Join us on the chemo train, won't you?

Taken last week...

How much do you guys hate the Real World San Francisco cast after looking at that picture all week? Could've been worse...could've been Las Vegas. (Does anyone beside me even get that? Has anyone---besides my sibling---watched this show in the last 10 years?)

I just want you to know that every single day I am writing blog entries in my head. Someday, when handsfree thought-to-page technology is developed, I will be extremely prolific. Until then...

So, here's where we stand: The last two weeks have been among the hardest since my mom was diagnosed in February. The pain and vomiting have increased and for a few days it was so bad that she didn't leave her bedroom. As I write this though, she has taken an upturn and is presently sitting at her kitchen table with her sister and a friend of theirs from Pelham, NY where the three of them grew up. I am elated to be able to report that. I don't know what tomorrow will bring and the days certainly do vary, but if she can get a visit with loved ones in, she's still living a life.

She did end up doing chemo last week. After weeks of saying she was done with the stuff, a gut feeling ultimately had her choose otherwise. During the drive to see the oncologist on the day she made the call, she asked my dad and me if we would be "terribly disappointed" if she decided to continue with the chemo and we, of course, told her we would support her no matter what. The bottom line is that her oncologist said that she thinks it's her disease causing the pain and the chemo could help. Since the pain cropped up before the last big dose of chemo that was administered during her hospital stay and also continued afterward, there really seems to be no way to know what is what. A gut feeling is about as close to a definitive as one can get in this game, it seems. Oddly, I too, had a strange change of gut regarding the chemo. I've probably been the most skeptical of anyone regarding this course of treatment along the way (though I've learned that all there is to do in this scenario is follow my mom's lead rather than asserting my opinion). Even when she was in the hospital and the doctor gave her the three months or chemo ultimatum, I questioned whether she should go forward with it. But in the weeks following, I felt something shift in me and I felt myself leaning towards continuing with the chemo (though I didn't really voice this either). My mom came to it on her own; it was what she felt she needed to do.

Now, one could argue that this is how any cancer patient or family member is talked into chemo; when the alternative is to do "nothing," of course a person would find a renewed faith in chemo or any treatment for that matter. I recognize that it could be my desperate desire to have more time with my mom that subconsciously shifted my stance. Maybe the same goes for my mom. But what can you do? Time nor certainty are luxuries we are afforded, so you do the best you can. Do I ask myself every day whether I will have regrets regarding the decisions we have made? Yes, every single day I question every single thing and imagine the sickness of regret that will undoubtedly show up, but the only choice is to make impossible decisions while trying to discern whether time or quality of life is of the essence.

But, the idea of the current chemo treatment is to alleviate symptoms and I have thrown myself behind my mom and that plan. May this treatment shrink her tumors and may shrunken tumors make her more comfortable. Please, please, please. Prior to my mom's diagnosis I questioned the idea of palliative chemotherapy. I thought it a torturous measure demonstrating our culture's inability to accept death as a natural part of life. But, again, when it feels like you're out of options and everything is on the line, you do what you, I've since learned. Still, if I'm being honest, having witnessed how sick my mom is as a result of the chemo, I'm not sure it's something I would do were the cancer mine...specifically lung cancer. I should also state here that there are obviously many stories of people (including lung cancer patients) who have had success with chemotherapy and I certainly am not trying to minimize or discredit that. However, with stage IV lung cancer, chemotherapy is not considered a curative measure which is why there is such debate regarding whether its side effects are worth the benefit. We're banking on the benefit at this point. The goals now---it will probably take at least one more session before we know if it's working---are pain management and also keeping my mom eating (despite the vomiting) so that she can maintain her strength. They upped her meds yesterday and she's been pain-free all day, a huge feat, and also hasn't been sick since this morning (and thus kept two cups of soup, some fruit and a little jello down) which is also huge. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

A nurse from the local Visiting Nurses Association came to the house today. My mom is enrolled in what they call "bridge," which is a bridge to hospice program that suits her needs since she is currently not considered end-stage but has a "terminal diagnosis." A nurse will come twice a week to assess my mom's health and help manage her meds as the combinations may change as things go along. I liked Carolyn very much and feel glad that my mom will be getting this kind of consistent care. Still, when I really think about the the fact that she's in a pre-hospice program (which I try not to do), the stark reality of everything sets in and I want to scream "How the fuck did we get here?"

And then I change the subject because there is another focus of life right now and it's not to be overlooked; that is celebrating my mom and helping her to enjoy each day as much as she can. Such words are the stuff of graduation cards and self-help books, but it is a literal goal we are all trying to help her achieve (and still I---and probably you---strive to embrace that one need not be facing death to work towards such a thing). And there have been wonderful moments. Last Friday night, most of my sisters (and a couple of husbands and a nephew) made it to the house for a big Italian dinner around the dining room table, a bowl of spaghetti passing between hands. At one point when I was taking the trash out, I could hear the sports announcer from the high school just up the street providing a play-by-play of the Friday night game. As I lingered in the darkness, the voices of the crowd and later the band carrying over the quiet of the fall night as it had when I attended that high school, and my sisters before me, it felt like a different time, another life.

I was bone tired as we sat and talked around the table after the meal, having been at the hospital all that day for chemo. My mom, plenty of sedative drugs still in her system, was closing her eyes at the table.

"Mom, do you want to go lie down?" I asked her.

She looked around the table at everyone and then gave me a smile that said she was grateful for my concern but also not interested in taking my advice.

"Not yet," she said tenderly.

And I got it. She rather be asleep at that table than anywhere else in the world.

That's the plan we're really supporting.

MTV smut has its value.

This was the first cast that hooked me...and it's been helping me avoid my problems ever since. Thank you Bunim/Murray. (I just read that Mary-Ellis Bunim, co creator of The Real World and Road Rules, died of breast cancer at 57. Huh.)

You guys, I know...

But would it make it better if I admitted that the reason that I'm not writing a lengthy post right now is because I need to watch Real World New Orleans on my sister's supah Cable while Molly, the niece's pieces, is at gymnastics?

Long story short: Last Friday, instead of staying put in NH for the weekend as planned, I ended up speeding down to RI after having a conversation with GiG on the phone and hearing the struggle in her voice. As I headed down 95, I actually found myself praying, "Please let me see her one more time. Please let me see her."

And, of course, I got to and, of course, I will again. She had a rough week though. Lots of pain, lots of throwing up, lots of hair loss. One night I woke at 3:30am to find her sitting up on the couch unable to sleep due to the pain and the two of us stayed awake watching movies and waiting for it to pass, which didn't occur until nearly 12 hours later. It's excruciating to watch someone you love in that kind of pain...I can't even imagine how hard it is for her. Chemo was called off last week and tomorrow's appointment with the oncologist will likely determine whether it's called off for good. She has some good days and some terrible ones, but the big decisions are still looming. That's the CliffsNotes version.

Right now, however, I'm up in NH watching Mol while Bec is on a trip for work. It makes my world that the kiddo still asks to sleep in the big bed with me when I stay over. As much as she kicks, I love waking up and seeing her in the middle of the night and it's always fun to play house and do the breakfast, ponytail, send the nugget off on the bus thing. I just dropped her off at the gym, a place I first took her to five years ago when she was only three. Then, I had to hold her hand and walk her down the stairs in order to get her to join the rest of the class. Now, while she waits for class to begin she pretty much ignores me in an effort to up her badassedness ranking within the gymnastics community. (I totally get the move, though I expect that in a few years time---at the most---she'll realize the riches of cool aunt with which she is spoiled.)

So, that's the story.

The true story...

The Real World: Incompetent Blogger

Prescription Television

The white streak is dried Fluff. Ben. Der.

So, the picture above sums up why I haven't been blogging. I've been in a spoonful-of-peanut-butter-and-pile-of-chocolate-morsels-in-a-bowl-kind-of-place. I got back from RI on Monday night after several emotion-dense days (which may or may not have been influenced by PMS...same goes for the chocolate and peanut butter binge) and it was just too much to narrate at the time. That just seems to be how things are feeling lately.

As I type, just to catch you up, my mom is enjoying a nice getaway in Chatham on the Cape with my Dad. She's been vomiting steadily and her pain came back with some intensity, but after managing it with medication, my parents decided to skip town. She seems to be fighting a bit of cold (hopefully, that's all it is) so I'm not sure whether chemo is in the cards for this Friday, though whether or not my mom will opt to continue treatment is still a topic of much discussion; a discussion that my mom, dad and I sat tearfully around the table talking through while I was down there; a discussion that, sitting outside it for just this minute, I can't believe we are in. But, right now, she is taking in an ocean-view and I have retreated to my couch and decisions are second to life.

I find I'm beat when I get back to NH after my visits to RI. I have a cold sore (and, perhaps, a second one on the rise), what feels like a sty coming through (sexy, I know) and that scary tickle of sickness in my throat. (And just so we're really clear, every time I fall off the nutrition wagon as I have over this last month---EVERY. TIME.---it ends in illness.) So, I'm trying to recharge and treatment in this case has come in the form of back-to-back episodes of Mad Men. I had never watched this show (crappy cable, remember?) but we pushed through the first season in less than 24 hours and are just starting its second (via Netflix). Dan and I were both hesitant, skeptical of the hype as we often are, but it's a fantastic show. While feminism and sexual freedom are practically synonymous with the mid to latter half of the 1960s (and have been depicted to death on TV and in movies), Mad Men look at the sprouting seeds of these themes in the early 60s (and under the poodle skirts of women everywhere). It's a orgy of cigarettes, adultery, repressed homosexuality, alcoholism, sexism, sexiness, sexual awakening, sexuality in advertising and all the other makings of any seedy underbelly...I could write like 15 high school essays on this show. (All of this takes me away from cancer for a minute. We tried to get into the show Breaking Bad but as its main character is afflicted with terminal lung cancer, it didn't exactly provide the same service...and I had to shut that shit right off.)

There have, however, been other EXTREMELY IMPORTANT things going on.

First, and I can't believe I've been holding this one back, the neighbor is moving out. (I did it, guys. I pushed her away to save her from further hurt later on.) I got the news from another tenant in our building. (The one whom I once saw packing rifles into the trunk of his car...not to be confused with the one we saw skinning a deer outside our kitchen window. Two totally different people.) He also told me that our landlord's sister will be moving into her place which feels kind of like I'm getting stuck with the room next to the chaperones during the eighth grade Washington trip. I haven't crossed paths with the neighbor in weeks and at this point I'm hoping she will slip away silently in the night so we can avoid any awkward good byes and empty promises to keep in touch. Though, I do have a Bodyguard-like scene playing in my head where, instead of stopping the plane, she puts her Hyundai into park, and runs out to give me one last hug before driving away. (By the way, she's only moving to Portsmouth, so the chances of our running into each other again in life are pretty strong...what if I find out where she lives and this sick little game continues...it would be for my art!)

The second big piece of news, and I'm sure you're all aware of this by now, is that The Oprah Farewell Season has begun! That means I only have 127 chances (episodes) left to get on. (I'm okay with debuting on her new network though. I've gotten comfortable with the idea.) I have to say, I like the feel of this season; very nostalgic. I'm weak for depressing music and video montages so Ms. O is doing me just fine so far. I'll check in on this matter as the season progresses.

Other than that, I'm just breathing in the fall air and getting on with it. Splashes of reds and yellows are showing themselves in the trees and Dan has already started rolling out the fall menu: last week it was the creamy chicken and rice soup, this week it's "stained glass windows": a confection which involves rolling melted chocolate and mini marshmallows into a log (and rolling that in shredded coconut) and then freezing it. When you slice the log, the chocolate circles and marshmallows have the appearance of stained glass windows. Delicious, of course, but isn't it a little early for holiday baking? As I say this, I am noticing the makings for fudge sitting on my counter. God give me the strength.

Dan is home and Don (Draper) is calling my name (though it should be said that the red-headed secretary is the hottest one on the show and this is not me being biased...) so I am off because

If I should stay,
I would only be in your way.
So I'll go, but I know
I'll think of you every step of the way.

And IIIIIII will try to blog soon.
III will try to blog soon.

In joy.

Great night tonight. Mattie's in from Cali and he, my mom and I spent the night talking and eating outside on this very cool, very fall night. We started with coffee and tea on the back deck and then moved on to warm bowls of Dan's famous creamy chicken and rice soup. (Good batch, bud!) After that we headed down to the river and had hot chocolate while watching fish jump for bugs as the sun set. We didn't walk back up the yard until after dark and then the three of sat eating chocolate heath bar cake (yeah, the cake) and chatting some more.

I know I'm a slacker in these parts, but it's felt good to just step back for a minute. Gig is doing really well this week. Despite throwing up every day (which she says she doesn't really mind as she's "good with throwing up...") she's logged some time fishing at the beach with her grandson, visiting with friends and family and even gardening out in the yard.

Big decisions coming up---to chemo or not to chemo---but for now she's just enjoying the minutes. And we're all enjoying her enjoying them.

And nobody enjoys like Gig...

Hurricane season

eh...

It's storming out. My parents are watching a movie in one room and I'm in another typing and listening to an all 90's music station. Were the music not coming from the TV, I'd swear I was in eighth grade again. ("The Humpy Dance" just followed Whitney's "I'm Your Baby Tonight"---both from '90---and there's a dance party goin' down in my heart right now.)

When I originally decided on hurricaning it in these parts, we weren't sure if my mom was going to be out of the hospital and Dan was going to drive down from NH today to hunker down with me. Turns out she's home, of course, but Dan has a pretty bad chest cold and with my mom's immune system jeopardized by the chemo, we all thought it best that he stay put. (At this point she's considered to be "nadiring" which means her white blood cell count is on its way down. The idea is that it drops to its lowest point about 10 days after treatment and then starts to build back up, hopefully reaching a healthy level before the next chemo treatment.) By the time we got it all settled, it was too late for me to drive back up, so hopefully we both live to see each other after Earl---the hurricane that wasn't---romps through. (I didn't want anyone to get hurt or for anyone to lose their home or even for anyone to lose power, which is just so annoying, but I really wanted to be walloped by this hurricane. I just really wanted it to finally happen.) So, although I had a great "hurricane party" with a couple of sisters, mom and nephew today, I feel a bit like a kid without a license right now hanging alone at my parents' house on a rainy Friday night.

(Oh God, Wilson Phillips "Hold On"---thank you modern-day cable!)

So, I really loved hearing what some of you had to say in regard to my question of whether or not you would tell anyone if a doctor told you that you had three months to live. (If you didn't comment, feel free to chime in.) I hope those of you who responded don’t mind, but I’m going to repost your notes here rather than responding in the comments section.

Matthew said...
I would sing it from the mountain tops!!! And ask everyone to come dance with me. That is exactly what I would want to do. DANCE.

Allison said...
This news sucks but I have faith! PS---I would want people to know as well!

Mart said...
Yes, I think I would tell (I hope). Telling heals.

BFYNM (and just to clarify BFYNM is a friend of my sister Bec's whom I've never met, though between the blog and our Facebook encounters, we've decided we're soul sisters. That's where Best Friend You Never Met comes from. I hope I didn't betray our friendship by telling.) said...
I would tell every person I have ever loved. I am a control freak, so being able to say what I need to say is critical for me. I recently worked for a woman who was diagnosed w/ terminal lung cancer. She told NO ONE. Even while she was going thru chemo (w/hair loss) she paid astronomical amounts of money for wigs so people wouldn't know. She felt the cancer made her weak. I completely disagreed with the way she handled it, but I respected her choice. It was disturbing to have to explain to people after she was gone what happened & how long she battled in silence. She confided in me, her two children, her sister and select few friends but not nearly the amount of people that loved her. No one got to tell her what she meant to them. No one got to say goodbye. She regretted the choice at the very end and I think some of her friends were deeply hurt.

So, each of these responses really had me thinking.

(I did NOT know Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch were behind "Wildside" mania! My beloved Mark Whalberg! I would doot da doot him in a hot minute. I know these asides are totally inappropriate but I can't help it...my brain is picking up two frequencies right now. It's seriously like hearing two radio stations overlapping...)

Mattie would "DANCE!" He would use his last months to enjoy and celebrate life. This is, of course, assuming he was healthy enough in mind and body to do so. Or maybe he would seek out the gift no matter what. (Knowing Mattie, he would find it.) Before all this, I think I would have answered similarly. Maybe after all this, I will. All I know is that prior to experiencing this kind of illness in such an intimate way I would have had a "Live it up!" gut reaction, but right now, as much as I am savoring every minute with my mom, nobody in my family feels like dancing. (Though, today we all watched a movie together after a big lunch so maybe that's a version of dancing.) It got me thinking about how it takes a three-month deadline (oh god, no fucking pun intended) to allow us the perspective/permission to DANCE! in that capital letters, exclamation point kind of way. Even as I sit inside this, learning as I am about the preciousness of life, I find myself sweating the small stuff and feeling like I should be working harder. What the eff is that about?

Allie would want people to know too, but I thought the interesting part of her response was that she still has faith. First of all, Al, thanks. We all still have faith, too. But the layer of it that I found interesting was the doubt implied by this faith; the questioning of whether or not you would even believe a doctor who said such a thing or would have "faith" in your maker or yourself or science to disprove such a prediction. When I posed this question to my sister Cherie today she said she probably wouldn't tell because she wouldn't buy it. She's a firm believer in the power of the mind and thus believes that focusing on life versus death would bring more life. And while it may be easy to raise an eyebrow at this kind of thinking, I've read plenty of stories of people who were given months and took years for themselves, in part because they never accept their prognoses. Faith or the Law of Attraction, I get their point. (And, Allie, Boys II Men are on right not and I CANNOT listen to these guys without thinking of you. Do I remember their poster on your wall?)

Mart wrote that "telling heals" and, God, do I believe that (and am grateful to her for saying so because that's why I'm still showing up here during this whole thing). Telling heals. Truth heals. These are words by which I try to live and write. This is the idea of accepting what is. I felt a strong sense of shame after posting the update the other day; like it was something I should have kept private, barely admitting it to myself, much less anyone else. But it is THE TRUTH. I could have buffered it (and have on this blog before, I must admit) and said simply that things had taken a hard turn but GiG is still smiling (which she still, somehow, is). I could have left out the part about the prognosis (and I really battled with myself about whether I should have) but it was a fact that seemed integral to the story. And, much more important than "the story," it is something that I know my mom's loved ones would want to know and which she wants them to know. And why? Why should such a sad reality (and, believe me, I am not convinced the prognosis is reality though the conversation with the doctor was) be passed on? Well, I can't totally know that yet. I don't know how this telling will heal. I don't know what experiences or conversations my mom will or will not have or even why she was okay with people knowing, other than it is the truth of what went down this week. But I do know that I've witnessed my mom brave fronting her way through conversations to protect her friends and family and that it's been a great relief when she has finally been able to express her true feelings, fear and all. She and I have had some very honest conversations during these past six months and when I am not hating this all so entirely, I am aware that I have enjoyed some of the richest moments of our relationship in this time. Telling heals.

(Um, Free Fallin' is on which I so appreciate, but it's from 1989 so I'm not really sure I'm okay with the theme straying.)

This also speaks to what BFINM meant was getting at with her story, which absolutely floored me. That must have been an incredibly thought-provoking thing to witness. Whenever I've seen it depicted on television (anyone into the Big C, yet?), people not telling, I've always thought it wasn't accurate. Nobody could really do that, I thought. And then to hear that this woman really didn't tell anyone other than immediate family (and what was it like for them?)...I can't imagine it. I understand the inclination towards privacy and even the intense discomfort some feel about receiving sympathy from others (best case scenario...worse case scenario is the stupid shit people say) but I guess I just feel like all hangups would get hung up when placed against the backdrop of limited time on earth. I would just want to connect as honestly as I could with those I love at that point, and that would involve telling. (And, of course, blogging about the entire thing which is actually the first thought I had on how I'd handle it. It would be three months of writing, reading, seeing movies and coffee dates with everyone I love. I think I may have just discovered my life's ambition.)

(Oh, jeez, "Janie's Got A Gun"---a song I friggin' love and had a joke about in my standup act all those years ago; something about Delilah playing it for one of her heartsick callers---but which is also from '89. WTF?)

I was really blown away by that story and then was further rocked when I got a call from Dan the other day, which started with him saying simply, "I wouldn't."

“Wouldn’t what?”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone if I knew I had only three months to live.”

“You wouldn’t?”

He went on to explain that his inclination would be to go off somewhere alone to whither (I think he even said whither) as he wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.

“You don’t think it would hurt more for people to lose you so suddenly and to learn that you didn’t tell them that you knew it was coming? For them to not get the chance to tell you what you mean to them?”

He saw my point but was still unsure. He told me he had thought before about how if anything like this ever happened, he would do something that would make me so angry at him that it would end our relationship and I'd be a safe distance from the heartache of losing him.

“Oh, you’re one of those...” I said, adding that, while I understand the push-people-away-for-their-own-good mentality, if he ever did that to me I would hate him forever...or at least be eternally broken.

It’s a discussion he and I will have to go back to but I’m still pretty shaken about this being his first instinct. (And am also sort of wondering if he’s going to have an affair someday and then say he’s dying in an effort to get away with it...Answering like he did to that question, nothing could surprise me now; there is a part of that man that is still a stranger.)

(Okay "Ice Ice Baby" just warranted a volume increase. 1990. I was 9 and learned every word of this song because all the kids were talking about it. By the time I learned 'em, everyone hated Vanilla Ice. I have no regrets and can give a concert-quality performance whenever the song comes on. Word to your mother.) (It took 'til about eighth grade to finally realize that I would always be behind the curve when it came to music and just binged on Broadway forevermore.) (This was after my "Smells Like Teen Spirit"---now playing; 1991 though I was a post-Kurt fan like all the other 14-year-olds---headbanging phase.)

We returned to the conversation for a bit today and he said, "I actually feel differently after reading all those [your] responses...It could be a happy thing."

"I know you don't want to hurt anyone, but people would want to celebrate you."

Blowing his nose and mustering his best I-have-a-cold wimper, he said, "You should be celebrating me now because I'm not sure I'm gonna make it."

He kids but, of course, we should be celebrating each other more. (He should definitely celebrate me more.) It's an interesting idea to think about anyway. (A great conversation starter during dinner parties with the Mr. and Mrs. Lame-ass from next door.)

While I obviously know my mom's answer to the question of if she'd tell, I haven't yet asked her what she'd do with those three months. Hypotheticals are fun...not so when there's a risk of reality.

I hope that I don't seem like I'm being callous. I am utterly aware of the seriousness and emotional hell of all of it, I just think this is how I cope. I intellectualize the hell out of stuff, or so I was recently told.

There's just too much to feel, I guess. And now I realize that this is another question entirely. While we can all imagine what it is that we'd do if told we only had three months to live, it's another thing entirely to think about what it is we would feel.

Maybe that's the real question I should be asking my mom.

She's not there anymore!

I'm telling you: Best. Nurses Ever. (Though the action in this shot is somewhat staged.)

It's not so much a roller coaster right now as it is a Freefall (to speak Rocky Point, the amusement park of my youth), followed by the haunted mansion with its moments of levity and an understanding that at any moment something will be popping up to scare the shit out of you.

That's the state of things right now. Yesterday morning I was shifting gears from deciding to stay put in NH for a few days to bombing down to the hospital because a gut-check told me it was the right thing to do. When I got there my mom looked very sick and very tired. Today, her pain finally managed and after the first good night's sleep of the week, she looks and seems much, much better. She is back home tonight; a moment of levity.

I wanted to be sure I posted this as soon as I could because I think yesterday's post may have caused some panic among my mom's loved ones (and understandably so). Five days ago when we heard the news that you all just got yesterday, I was panicked. She was panicked. (Yesterday morning, we were all still panicked.) But today, GiG is looking better and is certainly on an upswing. As my dad said, "Today doesn't look like a good day for dying." (You have to laugh or you’ll lose it.)

It doesn't erase what the oncologist said, it doesn't change the fact that my mom has cancer, but hearing her voice getting stronger today, seeing her color return, watching her get relief from pain, changes the way it all feels. Today, she doesn't look like she's dying, she looks like GiG. As my dad wrote this morning when I asked how she seemed, "Like mom---happy, upbeat." I just wanted all of you who have written to know how well she’s doing today. If you didn’t know she has cancer, you really wouldn’t know she has cancer.

Comedy arrived as we readied to leave the hospital this afternoon. They asked us if we would be interested in taking some pictures with some of the nurses (the best nurses on the planet) for a future brochure/mailer they are putting together about the hospital’s oncology program.

“Will there be a fan?” I asked, freshening up my lipstick.

Turns out when they asked the nurses which of the floor’s patients they should do the photo shoot with, all the nurses said, “Jeanne” (my mom’s real name), without hesitation. After three hospitalizations, my mom has built a relationship with every one of these women (and Eric the lone male RN whom we adore) and the photographer was shocked to see that there was such a warm rapport amongst us all that he need not conjure it as he had expected to for the photo. If we end up in any brochures, you can bet I’ll post it here. The whole thing was a friggin’ riot and the fact that my mom is so loved by the staff is just so representative of who she is; she loves and is loved back wherever she goes.



Here's the first shot we took with Patty, Nancy and Juliette (whose permission I didn't get to publish these photos...or their names...and am hoping is okay...and legally sound).



Had to include this one too because who's holding whose hand now? Huh? Huh? But in Juliette's defense (my girl crush is massive in this case as well), the photographer instructed us to do some hand-holding, which explains why my mom is getting in on the action. You'll be happy to know that I played it cool and acknowledged the awkwardness of it as soon as the photographer said it. Also, because I was a "bottom," the let-go (which is, of course, where catastrophe lurks) was not up to me, which is I think what saved me from another pinky situation.

Though we really will miss those guys, it's always good when she leaves. She belongs in her home, no matter the storm heading in.

It's bizarre how different it can all feel from day to day. I was watching the weather report with my sister Cherie tonight and we were saying how strange it is to see that tomorrow is supposed to bring the kind of chaos that warrants coverage on every news channel and preparation by the masses...followed by days and days of calm and sun. That’s how today feels with my mom seeming so much better. The storm that came with the words “three to four months” has settled into brightness...it’s never as bad as they say it will be, right?

An overdue update

Oh, this is a hard one to write. I probably wouldn’t even do it if I didn’t feel like I need to correct an erroneous earlier entry. It wasn’t my error---or, I suppose, anyone’s really--- but we’ll get to that. The point is that I have bad news and last time an unfavorable turn occurred ---when we learned that the cancer had spread to my mom’s right adrenal gland (that’s lung metastases to both adrenal glands for those keeping count; when she was diagnosed it was just in the left lung and left adrenal)---I didn’t write about it here. I skipped over the details of the day one of the early CAT Scans showed that not only were the chemo treatments not working but things were getting worse and surgery---the “cure” for lung cancer if there is such a thing---was no longer an option.

It’s much easier to write that GiG is persevering (which she is as best she can) without having to describe the changing reality. I mean, we’re all persevering to some extent aren’t we? Isn’t that what we do? So I could write that she is trying to keep a positive attitude and we’re all hoping for the best or some other from the list of bullshit platitudes (that, from what I can tell, are for the benefit of the recipient versus the person struggling with illness) and leave it at that. It’s the truth. It’s a version of the truth. (It’s probably the version my mom would give you were you to get her on the phone.) But while it might feel good to tell myself that version here, I don’t think I’d be doing myself---or anyone reading this who’s hoping to learn a thing about one person's genuine experience of cancer---any favors. My sense is that versions of truth---that is, half-truths that promote untruths---in such scenarios, only cause further confusion and potential pain.

Enough with the preamble: Despite what I reported about the PET Scan showing no trace of a spread, a CAT Scan done afterwards, contradicts this completely. More masses have been seen at the base of my mom’s lungs, the tumor on her right adrenal which was thought to have disappeared is still there, the left adrenal tumor which was said to have shrunk actually grew larger and there appears to be a spread to her renal artery and nearby paraaortic lymph nodes. (For those who, like me, forgot some of eighth grade biology, the aorta extends from the heart through the torso, so it is the lymph nodes near the aorta but close to the kidneys---renal (equals kidney) arteries extend from the aorta---that are affected; I had to study some anatomy charts to get it.)

Worse still, when this news was delivered Saturday morning it was accompanied by a warning that if she did not start chemotherapy immediately, she would have only three to four months to live. (I was not there when the doctor said this though my dad reported it that morning. I texted my mom after I heard to tell her I would be leaving shortly for the hospital and she, not yet knowing that this news had reached me, told me not to rush in and to instead enjoy the sunny day...)

I should also note that in response to this last piece of info, my mom’s expressed sentiment was that nobody can know how long she has as God is not amongst the professionals discussing her prognosis. She actually laughed that anyone would try; a display of my mom’s signature (and remarkably astute) perspective on life even at its darkest. Her laughter in this moment was a great comfort to me as I sat at the foot of her hospital bed (expecting to be the one to comfort her though not having the faintest idea of how to do it).

She took the chemo Saturday night in her hospital room and slept through most of it while Dan and I watched a movie on my computer in the corner under some extra blankets that the nurses (the wonderful, wonderful nurses) brought in for my oft-freezing sisters and father who have been in and out all week. The pain that brought her into the hospital is getting worse and they have not yet been able to figure out where it’s coming from. She’s also been throwing up daily.

Yes, my mom is persevering, but I can’t pretend things aren’t at their hardest right now.

As you can imagine, were there not loving that needed doing, there would be paralysis.

But I’m not talking emotion now. I just felt like I needed to deliver the facts since the state of things has shifted so much since I last wrote.

Oh, there is one emotion I’ll give voice to: Anger. One might think that double-checking---that is performing the requisite tests needed for utter clarity---would be in order before telling a person definitively (fuck, excitedly) that her cancer has not spread. One just might think that.

Apparently (and I am still pretty whipped with confusion), the PET scan measures tumor activity while CAT scans show images. Oh, and there’s something called a carcinoembryonic antigen level which has decreased, a supposed indicator of the effectiveness of the treatment and a decrease of the cancer’s virulence. To translate, the cancer is diminishing in power and thus less likely to spread...and also spreading.

There’s no sense to be made of things yet and my feeling is that there won’t be. I know my cynicism is a mask for emotional ranges and depths I don’t yet feeling like traveling, but I’m sticking to it (even though my mom has warned me my whole life against choosing cynicism as a go-to perch from which to view the world).

I came back to NH on Monday night to attend some appointments but I’m readying to head back down now. (Would you believe in the midst of all this I had to have a small chunk of my shin removed---stitches and all---because a biopsied freckle came back “severely atypical”? All is well and I am grateful to my dermatologist for the catch...hopefully I’ll get to post some pictures.)

This morning I had a teeth cleaning at the dentist’s office, an appointment I thought about canceling but figured would be best to just get done. The hygienist and I got to talking (no hacky dental joke here, we actually somehow had a conversation) and when I mumbled, in response to her question about what I’ve been writing lately, that “my mom is sick...cancer,” she stopped what she was doing, looked in my eyes and said simply, “I get it.” She lost her mother and an aunt who had become like a mother to her, both to cancer. Indeed, she got it. She told me a little about these women, her story was in some ways a very positive one, and there we were, two people having a genuine connection though it probably looked to anyone else like just another round of idle chatter at the dentist’s office.

As I headed out the door, she said, "I'm going to give you a hug," and did (and I was positively grateful). “If you ever want to talk, you can always call. I know you don’t know me well but I’m here. Really.”

Getting in the car, I couldn’t help but think that God had arranged that little rendezvous. (Did I mention she comes from a family of four girls?) I know God’s been making Her way into the conversation a lot lately---believe me, it surprises me to be talking spirit so publicly---but it felt to me like it had been prearranged; a Divine shove towards connection that I so needed.

I suppose I’m not as cynical as I like to think. And who do I have to thank for that?

(Will try my best to keep you posted.)