How Does She Keep It Together?

I am reminded this afternoon of the plight of other family members, two with cancer and facing extended treatments with chemo and radiation, isolation and stem cell something or other and one with a troubled heart. Their cancers are different from mine. Each cancer is different. Mine occurs in certain types of cells, like the ones that line the bladder. It is well researched and the doctors seem to be able to predict it’s movement and progression. There are three of us now, different locations, backgrounds and experiences but all with a type of cancer. I suppose some families are never touched by this scourge while others have it heaped upon them. With Mom’s rapid decline and passing just last year the ravages of the disease in any form are still fresh in my mind. As I go I have come to appreciate the incredible courage she displayed throughout her final few weeks, from her conversation with Jeff to her last day of consciousness.

Mom loved the convertible

The overwhelming desire to ‘keep it together’ is keeping a cap on the increasing strain between loved ones. As the day of the next exam draws nearer the strain will increase. It surfaces in odd ways. She becomes compulsive about the garbage bags he is stealing from her stash for the men’s room. Yes she has a garbage bag stash. With varying size baskets and dedicated locations for recyclables garbage bags are not a cut and dried issue in the house. Hard to believe I know. For his part, he is desperately trying to find something to be irritated about. Oh she can push him to a momenentary eruption, but it is so exhausting it simply isn’t worth it. Takes days to get over. At this stage the extreme codependency makes time apart not feasible. So they go, rising each day, he at 5 or before and she at half past six or so. Life goes on.
I am trying to grasp what it would be like to be in her shoes. Her life mate has a disease. He has suffered in her arms. She has heard him cry out in the night. She has lovingly dressed his wounds and attended him, fed him, wrapped him, comforted him day and night, night and day. At her hand he regains his health but remains in the shadow of the disease. Their lives forever changed by new routines the disease mandates they go on. She sees him and remembers the doctors words ‘incurable’. She wants to cry out the pain is so hot and deep in her core but she does not in front of him. Just thinking about it and writing this makes the pain of it all excruciating. Thank God for her friends and daughters who show great love for her and stand close in support.  I am forever in wonder of this woman of such great grace and strength.  I am the lucky one.

Joys Of Summer

Saturday morning and we are up late by our standards. A late date last night as our honeymoon summer full of dates and doing stuff continues. Jared and Jocelyn have been great contributors to this cause and we are (I hope) comfortable companions. The arm swelling is consistent with my gym workouts and is not getting worse or better. I still have that lymphedema feeling in the arm and am using MLD and elevating it when the feeling reaches the point where it is uncomfortable. Felt good enough to take out the new kite around mid afternoon. Life is good.

Prayer For My Brother

Getting closer to people exposes you to their vulnerabilities, their pain and suffering as well as their happiness in the same fashion that yours is exposed to them. I never knew my Brother was in the physical condition that he was in or that he suffered to the extent that he did and does. To see him in tears is so heart wrenching. He is my rock and he gives me strength. Please Lord, let nothing happen to him.

Losing It Again

Lost my handicap placard. Oh no. I have learned to take advantage of priority parking thank you very much. My early onset of halfshiemers has given me the forgets. Now what was I saying? Oh yeah, so two days of searching for it turned up nothing. Vanessa tried everything from gentle interrogation through hypnosis to tying me to a chair and placing me under a harsh light, still no recollection of what happened to it surfaced. Then on Sunday Morning I had a flash. Laying in bed it came to me. I laid it on the front of the console. No doubt, that was it, I could see myself doing it.
First laying in bed in and of itself is a wonder that all should appreciate and savor for a moment. There are many who cannot lay down and let their frame settle. They live with it the way you live driving around on worn out tires. You work at it every day and driving is a chore. Then finally you put on new tires and the car drives like it was new. You lived with a condition for so long you forgot what it was like before the condition existed. Human nature. When you sleep sitting up long enough you rarely think of laying down. Anyway they say 13,000 engineering hours went into the redesign of my pick up truck, and they left a gap between the console and the dash, and the shell of the console stands above the hump it straddles. Now they thought as they looked at their monitors that having a tray right there at the front of the console would be really handy. Occupants could toss their change, cards, nick nacks, jewelry, handicap placard or whatever there conveniently. So if you can imagine anything handily placed on the tray at the front of the console might very well slide into the gap and tumble into the dark crevices and cavities under the console. I can certainly picture engineers from Purdue pouring over screens and studying dimensions and angles to make sure the truck cab was a perfect ergonomic fit. Surely it was distressing for at least one of them that after all those engineering hours they missed the trap left for lost valuables. It was one of those you wake up thinking about it things. No sooner was I dressed than I step dragged myself out to the truck. I pulled the plastic of the console away from the carpet a little and out tumbled three ink pens and a couple of business cards. From the driver’s side a sharpie, pen, small post it pad, restaurant menu tumbled out. Closer inspection revealed a glimpse of the placard lodged under the console at the front. A quick plan of attack after careful examination and out it slid into my hand.
Remembering Dad’s trick of tying the garage door key to a 2x4 to prevent me from pocketing it, carrying it off, losing it, leaving it in the garage or failing to return it to the house I put a stylish fob on the placard too big to fall into the void. It now resides clipped to my man bag (it’s not a purse).
It is what it is.

Wonder And Shadows In The Room

September 20, the date hangs over us. Nine Twenty, the day when we find out what our plans will be. Will we prepare for surgery and all that goes with it? If that is the case will it go well, or will I have tubes hanging out of me for months? We don’t know. The other way, new spots or spread, not operable, in which case maybe a new chemo recipe, radiation, who knows. Playing the odds to extend life a little bit longer.
It’s a shadow in the room. We see it sometimes in each others eyes. A couple of times we sort of joked about ‘if I was gone’ or ‘if she went before me’. The pall of my mortality stands in the house. We look through it, we look around it, we try not to look at it but it is there. A towering pillar between us dark and foreboding.
I look into those eyes and I see the same eyes I saw first in the shadows of a room full of people the spring of 1972. Smiling blue eyes, the love in them, the brightness in them and sometimes the sadness in them that I see now more often. The fear that she will be a widow. Something I did not want her to be. Something that is likely my fault if it happens.

Past Life Memories And Present Friends Make My Day

Ah once again I can revel in the hidden blessings of the disease. Accepting lymphedema as a permanent handicap means I can say I have no issues at present. My friend from a previous life Dan called just to check up on me. I hired Dan into the business around 20 years ago or so by now I guess. I think he was still in his late teens. Today he is an honorable and sometimes formidable competitor. That is how it goes. You make your best competition in business the longer you are in business. I have done it several times directly and a bunch more indirectly and am proud of every one, even the ones that separated on less than ideal terms due to circumstances at the time. In other words historically as a boss I made mistakes and was sometimes an asshole.
Dan and I talked for a while about family, business and our adventures. As always we synced up pretty quickly, talking comfortably as we did when we were coworkers even though it has been some time since we spoke socially. Back in the early days of his career we covered a lot of miles as I worked to help him grasp the scope of what we do for a living, the difference between generators and doers, the conflicts between sales and accounting and the honor and fun of serving Customers externally and internally. I learned to be careful what to feed him, but even my most strident efforts in this regard were more often than not a vain attempt at tempering his digestive processes. He could clear a room or cause you to stop the truck and run for cover. What great laughs we had and still find that common bond all these years later.
Saw my friend Jon today. We got to sit and laugh for a few minutes in his shop then Customers and calls pulled him away. First time I saw him since the sickness started. Wish I had more time to spend, it was a great visit. Seeing him working in his shop, watching his easy manor of supervision over the poor b that hired on has as his day help (must be a tough job, not much tenure in the position) I sensed that he was living his dream at least in part. And then thinking if Dan I realized he was living his. How fortunate I am to be in the presence of such fortunate friends.
As for me today, a hovel is happy if it is home.

A Snickers Event

September 2 at 6 AM and I finish my coffee and a few back issues of some journals I enjoy I am met by Snickers at the entry to the dining room, meowing fervently and blocking my path. Snickers is a long hair something that even when perfectly stationary is producing a fine cloud of dander flying everywhere. In alert mode she extends her significant coat out to make herself bigger. Such was her profile as she looked up at me and loudly meowed. Of course at this hour of the morning I know the game. I started it by doing it once, and she has us repeat it occasionally. I think she is polishing the routine so she can train her Mother. I said OK and Snickers led me to the utility room door, I followed her in and she jumped up on the water softener, a 30” tall affair with a flat top where her bowl is placed. I stepped up, she turned to me, I began the dutch rub on her back just up from the tail and told her what a fine animal she is and how lucky I am to have her. She then turned and buried her face in her breakfast. This is the only time in our daily routine when Snickers allows my approach, I can even lay my head on her back during this game, a move that would only mean puncture wounds and hard feelings at any other time.
I continue to experience an increased sensation of edema in my left arm. It is a tingling accompanied by an ache deep in the limb, a tired stiffening kind of ache. We took measurements for baseline yesterday to see of it is edema or just a reaction to increased gym activity. I pray it is the latter.