Day 16 -- Getting Back to Normal

The lymph node in my neck is back to normal size.  The node above my left ankle is normal and no longer feels like it's bruised.  Crossing my arms over my stomach is no longer uncomfortable.  I got a little winded climbing the hills yesterday, but tonight playing tennis, I was running after balls like I was 27 rather than 47.  Now I wait.  My next CT is two days before Thanksgiving.  My biggest challenge now will be to keep myself up mentally, emotionally, an physically.  My students will help w/ the mental part; my friends and family will help w/ the emotional part; and my love for an active lifestyle will help the physical.  My prognosis is good. 

Day 15 -- Breaking Point

Today was a perfect Autumn day........clear skies, bright sun, no bugs.  I went for a three-hour hike at Fort Defiance State Park, found a lovely spot next to the creek, and wrote this poem:

Breaking Point

If I yell, "Uncle," will it stop?
Will She stop testing me?
I shouldn't have thought it.
Back in seventh grade confirmation class,
I asked, "God, please don't test me."
I had never failed a test before,
And this one was worth a lot of points.
My soul.
For 27 years She obliged,
And then She tested me with cancer, a brain aneurysm, and a child with Crohn's Disease.
My faith held.  We survived.
Five years later, She tested me again and took my mother.
My faith held. I survived.
Two years later She tested me again with another cancer.
Now I struggle with my faith everyday.
Each morning I wake with a hope that dissipates with the light.
How much more can I take?
At what point will I break?

The river finds a way.
Over a stone
Under a log
Around a bend.
The sun finds a way to
Burn through the clouds
Rise in the east
Set in the west.
I must find a way
Back to my faith
Forward to hope
Away from the breaking point.

Day 14 -- Final Infusion

I had my fourth, and hopefully, final infusion today.  They sped this infusion up so it only took about 90 minutes.  I must say, "I handled it brilliantly!!"  No side effects.  All lymph nodes that had previously been in an uproar have been silenced. I feel fantastic.   Three of my dear tennis friends went with me so of course we had to have lunch and do some shopping afterward.  Friends, food, and fun trumps an infusion and reminds me that the upcoming two months waiting for my next abdominal CT will be more easily borne.  This cancer is not a life sentence.....wait, actually it is.  It's a conviction and constant reminder to live.  I am very blessed, but I seem to need constant reminders to enjoy my life.  When I was sick in 2004, I heard a voice in my head telling me I was being given a second chance.  I knew I was cured and for the next several years felt a renewed vitality for my life.  These past two years, however, have been difficult w/ the death of my mother and my divorce, and I lost my zest for living.  I'm regaining my gusto and realizing that everything does truly happen for a reason.  Seven years ago the brain aneurysm led the doctors to the kidney cancer.  Now, seven years later, my checkups for the kidney cancer led the doctors to the lymphoma.  The hand of God is at work in my life........that's a life sentence.

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.