Day 13--Youth Center

I'm typing tonight's blog at the Youth Center in the city where I live.  I've signed up to volunteer one night a month to "chaperone" middle school students from 7-9 and and then high school students from 9-11.  It's not really chaperoning since I get to play pool and ping pong and Kinect with them.  These are good kids....full of energy....full of life.  I think I may wish I could volunteer more than once a month!  Gotta run....someone just challenged me to a rematch at ping pong.........yeah, I'm pretty amazing!

Day 12 -- The Node Wars

I was reading another cancer survivor's blog the other night.  She talked about how our semantics for cancer usually involve combative terms such as battle and fight.  She instead suggested living a peaceful co-existence w/ the cancer.  I believe we all have small amounts of unhealthy cells that, when given the proper environment, become cancerous and invade healthy cells thereby gathering an army determined to take-over our bodies.  I agree that we must learn to co-exist w/ cancer, but first we have to regain the upper hand, regain our foothold on a healthy life.  And to do this, we must go to war.

I am at heart a pacifist.  Being too young to protest the Vietnam War, I instead watched my brother be drafted into it.  And when the next war came along, I was old enough to march and rally against our involvement in the Middle East.  Here in the States I was fighting my own war against an employer who wanted to restrict my wearing a black arm-band and a father who couldn't understand my need to wear it.  Sometimes wars are necessary for freedom or reunification, and sometimes it's necessary to go to battle against cancerous lymph nodes knowing that they cannot be eradicated but controlled.  Here in the U.S., we are famous for wars that can never be won.  Our war on poverty still rages.  Our war on drugs is never-ending.  The beginning of our war on terror just celebrated its 10th anniversary.  Perhaps instead of attempting to beat these enemies into submission, we should beat them back far enough to where they can no longer harm us. 

When Mom was given a two-year prognosis, she vowed she would fight.  Ask any soldier and she'll tell you that a two-year deployment would be mentally and physically exhausting.  What if the patient soldier pushes her enemy back halfway and bids it to cross no farther?  She may live to fight another day.

Day 11 -- The Cancer Club

When I had renal cell carcinoma in 2004, I kinda felt guilty for only having surgery and not needing chemotherapy or radiation treatments.  When I would tell people about my cancer, I'd quickly add that I also had a brain aneurysm at the same time just to make sure they knew I was sick enough.  Sick enough to warrant membership in some imaginary Cancer Club.  A club of honor where people proudly wear colored ribbons.  A club my mother belonged to three times over and didn't need chemo or radiation until her third form of cancer.  In my mind the only true cancer survivors were the ones who had survived these toxic treatments.  Last night at the high school volleyball "Pink Out" night, cancer survivors were given a pink rose. I carried it proudly as I wore my pink hat w/ my survivor pins and ribbons.  I think my membership is secure.  Does this mean I'm turning into an elitist?

Day 10 -- Random Opportunity for Caring & Kindness (ROCK)

While walking the dog this morning, I met a woman who was first walking one direction then abruptly turned and walked in the opposite direction.  This act of confusion caught my attention and then I noticed she was carrying a plastic Fareway bag w/ a cookie sheet, a bottle of Mt Dew, some yogurt, and what looked to be the remnants of a HyVee deli bag of chicken.  As I got closer I noticed she was crying and clearly distraught.  She spoke first, "Does this town have a taxi service?"  "Pardon me?" I responded, uncertain if she was addressing me even though I knew we were the only two people on the street.  "Does this town have a taxi service?" she repeated.  "No. Where do you need to go?"  After learning that her destination was a couple of miles away and the skies threatened rain, I told her that I'd drive her there if she wanted to walk back to my house to get my car.  Over the next seven blocks, I learned that the woman she was living with had kicked her out, and that she suffered from chronic pain and migraines.  I used my best empathic listening skills and just let her talk.  (I must point out here that I'm not completely altruistic since I used this example in class w/ my students since we just happened to be talking about empathic listening today.)  I gave her what little money I had in my wallet and told her that if it hadn't been for a kind woman at a petrol station in Grindley Brook, Staffordshire, England, last summer, my brother and I would still be standing there.  Relying on the kindness of strangers has to work both ways, whether you're the native or the stranger.

The caring of friends also goes a long way too.  Tonight at my daughter's volleyball game, I told a woman about my Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma (NHL) diagnosis.  She said that's what her mother had.  Her mother's been gone now eight years.  I'm used to the fact that when you tell people about a disease or illness, someone inevitably knows someone else w/ that same disease or illness.  When I had a brain aneurysm seven years ago, every other person I talked to knew someone who died from a brain aneurysm.  I must've looked shocked when this woman told me her mother died six-and-a-half years after her NHL diagnosis b/c she went on to tell me about the three different clinical trials that her mother had been adamant to participate in.  The last of the trials was w/ Rituxin, which basically removed all the cancer from her body and would've put her into a more permanent remission if her kidneys hadn't failed.  Her last medicine is the first medicine I'm trying nine years later.  This woman that I never knew cared enough to be part of a study that has come to help me.  Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, I have a better chance of beating NHL or at least surviving longer.

Two or three years ago I wanted to start an organization known as ROCK (Random Opportunities for Caring and Kindness) where average people see someone in need and help that person meet that need.  I failed miserably w/ my first attempt when I stopped at a house and offered to paint their playhouse in the backyard.  The wife hadn't discussed it w/ her husband, and when I returned w/ paint and brushes, he gruffly told me to leave.  I pushed too hard, too aggressively.  Caring and kindness can't be forced on people, but today reminded me that random opportunities do arise for us to make a difference in the lives of others.

Day Nine -- Great Grandma Annie

I don't think I could've crammed any more living into this day.  After teaching three classes, holding office hours, and spending five hours w/ my younger daughter and other friends at a volleyball tournament, I've decided I didn't waste any minute of this day.  In my Mourning Glories blog, I think I mentioned that my great grandmother, Annie, kept a journal from the late 1880's to the 1930's.  Most of her entries involved her daily activities, much like this blog is doing, as she dealt w/ Crohn's Disease.  Well, at that time they called it tuberculosis of the bowels, b/c Dr. Crohn hadn't put his name to it yet.  Despite usually feeling quite tired, she still managed to bake and sew and cook and clean and tend a garden.  When she says things like, "I didn't accomplish much today," but then goes on to list the four pies and three loaves of bread she baked, and the clothes she ironed.  But every once-in-awhile she tells stories of how the doctor removed her older daughter's tonsils while the little girl sat on her lap at the kitchen table, and how the neighbor lady committed suicide leaving a husband a several small children.  I think Mom gathered strength from her grandmother's journals, especially since she never got a chance to know her.  I hope that if God feels it's necessary to call me home before I get to meet my grandchildren that they'll come to know me and their great and great, great grandmothers better through my blogs. 

Day Eight -- Dad's Birthday

I ended my whirlwind weekend at my dad's to celebrate his 86th birthday.  I left early from my brother's house so I could go to church w/ Dad and make sure everyone knew it was his birthday, which meant informing the minister so he could announce it from the pulpit.  The birthday wishes he got from his fellow church members made his morning.  I'd like to think that my presence made it too, but I'm never sure w/ Dad.  But I know I'm just as guilty......we neglect the ones we love the most.  Well, I'm not sure it's neglect.  I think my family sometimes takes one another for granted.  We assume and expect one another to be there, and don't always enjoy and appreciate their presence.  At the age of 86, Dad is learning to see the presence of friends and family as the best present.  I'm trying to learn this lesson a little earlier since I may not see 86.

I'm feeling fine today.  The lymph node on the left side of my neck continues to shrink.  It was somewhat bothersome this morning, but right now I don't notice any discomfort.  The lymph nodes under my arms are causing a little discomfort w/ the one on my left being worse.  I had some slight lower back pain just as I was leaving Dad's this afternoon, but the three-hour drive home and the three Ibuprofen seemed to ease it.  It was the kind of pain that catches you off guard and drops you to your knees.  Not sure if this has anything to do w/ the Rituximab.  It could just be the three-inch-heeled boots I was wearing today.  My chiropractor would definitely say the latter.  Sitting on an ice-pack when I got home certainly helped.

Day Seven -- Third Infusion

I had my third infusion today.  They again suggested increasing the speed of delivery to 90 minutes, but I still wasn't comfortable w/ that rate.  It was probably the nurse telling me that a side effect of the Rituximab (Rituxin) is convulsions.  Yep, convulsions.  I do remember reading about that in the materials Dr. Inwards gave me a month ago, but I was trying not to focus on that.  Well, for fear of shaking uncontrollably, I asked if we could arrive at a happy medium.  So after two hours, I left the infusion therapy center tremor free. I have my last infusion next Saturday.  I think I'll feel more comfortable with a 90-minute infusion then.

I was more tired after this infusion and took a three-hour nap after returning to my brother's house.  The Benadryl they give me before the infusion always makes me tired, but this time it didn't really hit me until several hours later.  It could, however, be that this past week was especially busy, and my body just needed to recharge.  My lymph nodes seem to be in less of an uproar these days, but I had more night sweats last night than I've had before.  I'm going to all these as positive ways my body is expelling this illness.