Tag Archives: cancer

January 4, 2021

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Today was my first day back to work since December 24. I can’t say I was thrilled, but in a way, it’s always kind of nice to get back to a routine. I worried that after a week and a half, I would have an overflowing inbox that was impossible to get through. While it was definitely full, I got through everything by the end of my day. Success!

I have to say that today I am grateful for my job. It’s often frustrating and not overly exciting. It’s not very creative. I miss the physical interactions with people and get irritated with the overload of emails some days. But I’m one of the lucky ones that was able to move, almost seamlessly, from in-person work to at-home work when the pandemic hit. And I’ve been able to continue working from home ever since. Because of my health situation, I imagine that I’ll be able to continue with my current set-up for the foreseeable future, which helps take the added anxiety of a compromised immune system down a notch. I won’t have to leave the house for anything besides doctor’s appointments if I don’t want to. I also have supportive coworkers and really great insurance. And did I mention that week and a half off for the holidays?

It may not be my dream job, but I know I’m lucky to still have a job while so many people are struggling, let alone a job that allows me to maintain a safe environment while I’m working through this illness. My heart goes out to folks who have lost their income source because of the pandemic, or who must continue to put themselves at risk, regardless of their own health issues, just to survive financially. I’m not sure what I would do if I had no choice right now but to go into a building to work with a lot of other people. I’m thankful today I don’t have that kind of hard choice to make.

January 2, 2021

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Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com

When I was about 8 or 9, my family saw both Jaws and Piranha one night at an outdoor theater. I spent the next week or two deathly afraid of the bathtub. Or any puddle of water deeper than an inch. I always had a rather active imagination, and as a child, my imagination regularly worked against me. My dad, who was an engineer, finally sat me down one day and forced me to consider in detail the error of my thinking. How could something as large as a shark make its way through small pipes and into our tub? Staring into the light of logic, I had to admit that it couldn’t.

I’ve always had a comfortable relationship with my body. For a modicum of effort on my part, I expected it to get me through every day as I saw fit. If I wanted to spontaneously dance, I would. If I wanted to run through the snow with the pups, I would. If I wanted to push a piece of furniture from one room into another, I would. But when the call came that the biopsy of my left breast showed cancer, I immediately felt like my body turned against me. I lay in bed at night and inched my arm away from my side. I wanted my turncoat breast to stay away from other parts of me. How dare it defect? I did nothing but support it since it showed up 40 years ago. In some weird way, I felt like I didn’t know myself anymore. Where else was the cancer? Every issue I’ve had in the last 5 years became suspect. Every otherwise normal ache and pain became related. I felt like dead woman walking. It’s then that I heard my dad’s voice from so many years ago telling me, Melissa, you are your own worst enemy.

It’s funny how our minds can control us in such powerful ways. I’ve always loved being imaginative. Being creative brings me joy. However, I’ve been reminded regularly throughout my life that being stuck in my head can work against me. I don’t think I’m alone in that. Focusing too much on a problem doesn’t necessarily solve it. Sometimes it just makes it worse. While I believe that I’m intelligent and resourceful and a problem solver, I also know that sometimes I need to stop listening to my own voice and instead listen to others who can maybe see something differently than I.

I started this blog again as a way for me to look out. To get outside my head and look for the moments in my day that are more worthy of my attention. I asked others to join me in this gratitude journey as a way of sharing what I was going through and maybe helping someone else along the way look for their own moments. I didn’t expect to hear so many, many words of encouragement, support, and strength. Today I’m so very grateful for all of your voices. They helped drown out my own.

January 1, 2021

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Photo by Disha Sheta on Pexels.com

Wow, last year was a long one, wasn’t it? I think most of us will agree that it’s going down in history as one to forget. All that quarantining. All the social distancing. Like most folks, we started our hunker-down by taking up new hobbies (puzzles or bread making, anyone?) and thought all the home time would be fun and cozy. We finally remodeled our main bathroom, doing almost all of the work ourselves, putting in a walk-in shower to make it easier to bathe the dogs. Priorities. Patrick expanded his garden. I taught a couple of online classes. We were both able to work from home and continue to do so.

Of course, like everyone else experienced, the novelty of being homebound quickly faded and the reality of what was happening in our world was sobering. We were constantly grateful to avoid getting sick and avoid losing people we love like those highlighted in the news. We missed our interactions with family and friends and still do. Although we are typically homebodies, being forced apart has taken its toll. There have been some long and lonely days. I miss my kids. I was able to see them only briefly for a few days during the early summer. I likely won’t get to see them in person for many more months. I miss our families, whom we’ve really mostly seen online all year. I miss a lot of things.

I turned 50 in November. Patrick, who hates large gatherings, was actually hoping to throw a surprise party, but that didn’t happen. We celebrated the milestone like most of our days, home with the dogs, eating some good home-cooked food. Patrick has become quite the gourmet chef. I got a couple new power tools and some fantastic gifts from my friends and family. Fancy wine glasses and flowers and candy. And then the day after my birthday, I found out I have breast cancer.

Needless to say, it’s been an extra difficult ending to an already difficult year. The last six weeks has been a tornado of doctor’s appointments and an overload of information I never wanted to know. Unfortunately, my cancer is the uncommon type that is difficult to spot. That meant that the initial finding of about 1/2 inch spot showed up just larger than 2 inches on an MRI. That also changed treatment options and the timing of them. This past Monday I had surgery to remove lymph nodes and put in a chemo port. It was harder than I anticipated. The reality of this has set in and I’m now afraid in a way I wasn’t before. I worry about what’s coming and I worry I’m not strong enough.

This is why I begin this blog again. I need to refocus. I need the hope and optimism that I know is out there. 2021 isn’t going to be a lot better for us. The chemo I’ll begin next week will compromise my immune system and make it even more necessary to quarantine. Even quick shopping trips will disappear. It’s going to be tough. So what am I thankful for today? That I’m alive. That breast cancer is treatable. That so far, it looks like it hasn’t spread any further and I won’t have surgery again for months. That I have someone by my side who makes me stronger. That I have family and friends who have been amazingly supportive since they heard the news. It’s a new year and if 2020 taught us anything, there is still so much good can still be present amidst the rotten. I’ll be looking for it.

November 13

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I found out tonight that a good friend of mine was just diagnosed with breast cancer. Cancer. I hate the word. One dictionary entry says it means something evil or malignant that spreads destructively. I think that sums up the disease accurately because it seems to be everywhere. And it’s not just a physical thing; it’s pervasive in all aspects, mentally and emotionally as well. Show of hands on who’s been affected somehow by cancer. I have a hard time finding someone who hasn’t been. In fact, my friend just lost her father-in-law last year to cancer. She lost her mother to cancer. It sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s a horrible thing. When I think of it, it makes me sad and angry at the same time. And helpless. What do you say when someone tells you this? I told her I was sorry. I told her that it sucked. I told her I loved her. And you know what she said? She was going to stay positive; she wanted no sad faces, only happiness and laughter. So there you go. This world is full of battles. We all have one, and it’s really about how you fight it. My friend has cancer. But it doesn’t have her. I’m thankful for that.

June 1

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Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have turned 67. I would have called him like I always did to say happy birthday and let him know his card was in the mail, late as usual. He would laugh and say, well, that’s no surprise honey. It’s late every year isn’t it? And I probably would have said something about breaking traditions. He would have then reminded me how much he loved getting a card more than a gift.  We may have chatted a bit more before he passed the phone to Mom. And that would have been the most of Dad’s birthday celebrating. I’m sure the conversations were similar with my sisters when they called. He was simple that way–no fuss. Sincere in his love of getting nothing more than a card. I wish he were still around for many more birthdays. He deserved a lot more. But I’m thankful he is no longer suffering from his cancer. I’m thankful he died before his Alzheimer’s progressed to the point of forgetting all of us, for he would have hated that. And while I miss him, I’m thankful today that I can still hear his laughter in my mind. Happy birthday, Dad.

April 8: Dad

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My dad died today. My sisters and mom and I sat by his bedside all night last night, listening to his labored breathing, holding our own breath every time he stopped too long between gasps. He never woke up. So we chatted amongst ourselves and cried intermittently and finally, around 2 am, requested pillows and blankets and tried to sleep on wooden folding chairs. There’s something exhausting and guilty-feeling about waiting for death. The constant wondering if the next moment is going to be the last one together. Just after 5 am, when it was just my mom awake by his side, my dad simply stopped breathing. My mom said she had just told him he didn’t have to hold on any longer. He could go, and so he did.

I have to admit that when I first got the call yesterday that my dad had taken a turn for the worse and maybe wouldn’t survive the day, I didn’t want to go back to the hospital. It wasn’t that I had just made the three-hour drive back home, it was that I didn’t really want to face it. I wasn’t sure I had the energy or the strength to watch my dad die. But then I knew that whatever I felt didn’t matter. What was real was that the man who spent his life taking care of me and my sisters and my mom would be gone within hours, and I had the privilege to be there by his side. No matter how much it would hurt to see, this was a gift, to say a final goodbye.

I’m thankful my dad was a Christian. He believed that he was headed to a better place and had absolutely no fear of death. I know that made his final days easier for him. And I’m sure he was looking forward to seeing the many people he had lost in his almost 67 years: his own dad who died too early in his 30’s, his mom who suffered from Alzheimer’s, his brothers, his son, his best friend. It must have comforted my mom also, allowing her the strength to tell him to go to the others she believed were waiting for him.

The world lost a wonderful man today. A man with a hearty laugh and a deep love for people and animals and the Lord. A man of strength and honor and commitment. A man who loved my mother and her children as his own. He was my stepfather, but I never thought of him that way. To me he was always my dad. I’m thankful he entered my life so long ago. And I’m thankful I was there when he left so peacefully this morning.

April 7

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It’s not surprising how the end of someone’s life brings family together. In the last few days, I’ve been able to see my aunts and a cousin whom I rarely see anymore. Not because we don’t want to see each other, but because we don’t live close and it’s difficult. I’ve also gotten a chance to see my sisters who are scattered across the country. We’ve had a chance to reminisce a little and catch up. I’m thankful for the closeness we share, even across the miles that usually separate us. When someone you love is getting close to leaving this world, the important things tend to emerge. I’ve been reminded once again that life is short and death is the only certainty. What we do on our way to the end is the important thing. Live while you can. Love gently but fiercely; live passionately but with dignity; forgive and move on. In the end we only have each other.

April 5

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It’s been another long day. There’s something about hanging out in a hospital that’s draining. Another one of my sisters drove in to visit. There was a point when all of us were in my dad’s room at the same time. Seven of us chatting while my dad dozed. At one point he roused with a bit of a groan. My mom quickly asked if he wanted water or something else. Peacewas his reply, with a roll of his eyes. Apparently, he didn’t like our chatter. We took his grumpiness as a good sign; he was a little more lucid today.

That also gave us the confidence to leave him to rest alone for a while. We were able to visit with my mom and help her figure out some immediate plans for after he’s released from the hospital. We met with a hospice nurse who was an absolute godsend. She was knowledgeable and extremely comforting. I think it helped my mom to know that she’s making the right choices for my dad. We are all thankful for that.

April 4

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My kids and I visited my dad in the hospital today. My oldest sister and niece were already there. My dad has trouble staying awake, apparently typical of the stage he’s in with the liver cancer and the after effects of tests done today, so my mom woke him up to tell him that we were there. When his eyes focused and he was able to see us, he whispered to my mom, how lucky can one guy get? before drifting back to sleep. It makes me cry to think about. I’m thankful that he isn’t in pain and that the weeks left will most likely be more difficult for us than for him.

April 3

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It’s been a difficult day. But I’m thankful for the friends who have checked in with me and offered support one way or another. Life is so unpredictable; that’s why living, truly living is so important.

My dad is back in the hospital, only this time they found that it is cancer again. It’s spread throughout his body. It’s hard to talk about or even think about right now. As with anyone in this situation, it seems so unfair. But I’m going to travel there tomorrow to be a support for my mom if nothing else. I’m grateful I live close enough to do that.