More Test: Chapter 27

The second half of August was to be filled to with more test; like bone scans and X-rays which means more doctor visits. I had another appointment with Dr. O'Brian, it started out just like any other visit to the cancer center; a hunt for a parking space, check-in, write a check, have blood drawn…wait. The doctor came in to the waiting room to get me and we both jogged to her office. She told me that I had healed enough to discuss chemo treatments. Part of me wanted to put this off as long as I could the other part of me wanted to get the chemo over with.
Remember I had stage 1 node-negative cancer, so after the surgery there were not any cancer cells left in my body to spread…in theory, but my doctor wanted to give me ‘just in case’ chemo called ‘adjuvant chemotherapy.’ There is a big debate going on as to whether or not a woman with stage 1 node-negative cancer should even have chemo. The treatment can save some women’s lives, but for others it has no effect, the problem is right now doctors don’t know which group is which, so they want to give the chemo to almost everyone. Breast Cancer Activist Rose Kushner, the woman who did so much to improve Breast Cancer treatment, didn’t like adjuvant chemo and fought against it becoming standard treatment. When her cancer returned after nine rears in remission, she refused the chemotherapy treatment. Many women will go through with the chemo because of the chance that it might help them. Others will refuse the chemo, but will try alternative medicine. Still there are the women who feel that the surgery is enough. Then, there is also radiation
Dr. O'Brian never mentioned radiation, she wanted me to have the chemo, she explained that even though it would be adjuvant chemo, she still recommended it. She told me that since I was doing so well that I could chooses between two different treatments CMF-Cytoxan (cyclophoshamide) methotrexate 5 fluoruracil or CAF, the difference between them is that the drug methotrexate is replaced by a drug call Adriamycin. None of which meant a thing to me. The difference as I understood it was the CMF would be given about twice a month for six months, there would be fewer side effects with CMF, I would feel less sick and I probably would not lose my hair. On the other hand, the CAF would be given every three weeks for three months, I would experience some side effects and I definably would loose my hair.
After our talk it was on to the examination room, I changed in to paper shirt while Dr. O'Brian washed her hands, then she examined me, A light down the throat, a tap on the back…
“Deep breath…” tap-tap.
“Again…” Tap-tap. I was thinking about our conversation, figuring that the chemo was in the future…the distant future, when I discovered an interesting trait about my oncologist. This woman is a person that you would want to play poker with because her eyes betray bad news. She was tapping here-checking there, making occasional eye contact when suddenly mid-conversation her eyes drop to the floor-then she said,
“You have a few weeks to decide about the chemo, I want you to make an appointment for early September.”
“WHAT, I have to decide so soon?”
“Yes, make an appointment for early September.” Oh, well. I guess it was time to use my library training and hit the books.
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It was late August so it was not a good time of the year for a mother to have to make a big decision. After all it was back to school time and there was so much to be done, so many purchases to make; like back-packs and paper, and markers, and lunches boxes and new shoes and clothes. And don’t forget one last trip to the Jersey shore. Who had time to read up on different kinds of chemotherapy, but read I did.
After researching the subject I decided that I wanted the chemo. I mean it’s not that I wanted the chemo, it’s just that I felt I had a better chance of surviving if I had it. Part of the reason that I wanted go through the process is because my mother didn’t.
Evelyn also had node-negative stage 1 cancer, her doctor decided to give her radiation instead of chemo, and then she took the drug tamoxifen. My mother was more afraid if the chemotherapy than she was of the cancer, I remember how happy she and my dad was when she was told that she didn't need it. Nobody knows if she would have lived if she had been given the chemo, I only wished that she had tried it. I decided that I wanted to use any and every treatment available; I was not giving up without a fight.
My sister Valerie sent me a booklet that she found on chemo. Being that she is in to New-Age stuff and alternative medicines I expected that the booklet would have me injecting some flower extract, or something equally as strange. I was wrong, the booklet she sent explained why a woman should consider adjuvant chemo, and that women that go through the process increase their life span on the average by 5% …I'll take it.

Dear Insurancy Company: Chapter 26

Dear Blue cross/Blue shield, why are you being so mean to me? This is how I wanted to start the appeal letter that I wrote to my insurance company. Up until now they had been pretty good, I mean they didn’t pay for every thing, but they were reasonable. I knew that fighting cancer was not going to be easy or cheap. Staying alive means endless hours waiting to see this doctor or that doctor. It means waiting to have this test or that test done, all the while being subjected to endless hours in waiting rooms listening to soap operas and games shows. I have always liked books on tape for when I drive, but now I depend on them to block out the sounds of bad TV.
Then it’s more hours waiting for test results, and just when it looks like you might have a few days rest THE BILLS ARRIVE, and the experts wonder why so many people being treated for a major illness become so depressed.
The only insurance that we have is through Mark’s job because my part-time job offers no benefits, so what ever his company gives us is it. Anyway back to my appeal letter, I was writing to appeal the cheesy amount of money that Blue Cross had paid for Dr. Asgari to perform the breast reconstruction surgery.
I should not have been surprised that the payment was so low; I had been warned from Lacy( the woman who handles the insurance companies in Dr. Asgari's office) that there might be trouble. You see Dr. Asgari might be happy with his adopted country but he was not happy with American’s HMO system (who is) so he refused to play. He was not a member of any HBO, when a person chooses him as their doctor, he-the doctor not the HMO sets the rate so a bill is submitted to the patient's insurance company and what ever they don’t pay the patient does.
It is the law in New Jersey that insurance companies must pay for reconstructed surgery after a mastectomy, what the law doesn’t say is how much they have to pay. So my insurance company felt that reconstruction should cost $7000 and they will pay 70% of that or about $4,900, not bad huh? Well Dr. Asgari charged $10,000 for his reconstruction surgery, so now I own the doctor over $5000 and I still needed the second part of the surgery done which will cost another $6000. So I was writing an appeal letter, hoping that the insurance company would pay a little more toward the surgery…they didn't.

Happy Birth Day Mom: Chpt 25

August 19 is a day that is always very hard for me to get through, because it was my mother’s birthday, and she would have been 72 had she still been alive. I always find her birthday and death-day difficult. I loved my mother very much, and I miss her terribly. Evelyn was born August 19, 1929 on the North Dakota plains, she was the second of six surviving children born to farmer and his wife. My mother survived the dust bowels of the plains, the depression, World War II, my father and four children only to be brought down by some broken cells that became cancerous. It’s not fair and I am still mad that she is dead.
Evelyn started life with many disadvantages; I remember her telling me stories about her childhood. Food was so scares that my grandmother had to sift the wheat to get the bugs out before she could use that wheat to cook a meal for her family (I usually heard this story when I refused to eat something that my mother cooked). Looking for work my grandparents moved to Detroit Michigan when my mother was 13, it wasn’t until this move from the farm to the city that my mother had access to in-door pluming.
My mom married my father when she was eighteen and had their first child a year later. My parents work hard and built a good life together. Mine was a happy childhood, filled with love and good memories. I mean I had the normal mother-daughter love-hate relationship, but I missed her every day. I thought about my mother all the time while I was recovering, it felt like she was right besides me helping me make the decisions about my treatment.
There is not a day that goes by when I don’t think about my mom, and wish that she were here to share my happy life with me. I feel cheated that she is not around now, I feel cheated for both of us. She gave birth to me and raised me, through the physical work of early child rearing and the mental work of my teens and my twenties. She did all the hard stuff and suffered all the pain of raising me (and it wasn’t easy). She is no longer here; I am not able to call her complaining about how my daughters are driving me crazy. She would just laugh and say,
“Sounds familiar” or “I got my wish for you to have a daughter just like you.” But we never get to have those conversations, I try with my dad, who is a great guy, but it is not the same. Even today five years after her death, once and while one of my girls dose something interesting and I find myself reaching for the phone to tell my mom, then the realization that she is not here comes to me and I hang up the phone and feel very sad.
There is not enough space to tell you all about my mother, but I would like to say a few things about her. She was one of a kind, even as a child I was aware that she was not like the other mothers, and I am ashamed to admit that as a kid this embarrassed me.
Joyce was born ahead of her time; she was intelligent and independent at a time when mothers (at least in my neighborhood) were supposed to play Suzie-homemaker. Yes, her house was clean (cleaner than mine is) and there was always food on the table, she did her wifely and motherly job. But when the other mothers were baking from scratch or sewing their children’s clothes or tending their gardens or gossiping over the fence, Evelyn had other ideas. She used Betty Crocker to make a cake and she bought all of our clothes, couldn’t be bothered with a garden and never wasted her time with neighborhood gossip. Instead she spent the very little spare time she had improving her mind.
She was always reading, a book, a newspaper, a magazine. When I think of my mother I think of her reading. When she died and my father asked me what things of hers did I want, I said that I wanted “The Red Books.” These books are a collection of classic writing, including Shakespeare, Longfellow, Dickens, Hugo etc. that my mother bought long ago.
Evelyn was not school educated, but she was self-educated, she wanted to know everything. Our house was filled with books on art, literature, history, my father was just as curious as she was, but for a man it was ok, for a woman suspicious. Here is a brief example of her knowledge. When I went back to college after Ronnie was born one of the classes I took was geology. One day the professor was lecturing on plate-tonics when suddenly I got a flash-back of hearing a similar lecture from my mother. How did she know about plate-tonics? I have no idea, but she some how knew about them because I had this memory of her telling me all about them, weird huh?
As a child I had wanted her to be like the other moms, sweating in the kitchen, attending PTA meetings, so on. Evelyn was also the only mother on my block that worked, she was a waitress/ hostess in a fancy restaurant, her working was very embarrassing…that was until the woman’s movement hit. Suddenly I had the hippist, coolist mother on the block. Evelyn didn't changed, the times did.
The fact that she died from the same disease that I was fighting makes the day all the more difficult. Why am I alive when she dead? Then again, at this stage in her treatment she was alive and doing very well. Will my body turn on me too? Do I only have a year or two left also? I was still angry about her death and fearful for my life at the same time. August 19 is always a hard day to get through, dealing with it while I was still recovering from my own cancer made it harder still.

You Gotta Have Friends: Chapter 24

In the mean-time my friend Alex called (remember Alex?) She had called me while I was in the hospital and I told her that I would call her back when I was feeling better. Well, I never called her back, I forgot, and now I had to apologize for being rude. I hoped that this incident would not hurt our friendship, because I really like her. Alex was there in the library the day I found out that I had cancer, so in a way she has been with me from day one.
Alex was the first woman that I met through the elementary school that I became friends with whose child did not hang out with my child. We became friends because we liked each other-not because our kids were friends, or that we went to the same Church or worked at the same job, we just enjoyed each other’s company and that meant a lot to me even if I didn't show it. We talked for a while then set a date for us to meet for coffee.
Meanwhile the parents of my daughter’s friends have also been very helpful to me.
“Do you want me to take the girls for a few hours?” they would ask. During the summer Ronnie’s friend Tina and her family went to the movies every Wednesday morning. The move theater at the local mall (a 20 minute drive) showed older movies (last years hit) for $2.00, at 9:30a.m. Sometimes they would invite Ronnie, then she will go to their house and play for awhile. Leah’s phone calls and invitations were as numerous as ever. Along with taking my child(ren) for a few hours, often the mothers come to my house to pick up the child(ren) and bring them back, this was a great help.
Other friends of mine offered to take the girls for awhile, but the girls didn't want to go. Only twice did we get them to go on an outing that did not include other children. One of these outings was a trip to Dairy Queen with Alice, a big hit. And the other outing is with Fran, one of my co-workers. She took the girls to a bird sanctuary and then a stop at Dairy Queen (Hey, if it works). Again the outing was a big hit. Mark and I try to get them out and about as often as we could, even when it is a play date with one of their friends it is a hard sell. The girls just didn't want to leave me, they wanted to hang out in my dark bedroom watch travel videos with me, or just talk. Like my guard cats they become guard kids.
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We worried that they are spending too much time with their recovering mother, but we didn’t have a solution for the problem. Once again my co-workers and church ladies solved the problem by giving us a membership to the community pool. I still don’t know who arranged it or who paid for it, but suddenly one day Paula one of my co-workers hands me an envelope that contains the membership. The community pool is actually three pools and a snack bar on an acre lot. There is a kiddy wading pool, an intermediate pool for the 5-10 crowd and a general pool with two diving boards. We have joined the pool in the past and the girls love going there, but we didn't get around to joining it this year.
So a few mornings each week Mark drives us there (I am not driving yet) he gets me settled in a chase lounges and leave, the girls look for friends and hop in to the pool. Soon we find our summer routine with me getting better everyday; I can participate in my daughter's lives more and more.
This was about the time when my life as a hermit ended, I like to be alone, a good book or a game of solitaire was my idea of having fun. First I used the excuse of going back to college (I got my B.A. in 1999) they I used the excuse of "The Children" for me not being sociable. I was able to avoid unwanted innovations or if I had to go to the event-to leave early because the "Girls" needed me. People didn't think that I was rude (I was) they thought that I was a "Super Mom." But, I found it hard to ignore people when they were tripping over each other to do nice things for me.
People were just being nice to me because they wanted to; also I realized that they were being nice to me because I let them. Unbeknownst to any of us, all this kindness brought me kicking and screaming out of my shell. I remember a phone conversation I had with my sister Joan about a year after my surgery she said something like;
"I like this new Traci, she is more fun-please don't return back to the old Traci." Funny, I thought I went in to the hospital to be cured of cancer, the surgery also seemed to cure me of being an introvert.

Home Delivery: Chapter 23

I spent most of the next day, watching videos and sleeping. Before I went to the hospital I checked out some videos out from my library. I brought home both fiction and non-fiction. I thought, here is my chance to lie around and watch movies all day, something I have always wanted to do but felt guilty about doing, you know Protestant work ethic and all.
I looked over the videos and realized that feeling as lousy as I did I was in no mood for heavy drama. I surprised my self by my choosing a travel video to watch. I spent my first morning home visiting Yellowstone Park; I spent the afternoon in the New Zealand countryside and that evening enjoying a train ride across Canada. I found the travel videos very pleasant to watch, another good thing about watching travel videos was when I fell asleep for a while I didn't miss any important plot points.
At about 4:45p.m. I s-l-o-w-l-y make my way down the stairs.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Mark asked.
“I want to say hello to who ever is bring dinner tonight.” I answered.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do!” To me it was very important to greet the person who was bringing dinner to our home; I felt it was the polite thing to do. Mark did not agree, he wanted me back in bed. Diane had asked me if I wanted to know who was bringing us dinner each night, I told her no, that I wanted the surprised of each visit. I stayed downstairs and met our first post surgery cook.
It was amazing that for four weeks friends, church members and co-workers would stop by each day to bring us dinner. I never realized how much time I spent keeping my family fed until someone else did the work. It is not just the cooking the meal and its clean up that is so time consuming, it is also the time figuring out what you are going to eat and all the shopping.
Growing up the pre-dinner time was a little stressful in my house. My mother would be thinking about what to make for dinner all day long, then sometime around 4:00 or 5:00 o’clock p.m. she would go out and buy what she needed, this could entail several stops; such as the butcher and baker and so on. As we got older and my sisters started to drive, my mother would give them list of items to go and buy. Valerie would be sent to the bakery to buy bread, and my oldest sister Joan would be sent to the butcher the buy some meat. This would happen almost daily. We would eat anytime between 6.00pm-8:30pm. My mother use to joke that one day I would come home from school and find her hanging from the ceiling with a note pined to her saying;
“I COULD NOT THINK OF WHAT TO MAKE FOR DINNER TONIGHT!” I knew she was joking…but still. Any way when I moved in to my own apartment I followed the same pattern. I would start thinking out what to make for dinner when I first started to feel hungry, then start thinking about what to cook, which is why I make a really great grilled cheese sandwich. When you live by yourself dinner is grilled cheese, popcorn or take out. I once had a boyfriend comment that my cupboards were even emptier than his. So you can imagine my shock when I married a man who’s mother planned all her meals in advance, shopped once a week and had dinner promptly on the table every night a 5:00p.m. Sharp. Our first few months of marriage were very…interesting. Like every happy couple we compromised, over the weekend we both work out what meals to make and we wrote a shopping list. On Mondays I went grocery shopping, and dinner was on the table anywhere between 5:00 and 7:00 depending on our schedules and my mood.
So you see a lot of time and effort goes into feeding a family, and to have that pressure taken off from us was a great gift. Mark still had to food shop once a week to get what we needed for breakfast, lunch and snacks, but we found that dinner is what takes up most of our time and energy. What a relief it was to have someone show up at our home every night with a meal.
This led to Mark’s and my second disagreement (hay, I am the one who told him, not to baby me or treat me differently just because I had cancer. And he took me at my word). I thought that the table should be set in advance, so everything would be ready for when the person showed up with our dinner. He thought that it was rude, and having the person who was bringing dinner see that table already set was like saying that we were just sitting there in the kitchen waiting from them (which we were). Anyway we really fought about this, and I lost. Every night Mark helped me down the stairs so that I could welcome who ever it was bringing us dinner and the table would not be set until they left. I still think that I was right.
We got and interesting variety of food. Diane asked us about what we liked, so we never have a meal that we can not eat, for some reason that I don’t understand I have a great craving for salads, and Diane makes sure that I got plenty. Now my kids are typical picky eaters and many times they ended up with sandwiches or eggs for dinner, but Mark and I liked every meal that we were given. The only problem was most people brought enough food for four adults, not two adults and two picky little kids. First we started to eat the left-overs for lunch, but even with that we ended up throwing food away. What we did was ask Diane to arrange for dinner just Monday through Friday, we told that we wanted cook for our selves over the weekend. But the reality was that we needed the weekend to finish up all the wonderful food that was being brought.
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Each day I felt a little bit stronger, enabling me to spend more time with my children. As much as I love my daughters I found myself missing adult conversation. So I looked forward to 5:00 o’clock because I knew that I would get to spend a few minutes talking to a grow-up. I had one of the strangest discussions with a parishioner named Rebecca.
Now I knew Rebecca before she and her family joined our church, her daughter Jennifer was in Leah’s pre-school class. Rebecca, Jennifer, Leah and I had done the pre-school birthday party circuit together, at that age many her class mates have birthday parties, and invite the whole class. So the moms find themselves sitting at a "fill in the blank" (Chucky Cheese, candy making store, jungle gym place etc). Many of these kids no longer play together, but I still have a nice friendship with a few of the moms. I was really happy when Rebecca, her husband and two children joined our church. Anyway Rebecca and Jennifer stop by with our dinner one night and we start talking, Rebecca starts to tell me some story about an annoying dog in the neighborhood.
“…Then the neighbor’s dog came onto my porch and peed on my milk box, so I had to get another one…”
“Your what?” I ask her.
“My milk box” she stated.
“As in a milkman, the kind that delivers milk and eggs right to your door?” I was fascinated because I didn’t think that there were Milkmen anymore.
“Yes, as in the Milkman who brings milk and eggs right to your door, I have milk delivered once a week.” She told me that there was a dairy company who had the milk contract for many of the local schools, and they were willing to deliver to private homes also. I know this sounds trite, but I was thrilled to find this out. She called me later with the dairy’s phone number and I made arrangements right away for milk delivery. Over the length of my recovery many people have come over to my house to help or just visit, many would ask.
“What is that gray box on your front porch?”
“A milk box.” I would smugly answer.
“As in a milkman, the kind that delivers milk and eggs right to your door? Can you give me their phone number?” I should get commission.

Home: Chapter 22

When Mark and I got home he couldn't wait to show me how he had set up the bedroom. I wanted to see his creation but I was hesitant to climb the stairs, even though Dr. Asgari had told me that climbing stairs would not be anymore painful than walking, I was positive that the steps would really hurt. After hesitating at the bottom of the stairs I took my first tentative step holding-or more like grabbing Mark's arm for support and waited for the pain to shoot through my stomach…nothing. The doctor was right I could walk up and down steps without any increase pain. Good.
When I got to our bedroom I was really pleased, Mark had brought an end table down from the attic and placed it by my side of the bed. He filled the table with some of my favorite books and the videos that I checked-out from the library. He also set the pillows up in a way that would enable me to sit up in bed, this was important because I could not lie down-yet. Well… I could lie down, I just didn't want to. Every time that I tried the pain in my body was incredible, it felt like my stomach was stretching beyond its capacity, almost like the skin over my stomach was tearing apart. I don't like pain, so as soon as the pain would start I would sit right back up.
Mark helped me get into bed I repositioned myself until I found the most comfortable position (only minor pain). I asked Mark to turn off all the lights so that I could have the room as dark as I wanted, after he left I enjoyed solitude for the first time in days. It felt so peaceful, my daughters were still at my in-laws and Mark spent most of the day in his home office. There were no doctors, no medical students, no nurses, no lab workers, no cleaning people, no food service people coming in and out of the my room. There was also no roommate, no visitors, no ringing phone (we disconnected the one in our bedroom) and best of all I could use the bathroom and not have to report the amount that I peed to anyone. It was good to be home.
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My first day home I drifted in and out of sleep for most of the day, Mark manned the phone, keeping everyone updated on my condition. It was while I was watching TV that Smoky quietly entered my room.
About three years ago Mark and I decided to get the girls a pet or two, we found someone who had newborn kittens and we let the girls each pick one. Ronnie picked the most active kitten, a shot haired gray tabby male who she named Tiger. Leah pick a quieter female who had long soft gray fur, and named her Smoky.
I was surprised when Smoky entered the room because she is not a very friendly cat; she likes to be left alone even more than I do. Smokey jumped up on my bed circled three times then lied down at my side facing the bedroom door. A little while later Tiger came in to the room, he also jumped up on the bed circled three times then lied down by my feet. I found this weird, and it got me thinking about my daughter Ronnie.
Ronnie loves animals, she reads about them all the time. Any fiction story she reads must center around some kind of animal; whether it is the “Pony Pal” or “Misty Series” (horses), or “Santa Paws Series (dogs), “Neptune Series” (dolphins) and other sea animals. Or her new favorite “Animal Ark”, which is set in a Venetian Clinic some where in England. Well, you get the idea Ronnie loves animals. She is the kind of kid who likes to memorize the Latin names of whales for fun. Because of her I know more about animals then I care too, simply because she likes to talk about the books that she has read and we watches nature shows together.
I mention this because of the behavior of my cats. I have learned that each species of animal acts differently toward a wounded member of its tribe. Some animals will protect a sick member. Other species will kill a sick or wounded member for the sake of the tribe. Any way as I watched my cat's behavior with fascination, I realize that the cats knew that I was wounded, but I was not sure if they were lying there to protect me or eat me.
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The next day my in-laws drove the three hours up from their home in South Jersey to bring my beautiful girls back to me. I was so happy to see them and they were happy to see me too, but the girls were also a little afraid to hug me because they didn't want to hurt me, we did the best we could. The girls couldn't wait to tell me about all the fun that they had had while staying at their grandparents.
I stayed down stairs for a little while and chatted. I have a very good relationship with in in-laws; I have often stated that in the lottery of in-laws I won the grand prize, they have been very good to me. I had hoped that my mother-in-law would stay with us for a week or two after my surgery, so she could help the girls. She had stayed with us and helped out after each girl was born. This time she is unable to stay because she already has her hands full taking care of her dying mother.

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Later, at bedtime Mark got the girls ready for bed, then they came running into my bedroom books in hand waiting for their bed-time story and kiss. I gave them the kiss, in fact I gave them lots of kisses, but I was too tired to read to them. This news broke their little hearts, and I could see the tears well up in their eyes. I have been reading them a bed-time story since they were babies. I know that it is important to get things as close to normal as I can, but I just couldn't read to them that night. I was about to call Mark as ask him to do read when I got an idea.
“Mommy is very tired tonight, sweeties, can you read to me? I watched their faces light-up at the suggestion. Each girl took her turn sitting next to me and reading her story. More kisses and they went off to bed happy, after they left I cried for awhile while thinking, I AM THE MOM, I AM THE WIFE, I AM THE CARE TAKER, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? My husband and my daughters, ages 10 and 7 were taking care of me. Now that the fear of dying was gone and I knew that I was going to live, I found myself looking at my situation and getting pissed off. I was angry. Anger at the cancer that had altered my life, angry at the medical treatment that took my painless body and rack it with pain, and most of all I am angry at the lost of control that I no longer seem to have over my own life. I hated the feeling of being so helpless.

Going Home: Chapter 21

It was 6:00 A.M. again and like clock work Doogie Houser stopped by to check in on me. He is glad that my breathing problem had cleared up (he was probably tired of me complaining), after a cursor exam, he told me that I was doing fine and left. Breakfast came and in spite of all the hospital food jokes that you have heard, the food was pretty good, let’s admit it, any time that I don't have to cook the meal it is a good meal. Helen teased me because she was still only aloud to eat clear broth. Looking at her I felt really sad, because when I was brought in here on Tuesday she had already been here a couple of days. I was jealous because she could sit up and walk around a little bit while I was confined to bed. But now it was Friday and I can eat normal food, get in and out of bed and walk around. My IV is gone, so is the annoying catheter and I was going home to day, and she will be staying here longer.
A little later her surgeon stopped by and the conversation is not a good one. He had already taken out about half of her intestines, and her problem what ever it was did not improved much, he wanted to wait until her husband got there to talk about her options.
Soon after that the training doctor and his med-students came by, and the peep at Traci show got its last audience, again the doctor unsnapped my hospital gown looked at my wonder breast then put the two parts of the gown back resting on my shoulder without snapping it closed. I was beginning to wonder if snapping a hospital gown was beyond his ability.
I was starting to get board, I had finished the Koons’s book and I start another book called “Victoria’s Daughters” by Jerrold M. Packard. Talk about an eclectic taste, this book is non-fiction, it tells the story of Queen Victoria’s five daughters, five very different women who married five very different men and live and sometime rule in many different counties. This book caught my attention when I noticed it among a group of “new” books that the library had just bought.
I had recently watched a five volume BBC series (donated to the library) about King Edward VII, who if you don’t know was Queen Victoria’s eldest son. In the series you watch the story of King Edward VII from his birth to his death you also see a little of the stories of his eight siblings. This made me curious about them, so when I saw a book about his sisters I grabbed it.
I was happily reading until I stupidly gave myself the headache from hell, of course this was after my morphine dip was gone. How do you give yourself a headache? I’ll tell you. You know when you get that weird pain, kind of like a pulling feeling in your neck, and you find yourself rolling your head and twisting your neck every which way, hoping-begging that it will crack or pop and the pulling feeling will go away. If you are like me you can crack one side of you neck but never the other (this also applies to backs) but you try any way. So there I was rolling my head when the right side lets out a loud POP!!! Wow! I thought, the right side of my neck never pops I felt instant relief from the pulling feeling.
I felt great, I pick up my book and start to amerce myself in 19th century Victorian England, when slowly, starting at the base of my neck, the pain started to enter my head. Each minute bringing pain more intense that the last, up until now my head was the only part of my body that didn’t hurt, now the headache ellipse all the other pain in my body. I pushed the nurse call button and Nurse Patton came in, I told her that I had a horrible headache and if I could have anything for it. She said she would try. A few minutes later she brought me some pills that she says should help. They didn't.
Nurse Patton stopped by a little bit later to check in on me my head still ached. So she suggested plan B, aroma therapy. Now I am not much for new age type stuff, I never used the meditation tapes or books that the hospital gave me. Anytime I start to meditate I get board within seconds I either A; start creating a story in my mind or B; pick up a book and read someone else’s creation. I can never open my mind to just nothing, there is just too mush interesting stuff going on.
I don’t own a therapeutic pyramid or crystal, so I am not that interested in aroma therapy, not to mention that the hospital room is all ready filled with funky smells. But I was in pain, so I told Nurse Patton to go ahead, that was after she reassured me the doctors told her she could use the therapy if she though it would help a patient. So, she opens a small bottle, pours something onto a cloth and sets it on the counter next to me, it smelled like lavender. Much to my surprise the lavender smell wondering though the room made me feel better. At first it worked, my headache became less intense, but after awhile the smell started to bother me so I ask Nurse Patton to take the cloth away. The smell lingered just slightly for a few hours.
-
After lunch Dr. Agarsi stopped by, his attire surprised me, instead of wearing his normal white coat over white shirt with dark a tie and pants. He was wearing chinos and a gauze type open collar shirt. That’s when I figure that the reason he was annoyed at me wanting to stay an extra day was that I may have delayed his vacation. After he examined me he told me that it was time to take out my drains. I was surprised, everyone kept telling me that I was a good healer but I didn’t expect to be lucky enough to leave the hospital without the drains.
So the good doctor put on a pair of gloves and started to remove one of my drains. I don’t remember exactly what he did, but after disconnecting the bulb part from the tube part, he then gently pulled the tube out of my body. It felt really weird, like a snake crawling under my skin. Dr. Agarsi pulled until the tube came out of my body; he then put a Band-Aid over the small incision. That was when the trouble started, up to this point I have been watching the tube being pulled out of my body so I hadn’t been looking at the doctor, when I did I am startled.
Dr. Agarsi’s eyes were teary and his nose was running, he kept blinking and sniffling. When I looked at him he looked back at me and stated that he didn't know what was making his system react so strange. I knew that it was the last of the lavender aroma therapy stuff, I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a look that said 'me neither' but I didn’t say a word. He started working on the next tube, he took that one out, and told me that he can’t wipe his face because then he would have to wash his hands and change his gloves and the procedure to remove the tubes will then take much longer. So, he took out the last tube, removed his gloves then cleaned his eyes and nose. He told me that I was doing really well and to call his office to make an appointment for the next week so he could do a follow up, then he left. I felt really bad for him.
-
Mark showed up a little after that, he helped me get dressed, then I called the nurses station and told them that I was ready to go home, then we sat and wait…and wait…and wait. Finally Nurse Patton came and filled out the release forms, I said goodbye the Helen, and with Mark at my side a Hospital volunteer wheeled me out of the hospital and to my car. We are going home.

Chapter 20: Cont...

After lunch Nurse Patton came in and told me it was time for me to start walking.
“What?”
“Walking.” She said, “You know that thing where you put one foot in front of another!” Everybody’s a comedian.
“What about the catheter?" I ask "it is supposed to be taken out, and my drains, how can I walk with my drains?
“I can’t take out the catheters out with out a doctor’s say-so, I’ll check. Meanwhile,” She asked. “Did you bring a robe? I will hook it up everything on your belt.” Before I knew what was happening I had on my robe, and all my appendages were somehow hooked on them. Nurse Patton pointed to the hall and told Mark and I to walk for fifteen minutes.
“I can’t go out in to the hall in my robe and catheter.” I whine.
“Why not?” Mark responded “Every other person in the hall is walking in their robe carrying a catheter.” Funny thing, he was right. The hall was filled with people wearing bath robes carrying catheters or rolling their IV’s shuffling along with a companion, going up and down the hall. We all looked like the old man character that Artie Johnson played on the TV show Laugh-in.
It hurt to walk and I resented the fact that they were making me; every step was torture, at least at first. The strange thing was, the longer I walked the better I felt. Walking with Mark was an activity that we did together a lot. I started thinking about our family walks. Living right next to a High School has its perks, and one of them is access to the school track. On any given summer night the track is filled with runners, joggers and walkers.
So when the weather is nice Mark and I take the girls to the track and we walk two miles. Well, ok, Mark and I walk two miles, the girls play around on the field that is in the middle of the track. They also like playing in the spectator stands. We find the walking a nice family activity. My thoughts were interrupted when Mark asked me,
“How do you do that?
“Do what? I asked
“Small talk.” He stated. I didn't understand his question. “The conversation you had with Henry about the fake flavors. You always seem to know just what question to ask someone to get a conversation going.” I shrug my shoulders (as much as that is possible) and said,
“I’m naturally curious; I like to know about people I guess. Anyway, you are also good at small talk; you do it all the time.”
“I know, small talk is part of my job, but I fine it work, you look like you were having fun.”
“I was.” I say smiling, we continued to walk.
The hall was a great place to people watch. First you had the nurses and doctors running back and forth from room to room. Then there were the other members of the hospital staff, food service, cleaning staff and orderlies. Next there were the other patients, hobbling up and down the halls alone or with a visitor. I thought that these were the only people that I would see, so I was quite surprised when Mark and I turned a corner and saw a policeman guarding a room. I mean it was just like the movies. This group of rooms was where the single occupancy rooms (the kind of room I wanted so desperately) were. And there was a cop leaning in the doorway, chatting with a cute nurse and drinking a cup of coffee. All that was missing from this picture was a doughnut. We turn around and headed back to my room.
-
After Mark left I took a nap. Later two nurses came by and removed my cathedra. At first I was thrilled because it was starting to annoy me, then I realized that I now had to get up and walk to the bathroom every time I need to pee. Not only that, but I was given instructions on how to measure my urine amount and tell the nurse on duty how much I peed, how humiliating.
-
Mark’s supervisor the Rev Katharine showed up to see how I was doing, this surprised me because I didn’t expect her to come by and see me. Between coming to my house before my surgery and the flowers that she sent I figured that she had fulfilled any pastor obligation to me. Obviously in her mind she didn't, we talked a bit then we prayed. Funny but after her visit I felt better.
I really did not want any visitors; I had set up a system to dispense information about my health to anyone that wanted to be kept informed. After Mark came to see me he would make a few phone calls and give the latest "Traci health up-date.” First he called his mother and she in turn would call his sisters, and then he will call Diane or Alice (who is the head of the PPRC pastor, parish, relations, committee) they in turn would call the interested church members. Francis who was both a church member and a co-worker, up-dated my co-workers. My sister Valerie called me every day and she up-dated the rest of our family. It is nice that people cared about me and everything, but I really wanted to be alone, so most of the time when someone showed up or called I found the interruption annoying. The next unexpected interruption came as a phone call from Erin.
Erin and I had met two years ago while doing lunch duty at the Elementary School. What is lunch duty? You ask, it is when mothers go to their kid’s lunch room once a week and wander up and down the aisles both helping kids open various items from their lunchboxes and keeping the kids in line. Then we help clean the tables, after that we go outside and hang out with our kids while trying to keep the other little kids from killing each other. Erin and I just happened to sign up for the same day, so every Thursday there we were helping the kids and trying to get through the hour. Having each other made the time go by faster.
When the kids were little they needed a lot of help opening up milk and stuff and they wanted a lot of attention. By the time Erin and I met, our kids were in third grade, and they rarely needed help opening anything. While on the playground our kids wanted us there so they could show off their cartwheels and their mastering of the monkey bars. So we were able to chat and watch at the same time, we kept each other company and became friends.
We only occasionally saw each other outside of the school. We would sit together sometimes if we saw each other at the community pool, other times we have run into each other at the library or supermarket, and once and a while we would have coffee together at Café Josephine.
I never had many friends, I remember as a child complaining to my mother saying that it was not fair that I spent so much time by myself while my siblings seemed to always have friends at the house. She listened to me whine then asked,
"Are you alone because no one wants to play with you, or because you don't want to play with them?" Man, I hated it when she was right, which was most of the time. I do enjoy the company of other people, but I want that company on my terms. Given a preference I would rather be by myself, a person like Helen who seem to need people with her all of the time baffles me.
So when Erin called at first I was annoyed, I felt that she is interrupting my personal time. But as we talk I found myself enjoying our conversation, and I started to realize just how important her friendship was to me. Remember she was there at the library on the day that I found out that I had cancer. I didn’t tell her right away, but just having her there was helpful. We only talk for a few minutes, I told her that I was very tired and that I would call her when I was ready to have visitors. After I hang-up I forget that she called.
Mark came by a dinnertime, only this time he didn’t come alone, he brought his sister with him (with all those calls and visitors I was afraid that I was going to have to turn in my hermit club membership card). The two were not in the room for ten minutes when their banter had me laughing, very, very hard.
The problem was that laughing made my body hurt, it hurt as much or even more than the coughing did, my whole torso was in pain every time I laughed. I beg them to stop the jokes but my sister-in-law (a civil engineer by trade) is as goofy as Mark, so when they get together it is quite the comedic act. Finally I had to ask them to leave because they had me laughing too much. I have to admit their visit put me in a wonderful mood.
After they left Max stopped by to take my vitals and to empty and measure the fluid in my drains, he told me that I had to sit in a chair for a while and helped me get out of bed and in to the chair. I was getting to the point where I could get in and out of bed with a little help.
I was sitting in my chair reading when a good looking blond young man came into my room, his id badge identified him as Derek; a nurse (I was really starting to wonder if every person who worked at the hospital was required to be attractive to work there.) He introduced himself as one of the nurses who worked on the surgical floor. I thought that because he was in my room that he was another nurse assigned to look after Helen and me, you see, although there was the main shift nurse assigned to each person, there were many other nurses wondering in and out of the rooms looking after the patients. Sometimes I would see the same nurse over and over, and sometimes I would see someone only once.
So since Derek was there in my room I asked him to help me get back into bed, and he did. That was when he told me that he was not my nurse. The reason that he stepped in to my room is that he was just coming off of his break, and on his way down the hall (remember my door is always open) he noticed that I was reading a Dean Koonz book. Derek loves Koonz and rarely sees people on this floor reading that author, so he wanted to stop by and chat. He stayed for another few minutes talking about the book and its author. Hey, talking about books is one of my favorite things, so a good evening got even better. The rest of the evening is uneventful, which considering that I was in a hospital was a positive thing.