the halls. The smell of antiseptics did not drift in the air. Even televisions in the rooms seemed hushed, and most were off.

Mom was asleep when my sisters and I arrived, and I was glad to see her relaxed. I had so feared the transport to hospice. How could they possibly get her there, when every movement made her writhe in pain? But they did. And I was thankful.

At first, Mom talked with us, in the same animated way she always had. The chaplain came in and asked questions. She talked about Oscar and her family. Occasionally, the pain medications would take over, and she would drift off. We filled in the answers for the chaplain. He told us he liked LDS patients, because the community was so supportive. However, I knew one’s religious preference made no difference in this place. The result would be the same for all, as would the treatment.

We filled out forms and dealt with decisions. The first time I saw “Choice of funeral home” on the form, it jolted me. Of course, it shouldn’t have. People come to hospice to die. Everyone knows that. But that phrase on an intake form made it real. Practical decisions would have to be made.

But not right away.

In truth, we didn’t know how much time she would have. Would she – could she – linger for months? Would she go in the next 24 hours? We had no idea.

So we sat. Sometimes we watched her sleep. Sometimes we talked, with her and with each other. I was so relieved to share this experience with siblings Blaine, Bonnie, and Leanna. 
Stan could not come, because he was hospitalized in Utah. He checked in often, and we all knew he would be there if he could.

Son Ethan and his wife, Andrea, also came every night. I was so moved by their sweetness, goodness, and kindness. They stroked Grandma’s arm. They brought balloons. They brought me an Amazon gift card, to buy something to read during the long hours. They are young, but they didn’t act young. They acted like people who have seen illness and death and the harshness of life. They rose to the occasion.

Friends also came to visit. Some came several times. Our good friends, Richard, Melody, and Liz, sat by her bedside just like family members. They brought me diet Cokes and goodies. They took her hand and spoke lovingly to her. Just like her own children. I knew why they are more like family than friends.

Other friends came as well, mostly people from church. It occurred to me that I’d never visited anyone in hospice and helped me see how important it is.

Making a mental note to be more aware in the future, I settled in. The first day was long. Mom was in pain, a great deal of pain. But she was still anchored firmly in our world, aware of her surroundings, aware of us, aware of suffering. As we sat by her bedside, we learned to recognize subtle signs – a tightened jaw, clenched fists. We tried to become her advocate, asking for medication when she couldn’t. We were reluctant to leave in the evening, but knew she was in good hands.

The next couple of days began with an icy wind outside, sleet on windshields, and gray skies. This seemed more appropriate than sunshine-yellow days. When we got to the hospice center on day two, things had changed, much like the weather outside. Mom started seeing things – babies in the corner, a little cat on her bed, a young girl by the doorway. We could not see them, but she could. They brought her comfort. It was as if she had one foot in our world . . . and one foot in another world. She hadn’t gone there yet, but the journey out of our world was beginning.

This day also brought laughter. Mom kept talking about the naked men she was seeing. I asked, “Are they good-looking?” She didn’t answer, but I think they must have been because she kept mentioning them. We chuckled about the naked men, and wondered what this meant. Angels? Guardians? Guides?

She also wanted ice cream. Since the heart attack, she’d only eaten a small cup of Jello, but on this night she wanted vanilla ice cream. Leanna fed her, and she raved, as if this was ice cream made by angels. “That’s the best I’ve ever had,” she said. “Leanna, that’s the best thing you’ve ever done for me.” Then she asked for a second bowl.

Though we all sensed a change, we didn’t know what it meant. Just that she was closer. She would call out, “Oscar, come and get me.” She would look in the corners of the room, seeing . . . something. She would tell us it was a fine day to die.

We told her she could go. We told her we loved her and that we would be okay without her. She told us over and over that she loved us. Whenever someone would call, she’d say, “I love you” and delight to hear their voices. We called her sister, Clarmond, and they said good-bye to each other, then talked about the bad weather coming to Boise, as if it was any other day. We reassured her the pain would soon end.

And we sang. When Melody and Richard were there, we all sang together. Hymns mostly. We would take turns choking up while our voices faltered, but the music kept going. We were the worst choir in history, but still we sang. We were pretty sure Mom could hear. Some of the hospice workers came in to listen. One told us she wanted to be in our family.

With each day, it seemed like Mom was more in the other world than in ours. She would come back occasionally, make a comment or notice that we were there. But mostly, she slept, lulled by morphine, while her breathing worsened and her body filled with fluid. We patted her hand and sang some more. We ate cookies and chips and listened to Ethan serenade her on his bassoon (including the theme song from Lawrence Welk). We watched, wiping tears and not knowing what to do, knowing we could do nothing.

It's an odd thing to watch someone leave the world, but it was obvious that’s exactly what she was doing . . . or had done. She was just waiting for her body to catch up with her soul. We did what we could to ease the journey, clasping her hand, holding the phone to her ear when people called, keeping a vigil.  

Those of us keeping vigil talked. We laughed at times. We worked on computers and checked messages on phones. We always had one eye on her, alert to facial expressions, conscious of her rattling breathing, aware of imperceptible motions. We were ready to do    . . . what, we didn’t know. We just knew we didn’t want to leave. Sometimes we sat in meditative silence. We wanted to be there. We knew we couldn’t do a thing. We knew she’d be fine in the gentle hands of the hospice nurses. But we wanted to be there with her. Needed to be with her, for ourselves, if not for her.

The day she died – four days after entering hospice - was a bright, sunny day. Of course, as we walked into the center, we didn’t know it would be her last day. We didn’t know what we would find.

When we came to her room, she was barely conscious, with a few exceptions. She roused briefly for a phone call or two. One was her granddaughter, Jenna, who called and sang to her. A tiny tear puddled in the corner of her eye. She also roused when she saw my son, Bryce, who’d flown in from Salt Lake. When he walked into the room, her eyes flitted open, and she smiled – just for a second - her big, ebullient smile. “Bryce!” she said, clearly surprised, then added, “Well, I’ll be darned.”

The day proceeded like any other, as we watched, waited, and listened. Her breathing was slow, but people leave this world on their own unpredictable timetables, so we didn’t dare to predict or plan. We discussed whether we wanted to be there when she went. Was that important? We felt like she was already somewhere else – exactly where she wanted to be. Almost.

Midday came, and we all went to lunch. It seemed an ordinary thing to do, but I still remember where we ate, and what we had. After lunch, we rushed back to hospice. We sat at her bedside and watched her breathe. Each breath was an effort, and the pauses between breaths shortened.

Still, I thought we had more time. But we didn’t. She took a breath and Robert, my husband, said, “I think that was her last breath.” My sisters and I said, no, surely not. But he was right.
We called in the hospice nurse, and she listened to Mom’s heart. “She’s gone.” The nurse’s voice was small and calm, barely above a whisper.

I think back to her words often. Yes, she’s gone. But is a mother ever really gone? Or does she live on in the actions of her children and grandchildren? She taught us all how to live. She taught us practical things, like how to sew on buttons and frost a cake. More important, she gave us gifts of faith, confidence, and the exquisite joy of knowing we were loved.     

As this new stage crystallizes, I wonder about so many things and ask myself questions. Was I kind enough, during these past years when the challenges of age became oppressive and ever-present? Could I have done things better, complained less, spent more time with her?

Of course, the answers are all over the map. I would be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling occasional frustration the last years at an endless line-up of doctors’ appointments for an ever-growing list of maladies, irritation at comments I deemed judgmental, or the challenge of scheduling caretaking duties into a busy life. But I mostly remember the good times. 

There are mostly good times. I remember sitting for hours in our living room, talking about the news from church or the latest presidential election, chatting about ordinary problems and happy events, and catching up on family gossip. I remember adventurous wheelchair hikes in Rocky Mountain National Park and glorious drives through golden mountain aspen every autumn. I remember picnics at a local pond, Sunday-night dinners, and more celebrations than I can name here. I remember her singing along with Lawrence Welk on Saturday nights and listening to Dr. Oz on weekday afternoons. I remember her caring – always – about every single member of our family.

These memories are a balm to me now. It is never easy to say good-bye, but the end of a life brings reflection on how life is lived. My mom is gone, and it is my turn to live on. I try to do so, with joy and grace, remembering the lessons she taught me. Everyday I’m grateful for I had a mother who showed me the path.  

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Robert and I just returned from a fantastic trip to the Mediterranean. We loved Greece, with the ancient Acropolis, the Parthenon towering over the city. We marveled at Greek Orthodox churches and loved the friendly people. 

In Cyprus, the ancient mosaics amazed us, along with roaming cats wherever we went. Croatia was beautiful, with the spectacular sea organ (a musical instrument played by the ocean). However, Israel was the country that may stay with me the longest. 

Since I was a tiny tot, I have heard about the Sea of Galilee and the River Jordan. I've listened to Bible stories about Jerusalem and Nazareth. Now those places are real to me. 

This is one of my favorite aspects of travel - when a place on a map becomes a living, breathing place. Israel is now in that category.

And what a feast for the senses it is! Beautiful, white limestone buildings, bearded men in black coats and hats, golden domes. The evocative chant of the Muslim call to prayer while bells peal from Christian cathedrals. The scents of piquant spices and lamb roasting on the spit. Rough, ancient bricks and uneven stones beneath our feet. The tastes of saffron, crunchy falafel, and fish from the Sea of Galilee. 

The next time I'm in church and I hear a Bible story, those sights, sounds, and smells will come back to me.   

An African choir singing on the Mount of Olives


Bethlehem

A forgotten alley in Nazareth

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Glorious October




I agree with Anne of Green Gables, who said: "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." 

I love October. Every year I look forward to the blazing orange, red, and yellow colors that decorate the mountains, walking trails, and yards. I start baking pumpkin pies, savoring their cinnamon fragrance as they bake, and the mix of pumpkin and sweet whipped cream when we eat them. I’m thrilled the first time I put on a jacket, happy to leave behind the soggy heat of summer.  

Who needs spring when you have October? It is rich with beauty and accomplishment. The year is almost finished. There is a certain maturity inherent in October, a satisfaction in a job well done . . . or at least having survived and made it another year to enjoy the spectacular views.