traci-jerseygirl

Everybody's Sick Chpt 32

2007-03-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER 4, 2001
I don't feel all that great today, but then again neither does anyone else, Mark is still so sick he can barely get out of bed and Ronnie is coming down with what ever it is that he has. Normally all this illness would only be a miner inconvenience, but it does happen to be the day after a chemo treatment, and I feel like hell. I should be resting until it is time for me to drag myself out of bed and go to work but I can't, I have to get the girls to school. I wanted to keep Ronnie home, but no matter how sick she is she insists on going to school, considering how horrible 5th grade has been to her so far, I find it amazing. As I have said before, 10 years old is just too young to start middle school. On the plus side this school does isolate the 5th graders, for about 80% of their day they don't see the older kids. On the minus side, last year in 4th grade at the elementary school these kids were in one classroom for most of the day, they switched teachers for math and social studies only, there was a bathroom in every classroom and the lunch tables were assigned. Suddenly, these children are switching classrooms every 45 minutes, they have go down a hall to the girl's room and the lunch tables are controlled by the self-designated "cool kids." More than once Ronnie had to battle for the right just to be able to sit down at a table and eat her lunch.
I haven't even started ranting about my problems with the gym teachers, those former "cool kids" who now have the power to make any non-athletic child's life miserable. To be fare Ronnie did have one good gym teacher for most of the fifth grade. At first the teacher yelled at Ronnie for "not trying or tiring out to easily." When Ronnie told me about how she was being treated by the teacher I contacted the woman asked if she had reviewed Ronnie's blue card, you know the card that asked if a child had any disabilities.
I explained about the problems about Ronnie's bad feet and ankles, and asked the teacher what kinds of information (such as a note) form Ronnie's doctors the teacher needed to prove that there was a legitimate problem? She said my word was enough and that conversation solved the problem of gym class until that teacher was struck in the head with a shot-putt (I kid you not) and was out for the rest of the year. The man who took over the class was not as cooperative and has treated Ronnie as badly as he treated all the other non-athletic children in his care.
Ronnie has told me that she loves the freedom of walking down a hall and not being in line with a whole class and the teacher stopping every five minutes yelling at the class because a few kids are misbehaving. On the other hand the hallways are one of the few places where the teachers are no present. So it is in the hall where all retribution for some slight that happened in a class takes place. Did I mention that Ronnie had a stalker? He is another 5th grader that follows her all over the place, he is annoying, but harmless.
Middle School has been such a very unpleasant experience for Ronnie and if I hadn't gotten the cancer I probably would have pulled her out and homed schooled her this year, but I just wasn't up to it.
Leah on the other hand is having a great time, she likes her teacher and so do I and every thing seems to be going well for her except to day, because to day is picture day and Miss Fashion has to look perfect. In the last few days I have washed and ironed two or three different dresses. When she finally decided which dress she wanted to wear we discover that the dress was missing a button. So it was off to the store I went to find new buttons for the dress, I got lucky and found a match so I didn't have to replace all of the buttons. Then she changed her mind again. Remember she is only 7 years old, I can't wait until she is a teenager.
I normally don't indulged this kind of behavior, I reasonable, but not a push-over especially compared to some of the yuppie parents in this town. But I feel guilty because I haven't been able to give them the kind of love and attention that I use to. I am too tired to play with my daughters, I am even to tired to listen to them for long periods of time, something that girls seem to need. I have not been active in Leah's brownie troop, and Mark has been taking them too most or their activities and play-dates. So now I am spoiling my kids is silly ways, I polished Leah's nails even though her hands will not be in the picture and I let her…I don't believe this myself…wear lip gloss. Oh @#$% I've become a yuppie parent.
-
Back in July when Diane organized the people cooking for us, she had more volunteers then there were days that we needed dinners, that meant that there were some people who wanted to cook who couldn't. So when I started my chemo treatments Diane asked me if we needed dinners again. I could have handled the cooking (I think) but why not? I told her to work it out so that we would get dinners delivered for five days after each chemo treatment. This arrangement worked out really well, I didn't have to cook and some people who wanted to help me could.
I am by nature a very private person, many times during my treatment and recovery I would have been happy just to be left alone, but the people around me seemed to need to be needed, and I under stood this. I know how good it feels when I bring bags of food to the food bank, or when I help cook a meal at a homeless shelter. People need to help, and although it is hard switching from the helper to the helpee I felt that it was important to sit back and except almost any offer that some one gave. The only ones that I turned down were the offers to clean my house that seemed just too invasive.
-
I got through picture day just barley, the next day was just as bad. Mark was still sick, but he has to drag himself out of bed in order to write his sermon. His sermons run about 30 minutes long, and some statistics guy figured out that the average minister spends about one hour working (writing/researching/editing) for every minute that that he/she speaks. So Mark needs to work. All of his meetings were canceled for the week. Ronnie is so sick that she has agreed reluctantly to stay home. On Fridays, and I usually work from 10:00 am to 5:15pm but that day I worked 4 hours, that is all that I could handle. I wanted to be at work because unlike my house, at work I will not be around sick people. One of my biggest fears since starting chemo is germs. During chemo treatments many of your white blood cells are destroyed and your immune system does not work very well, that makes you vulnerable to illness. So I became so paranoid that I act like the love child of Howard Hughes and Michel Jackson. I wore the cloth gloves when I worked, at home I wore rubber gloves when I cleaned and not just for dishes, any cleaning, when I was up to it I clean my house like crazy.
I read somewhere that one of the dirtiest public places is the door handle in a public bathroom (not everyone washes their hands) so the article said to use a paper towel to open door to exit the bathroom. This is a practice that I still use to day. If you didn't know that I was under going chemo and you saw me in public you would have thought that I suffered for obsessive-compulsive-disorder. I did act a little weird, on the other hand I wanted to get though my treatments without getting any infections.
One of my co-workers bought a whole bunch of baby wipes for us to use at work, and she cleaned the phones that we use a few times each day. Another way of protecting me was that my co-workers waited on patrons who looked sick, keeping me away from germs. So, there I was trapped at my home with two sick people, trying to take care of them without touching them or breathing their air not an easy thing to do. By Saturday I was exhausted, Mark and Ronnie were felling better so I spent the day in bed, poor Leah, she has no one to play with thank goodness for VCRs.

October 8, 2001
We g0t an extended weekend because of Columbus Day which was good because we don't have to get up early on Monday and we all slept as much as we wanted. When I pictured my hair falling out I had images of standing in the shower and rubbing my hair to help it fall out. Not. Wet hair and hands don't mix, every time I touched my head all this hair stuck to my hands and was hard to wash off. I quickly realized that all I could do was to stand in the shower and let the action of the water remove some of the loose hair, it was working-for awhile. Did I mention that I like hot, I mean really hot showers? Well I do. I like the room warm also. One of the great things about this house is that both up-stairs bathroom have built-in heaters in them. With a flick of a switch warm air will cascade down from the ceiling and warm up the bathroom.
So, here I am standing in a warm shower, the water flowing and my hair sliding down my back when I started to feel faint. I immediately go out of the shower and sat down, I didn't feel any better, I managed to get dressed, (even as I was passing-out modesty prevailed) and stepped out into the hall. I was hit with a temperature drop of over fifteen degrees it helped wake me a little, I slowly staggered down the hall frequently sliding against the wall.
"Mark" I whispered, just loudly enough for him to here.
"WHAT!" can a very annoyed reply.
"Help" my whisper getting softer. I made it to the bedroom and fell face down on the bed. I was drifting in and out of conscious. The help worked, he can running into the bedroom.
What he saw was his wife lying face down on the bed, my face was very white, and my body was covered in sweat, he came over to me and touched my back, it was ice cold, he was scared to death and wanted to call 911. I told him believe it or not I was feeling better than I did in the bathroom and to give it a few minutes. He put a blanket on me.
"I'm still cold" I mumbled, so he put another blanket on top, slowly I warmed up and started to feel better. With in a hour I was almost normal. We didn't call the hospital because I knew that they would want me to come in and the girls were home from school. Remembering how frighten Leah was when she came with me to the blood bank, I just couldn't put her through another trip to the hospital.
-
October 9 2001
After we got the girls to school I called Dr. O’Hara and told her what had happened to me, my luck she took the day off. She has some nerve trying to have a personal life, anyway the receptionist transferred me to Eva, and just as I excepted she told me to come in to the hospital. Mark drove me there and we saw something that we had never seen before-the parking lot was full, there was nowhere to park. I figured that this would not take long so I suggested to Mark that he go and have lunch at the local Friendly's and while he is there could he get me a chocolate milk shake (I don't understand why I am gaining weight). Then just wait out in the front of the cancer center. He liked the idea and off he went.
Nothing ever goes as planed, I check in and have my blood tested and waited…and waited…and waited…while poor Mark was out in front circling the cancer center because the valet boys didn't like him hanging around their turf. More waiting…finely Eva came over to me and told me that every thing looked fine, she wasn't sure why I somewhat black-out; maybe it was because of how hot the room was or maybe it was because I (as we discovered in talking) didn't take all of my medicine. Well, I felt fine so I stopped taking the pills. I left with the instructions to take all of my medicine as instructed and keep the bathroom at a temperature that is not sonorous with the tropics.

Round Two: Chapter 31

2007-03-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER
October is Breast Cancer awareness month and every where I looked there was another magazine cover/TV ad/news story about breast cancer. In the past I had paid very little attention to these stories. This year it is just the opposite, now I read everything that I can get my hands on, just reading the covers of all the magazines that the library subscribes to is enough to give my brain 'cancer overload'. Many of my friends and co-workers gave me articles that they thought might interest me. The good part about all this is that as they try to inform me, they are also informing themselves. Just about every woman who has helped me in the last year, either by cooking for me or working extra hours to cover for me or just holding my hand has told me the same thing.
"I have made an appointment for a mammogram; I am no longer afraid." Through out my treatment there have been highs and lows. There were brave times and not so brave times. The thing that I am most proud of is that just about every one of my friends and co-workers had a mammogram with-in a few months after they learned of my diagnose. I found it interesting that even with all the information out there, for many of my friends it took the disease becoming personal for them to act.
-
One does not go happy to their chemo appointment, but one does go. My second appointment was scheduled for around noon so Mark should be able to take me, but we are not so sure that he should because he has been sick for the last few days. I love it, I have cancer, I am going through chemo and HE is the one who is lying in bed sick. There is a joke here somewhere, but I want to stay married so I'll let it go.
I dropped the girls off at school, Ronnie is going on her first middle-school field trip and she is very excited. All of the 5th graders are going to Sandy Hook, which is a popular public beach along the New Jersey shore. I am a little jealous, I am going to spend my afternoon in the hospital being injected with poison, and my daughter is going to the beach. There is no Justice in the world. The kids are not going there to enhance their tans, oh, no, this is a scientific expedition, they are going there to collect and label sea shells. Nice.
When I got home Mark and I decided that he was too sick to take me to my treatment (Ha, ha Mark is too sick to go to the hospital, hey I find that funny). Not only would it be tiring for him to take care of me while he was so sick, but the other chemo patients should not be exposed to his germs. So, I call one of the Church ladies name Betty and ask her if she can drive me. I did this for two reasons; one I needed someone to take me to the cancer center for my treatment, and second I felt that Betty needed make peace in her own mind with the cancer-center .
Betty is a widow somewhere in her sixties, with three grown children and 2 grandchildren. She is short; then again to me almost everyone is, her hair is gray, but always beautifully styled and she always looks put together. In other words she is a grandma with style. I love to listen to Betty talk because she has the nicest southern accent I have ever heard, there is something about her Tennessee sing-song that is so soft and delicate.
Betty has done so much for me and my family, she has made dinner for us, taken the kids on an outing and helping out in emergencies as a babysitter, plus I really enjoy her company. So she was the natural choice. Yet I still hesitated, you see Betty has only been a widow for less than a year and her beloved husband died of cancer. So a trip to the cancer center would not be a new experience for her, it might be a trip down nightmare alley, I was not sure, but something told me to call her-so I did.
“I would be happy to take you” she said in her soft southern accent “What time should I pick up?” At 11:00am the doorbell rang, I answered the door and was greeted by Betty saying…
“When is the last time you watered your plants? They look like they are dying.” She then walked in to my house right past me and went directly into my kitchen to find my watering can.
“You know I have been missing my mother lately.” I thought to myself “and now you make me feel like she is right in the room. Not only that” I kept thinking “I didn’t even buy the plants in the first place, they were a gift” I am starting to wonder how many substitute mothers I had anyway. With my plants taken care of, Betty directed her attention to me, for a minute there I except to hear her say…
“Your not going out looking like that are you? Bless her heart all she said was
“Ready?”
We drove to the hospital, while looking for a parking space I imminently realize that Betty and I operated very differently. When I am driving I go right up to the second level before I start looking for a parking space, Betty refused to leave the ground level, and she drove to areas on the ground level that I didn't even know existed. Finally we found a space, park the car and head for the cancer center.
We walk past the main entrance, which was filled with the normal groups of smokers and cell phone users, then we reached the end of the semi-circle. At this point I usually make a 45-degree right turn and start walking down a slope toward the cancer center. But Betty stopped me.
"Don't you know the back route?" she asked
"The what?"
"The back route, past the meditation garden!"
"The what garden?" I said again, I'm real good with words.
"Follow me" she stated then made a 20-degree right turn and started to walk. I followed her onto a patio that was level, not sloped downward and we walked behind the building that I normally walk in front of. It was a nice walk, I saw Parts of the hospital that I had never seen before, back exits and entrances, most of the people walking back here were staff, I could tell by their clothes and/or ID tags that they all wear around their necks. Betty pointed out the meditation garden, it is not a garden with flowers, but an area on the patio that is distinguish by that fact that there is a sitting wall around most of it. In the center of the garden is a swirl patter marked on the surface. There was a woman walking on the swirl pattern deep in thought.
"The garden helped me a lot when I was here with my husband." I nodded like I understood. The problem was I didn’t. I don't go for anything New Ageish, I guess that I am a traditionalist at heart. I keep a straight face at the library when a patron return a hand full of new age/self help books telling me how wonderful they are and I should read them. I just smile and say I will. When the hospital gave me mediation tapes I gave them away, being the cynic that I am they don't relax me, they make me laugh. So when I looked at the woman walking on the swirl the image of Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz" when she is in Munchkin Land and asks the good fairy where should she start her journey. The good fairy says something like starting at the beginning, so Dorothy walks to the very beginning of the swirl, which is located in its center.
We walked past the back of the chemo area of the cancer center, here were the windows that are to my back when I sit in one of those blue chemo chairs. Betty walked up to a door and opened it and lo-and-behold we were in a back hallway that lead to the cancer center waiting room. No more going up and down stairs, I like this route.
On the walk Betty started taking about her husband, and the memories of all the time that they had spent in the cancer center, although I liked the new path she just showed me I was starting to think it was not such a great idea to bring her here.
I checked in, had my blood check and then see my oncologist. We start with the question and answer session where I discovered that I had been taking my medicine wrong. I had been taking the two different pills at the same time, where-as I was supposed to be taking them an hour apart.
I can't help but wonder sometimes; why does a person become a doctor? And if you become a doctor, why an oncologist? I mean you have a job where you watch people die almost every day. It has to be hard. On the other hand you get to see patients who 10 years ago, heck 5 years ago would be dying and now thanks to modern medicine the patient will live many productive years. So, I wonder do the good days out-way the bad? I felt bad because I was about to give my doctor a hard time. I whine to her about my hair falling out and the ten pounds that I have gained. (On average someone who has the same kind of chemo that I am having gains between 5 to 10 lbs). Dr. O had predicted that I wouldn't gain any weight. Opps, I hope her other guesses (like how to treat me) are more accurate. I also whine about the fact that my face is getting puffy and I have pimples.
"It is only temporary, everything will go back to normal when you treatment is over." Basically she is telling me to deal with it. That’s what I like about her, she lets me vent, then brings me back to reality. In spite of my whining we have a good visit. Next we got in to the examination room, she tells me that I am a really good healer, I tell her that my father says healing fast is a genetic trait in our family. She also states that Dr. R did a very good job with the reconstruction, and that (looking at the floor again) not all plastic surgeons have his talent. I'll try to remember that when I am paying his bill.
After the exam I we back to the waiting room where after a few minutes Betty and I were escorted back to the chemo section. A new nurse (new to me that is) greeted us and introduced herself to me, that is after she and Betty gave each other a big hug.
"It is so great to see you." says the nurse, genially happy to see Betty.
"Jenny, I so happy to see you!" I just stood there for a few seconds until both women remembered that I was there, so much for being the center of attention.
Betty introduced Jenny to me and we follower her to the area with the blue chairs, again I selected a chair around the center of the line.
Once we got settled Jenny set to the task of trying to find my one good vein, just then Eva walked over saying
"lots of luck finding Traci's one good vein." Everybody is a comedian, I thought. A that moment Eva noticed Betty.
"Mrs. B!!! What are you dong here." Both women embraced. Hello, I'm over here, I am the one with cancer, fake cough. Finally Eva turned back toward me saying
"You're in good hands with Mrs. B." Then she left, while Jenny kept hunting for my one good vein.
Betty wass sitting across from me reading a book while I disappear in to my book-on-tape. I wanted a comedy this time and a co-worker had recommended a book called "A Walk In The Woods" by some guy named Bill Byrson.
"What is the book about?" I asked.
"Walking the Appalachian Trail." He answered.
"I don't hike, I don't camp, in fact my idea of ruffling it is flying coach." He rolled his eyes, then said.
"Do I look like the outdoor type?" Actually he didn't. "Just trust me." I did and have trusted his judgement in books ever since. I remembered the book from when in first came out when I was working at B. Dalton. The coven intrigued me, it was a picture of a wooded area and a brown bear's head. The funny thing was it looked like someone was trying to take a picture of a wooded area when a bear just happened to come by and look in to the camera when the picture was snapped. Well, I though, if the cover could make me laugh the book might just be funny also. I have since become of huge Bryson fan, his funny travel books have taken me through parts of England and other European countries, Australia, and other sections of America.
So, there I was with a needle pumping steroids into my body, laughing at my tape when Betty taped me on the shoulder,
"I'm hungry, and I am going to get myself a sandwich. Are you hungry?" Now that she mentioned it I was. I asked her where she could get food and she told me there was alot of food at the kitchen area. The chemo section had its own kitchen and there were fresh sandwiches brought in every day, also there were tons of cakes and cookies that the patients brought in for other patients, their families and of course the beloved staff. We checked with Jenny and she told me I could eat, so Betty got us each a sandwich which I ate v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
Jenny started giving me the chemo part of the program when she suddenly stop.
"OH, NO" she says very loud. As a patient, oh, no is never an expression that you want to hear. "I forgot you pop." I didn't know what she was talking about. "Your Popsicle, you need you Popsicle." Betty volunteered to get me the Popsicle.
"What flavor would you like." Always the perfect hostess.
"Cherry." I answer. So off Betty went to get me a cherry Popsicle. Now, understand I had a needle in my arm, and you can't jest let a needle hand around and do nothing, so Jenny took out the chemo needle and inserted one of the saline syringes while we waited for Betty to come back. And wait… and wait…Jenny was forced to start using the second syringe with saline solution. And wait…and wait…
"ANY FLAVOR" I yell at the top of my lungs, and a few seconds Betty comes back with a tropical flavor Popsicle. I hate any thing tropical flavored, but I said thank you and started eating it. Jenny imminently switched from the saline solution to the chemo. As the treatment worn on Betty got up to visit some of the nurses.
"She is so nice" Jenny said indicating Betty "She always has a kind word to say, and she was generous at Christmas time." Am I supposed to give the staff gifts I wondered I was trying hard just not throwing-up on them. "Even when it was obvious that we couldn't save her husband she was still kind to us."
During my first chemo treatment I had noticed that at the ends of the room were areas that had beds instead of chairs, and they had hospital curtains also. I had wondered who used these areas. Sometimes there were people in the and sometimes not. Again Betty had come to my rescue with an expiation. Not everyone's treatment is a short two hours like mine (short?) some people had treatments that lasted all day. Betty had told me that as her husband's cancer got worse the chemo treatments got longer.
They would show up at the center early so that they could get one of the areas with a bed and curtain. Berry would bring a picnic basket and she would try to make the treatment as pleasant as possible. Sometimes her husband would sleep for a while during the treatment and she would walk in the mediation garden, it helped her a lot. I understood her much better after our day together, and I have never made fun a mediation since them.
The weirdest thing about that day was the fact that after going through the chemo treatment I was still the healthiest adult in my house, Mark was still sick. I made dinner for the girls, Mark and I stuck to water and saltines. I didn't want to be exposed to Mark's sick germs, and since he had been in our bed all day I decided to sleep in Leah's room. She moved to Ronnie’s room where I made them a tent out of a blanket and they both slept in sleeping bags on the floor, I told them to pretend that they were camping. I was so proud that I made it through the night with out throwing up.

Wigged Out!: Chpt 30

2007-03-10T17:47:00.001-08:00

About ten days after my first chemo treatment I had to go back to the cancer center for a blood test. This test told the staff how my body was healing and whether I would need additional medication. You know the stuff you see advertised on TV when some tire and sad looking person looks in to the camera and says…
"Chemo made me so tired that I couldn't do 'whatever' anymore, so I ask my doctor for…fill in the blank…miracle drug, and now I can do anything." Anyway I was feeling tired and I figured that they would put me on this stuff. I drove to the hospital and headed for the cancer center. After walking past the smokers and talkers I took the elevator to the second floor I didn't use the stairs because I was too tired. I then headed for the waiting room, just as I opened the door who should walk out but Beth and her mother. To refresh your memory these were the two women who were members of our first church and that Mark had run in hospital lobby one day when he was there to visit me. At that time Beth had told Mark that she had had a double mastectomy a few months earlier. So here she was walking out of the cancer treatment center while I was walking in.
"Hi" she said. I almost didn't recognize her because she looked so different. I remembered her with shoulder length, light brown hair, and today her hair or wig was short and dark red. She looked great, but she looked so different from how I remembered her, and I found myself staring at her wig instead of her eyes when we were talking. We filled each other in on how our respective treatments were going. We compared surgeries and recovery stories, she told me about her double mastectomy and implants. I told her all about my single mastectomy and the "joys" of the trans-flap surgery.
"I'm glad I had the implants." She says laughing. Then she told me that her treatment was going well, and that she had her last chemo treatment two weeks ago, today she was there for her blood test and a shot of that miracle drug. I found out that her husband was still a great guy and she was a grandmother. Twice. I wished her well-then walked into the office, happy to see her, but thinking about how different she looked in that red wig.
-
Eva tested my blood and told me that I was fine and I didn't need any additional medication.
"But I feel so tired!" I told her; she assured me that I was doing fine, “better that most.” She said. That statement made me feel real bad for the other patients. We schedule my next chemo treatment for the following week. I still wanted to change my chemo treatments to a Monday or Tuesday but they could only adjust my schedule for one day in either direction from a Thursday. I found out later why. In the book Straight talk about Breast Cancer it was explained that the way that chemo works (put here very simply) is that the cancer cells kind-of open and close. So when the chemo attacks opens cells it kills them, but if the cancer cell is closed than the chemo has no effect. So the chemo is given in cycles that follow the opening and closing cycle of the cancer cells. Or something like that, so sticking to a schedule is very important for killing all those pesky cancer cells.
Somehow, and I will never figure out why but I decided that I wanted to change my chemo treatments to Wednesdays. In reality this messed up the library schedule worse than going in on Thursdays did. Once again my co-workers came to my rescue by jumping in and covering for me without ever complaining. As I was about to leave Eva reminded me that sometime around the second treatment my hair would start falling out. Thanks.
-
From the moment that I was diagnosed with cancer I started getting interesting mail. The hospital (or someone) informed the American Cancer Society (ACS) about my condition and the ACS imminently contacted me both through the mail and with a phone call. Some woman called asking me how I was doing and did I need some help building a support base. I told her that I was dealing with everything fine and that my husband, friends and church were helping me a great deal and that although I appreciated the call, I didn't need any outside help. To their credit, they never called again, but the mail. I got catalogs for wigs and prosthesis, scarves and hats. I also received pamphlets of various kinds of treatments and information of local support groups. One of the letters I got was an invitation to come to a "Look good…Feel Better" seminar.
Although I had been invited to join two different Cancer support groups I had decided not to join either. I had three reasons for this. First; I didn't want to join a group because doing so felt like a long-term time consuming commitment and I didn't want that. I felt that I had lost enough time to my cancer treatments already. Second; the group at the hospital and the group at Dr. Sullivan's office met at times that were at the same time that I worked. I was told at work that I could change my hours, but I felt that my co-workers had rearranged their schedules enough for me. Third; and the main reason that I didn't join any group was because I was selfish, I never believed that I was going to die from the cancer, so I didn't want to join a group of women and become close to them only to watch some of them die. I just couldn't do it. I had formed a small circle of people who I could rely on, get close to and in theory none of them were going to die on me.
The "Look Good…Fell Better" seminar looked interesting, it was only a one night event and they would show me how to use make-up and wigs to look better during my chemo treatment and the letter said that participants would receive free make-up. Free stuff-sign me up.
-
On the appointment day I headed out for the seminar at the local chapter of the American Cancer Society. I was not sure what to expect, a few makeup tips maybe or a lesson on how to tie a scarf around my head in interesting ways. Before going to the seminar I had decided that I was not going to wear a wig, I felt that I would only wear hats and scarves.
I found the building with only a little difficulty, and went inside to find the room where the seminar was being held. The room was small with a long table down its center, A TV in one corner a few small tables lining the walls. There were sixteen of us; twelve cancer survivors, one leader and three observers (they were learning how to run other cancer seminars). The women ranged in age from their early twenties to the late fifties.
The woman leading the seminar was named Sandra, she was somewhere between her late thirties to early fifties, it was hard to tell, she had that look of someone who works in the beauty business. (You know blond-blond hair and lots of make-up) It turned out that she use to own a wig shop that’s how she got involved with the ACS in the first place. Recently she had sold her business, retired and now volunteers part-time for the ACS. I decide that she is a very nice woman, and really knew what she is talking about. The three observers were in the late twenties of early thirties, and they didn't say much. Then there were the rest of us.
Like I said we twelve were from our early twenties to late fifties. The group was a nice mix of Black, Spanish and Angelo. Ten of the women had their own hair, one wore a wig and the youngest of us wore a baseball cap.
Sandra was very interesting, she talked a little, then show us a video about 'How to chose a wig,' it was amazing how different each woman in the video looked with different kinds of wigs, it got me thinking. Then Sandra asked the woman who was wearing the wig if she could use her to demonstrated how to put on a wig. The woman named Lillian said "Sure." Then she moved to the chair at the head of the table, where she sat down than whipped off her wig.
"I'm ready!" she said. We all gasped and laughed at the same time. Lillian was a well put together woman, other than the fact that she was carrying an extra ten pounds, she looked perfect for her age. Her wig was stylish, her clothes stylish and expensive, her make-up perfect. I wasn't sure why she was here (maybe the free make-up). The only thing that wasn't perfect was her bald (kind of) head, there were still some clumps and whips of hair on it, so her head looked funny, she would have looked much better if she shaved her head (note to me, remember this).
Sandra told us a lot about hair, wigs and make-up it was a very informative evening. I even learned how to draw on natural looking eye browns. Eye browns? Nobody told me that I was going to loose my eyebrows. Every now and then Sandra would give us a short break, so we would stand up (there was not enough room for all of us to walk around) and chat, that’s when we learned the story of the young woman who was wearing a baseball cap.
-
It was April 2001 when Mandy, who was in her twenties, working full time and four weeks away from her wedding found a lump in one of her breast. She went to her doctor and discovered that she had breast cancer. She got married, went on her honeymoon, and then started her cancer treatments. I look at this bald, thin, very young woman and realized that she had only been married for four months.
Before I started my treatments I had been warned that the chemo would throw me into early menopause, instead of being sad about that fact I was thrilled at the thought of never having a period again. Of course the other stuff life thinning bones and hair and saggy looking skin I would deal with later (Hay, I know a good plastic surgeon). But Mandy was young, a newlywed who dreamed of having a family. And now thanks to modern medicine she could have a long life, but not children. I felt so sad for her, yet she seemed very up-beat about her future. Like the rest of us she was happy just to have a future. The seminar ended, we took our bag of make-up (some really good stuff) hung out in the parking lot and chatted for a while then went home.
-
Whether its explaining the rules of baseball, the facts of life or the realities of a mother with cancer it takes more then one big talk to explain all the facts to your children. It is more like a continual flow of information, the asking and answering of questions. You don't sit them down once, hem and haw, say a few words then walk away thinking that they've got it. First you tell them that you have cancer, then try to relieve their fears while you try to hide your own.
Then you tell them that you have to have surgery, and it is going to be ok, but you have to go to the hospital a little while. After you come home looking and feeling really bad, you start to heal, then things starting going back to normal when you tell them that the next step is chemotherapy. That’s harder to explain that the surgery. How do you explain to you children that once every three weeks that you have to go to the hospital for a few hours, let a somewhat stranger stick you with a needle and fill your body with poison. How do you explain it to yourself? When it came to discussing the chemo treatments I made two big mistakes.
The first was the day that I came home from work with a large box of scarves that Caroline had loaned me. Good scarves are expensive and cheap scarves look like well-like cheap scarves. I felt that I was very lucky to have a co-worker and friend who had a very nice collection that she was willing to loan me for as long as I need them. Anyway, Leah was at the door to greet me when I brought home the box of scarves.
Leah loves anything to do with clothes, she has a better wardrobe and more shoes than I do. This is a child that decided at the age of 5 that she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grows up. While Ronnie had set the goal of going to Princeton, Leah’s goal is to attend The Fashion Institute of Technology. When Leah found out that I have a degree from there (I have an associates in Fashion, Buying and Merchandising) I became a much cooler mom in her eyes.
Anyway she was thrilled when she saw all the scarves and wanted to play with them, which met dressing-up all her dolls. I explained that the scarves were for me, that I would need them when my hair started fall out.
"Your hair what?" and she started to cry.
"That was a lousy way to tell you child that you are going to be bald". I thought to myself. I realized how badly I had handled the conversation. I held her in my arms and tried to explain that the chemo would make my hair fall out, but only for a while, and then my hair would grow back again. The child was near hysteria, it took me a long time to clam her down. Then second mistake was I didn't follow up this discussion by giving Ronnie the same information. A few weeks later in the middle of a fight with sister Ronnie came running into my room screaming.
"MOMMY, MOMMY LEAH SAIDS THAT YOU ARE GOING TO BE BALD. TELL HER TO STOP LIEING MOM!" I sat on the bed patting a space next to me indicating that I wanted her to sit. I put my arms around her and say.
"Honey, Mommy has something to tell you…"
-
Going bald was never a big concern for me, I have basically lived with the philosophy that anything temporary is tolerable. I have met women and read about others, who were tempted not to have chemo because they didn't want to go bald. How silly, I don't know about them, but I have always had a love/hate relationship with my hair. I thought of few months of baldness might be interesting. After all, how many times have I been standing in front of a mirror brush in hand fighting with my hair, and loosing and thinking.
"Why don't I just shave off all of my hair and buy a wig that will look just the way that I want it too." So I thought that I would handle the loosing of my hair very nonchalant. Wrong.
The first thing that I realize was that it would be easier to see my hair fall out if it were short. Let me tell you a little about my hair. First of all I like it long, as a teenager in the 70's I was blesses with long straight blond hair with a natural part in the middle. And that was great as long as long, straight hair that was parted in the middle was in style, but alas styles change. Parts on the side came and went fashion wise, but any time I tried to part my hair on its side my hair rebelled by going every which way and making me look stupid. So I learned that I had to leave it parted in the middle, sometimes with bangs, some times with out. Did I mention that my hair was straight? Hair-curlers, curling irons, moose and perms, I’ve tried everything. I can get my hair to curl…for a while, then it goes straight again.
I heard that hair sometimes changes as a person grows older, but the only change that my hair did was get darker, first I notice a slight change here and there, and then I got pregnant. The slight darkening became quick darkening, so by the time Leah was born I could no longer call myself a blond.
Evan though I live in a neighborhood where most of the women have standing appointments with their hair-dressers, being the rebel that I am, I was happy with my long light brown hair-usually in a pony tail.
That was about to change, my hair was starting to fall out and I learned at the seminar that cutting my hair short would make loosing it easier, both mentally and physically. So off to the hair-dressers I went. Being cheap I went to a barber shop in town that chargers $16.00 per hair male/female/adult/child. It is run by an old immigrant couple that offers a no-frill hair-cut in a very frilly town. How do they do it? Easy, the shop is very small only two chairs and two mirrors. There is no reception deck and no appointments. You walk in sit on the long bench that sits along the wall and wait your turn. There are no sinks (which is good for me, because I hate having my hair washed in a salon), no hair-dryers, no colorist, no manicurist and a décor that has not been up-dated since the 1940’s. The couple does not speak English well (he speaks it better than she does) but boy, can they cut hair.
I discovered them a few years ago and take the girls there whenever they need a hair-cut. The woman always does the hair of any female that comes into the shop, but they both cut the hair any man who comes into the shop, after all men are their primary customers. So it was to this shop that I went to get my long tresses cut short. I walk in with my hair in a pony-tail than started at the based of my neck. My intent was to have the woman start with one big cut so that I could have my pony-tail as a keep sake, just like the ones that I have of each of my daughter's first hair-cuts, but we had a little communication problem.
The women's English was good enough for me to tell her that I wanted my hair cut short. It just was not good enough for her to understand I am having chemo and I am about to looses all of my hair, so I want to have my ponytail for a souvenir. She took my hair out of the pony-tail and started cutting a little bit at a time, I wanted to cry. As a matter of fact I think that I did. Anyway she finished cutting my hair, then I got off the chair and garbed a hand full my hair off the floor. I think that the woman must have thought that I was nuts. Maybe I was.
-
O.K. after thinking about it for a long time I decided to by a wig, but I didn't want to go shopping alone. Mark is good at many things, but shopping is not one of them, I learned very early in our marriage that for us to stay happily married we don't shop together with the exception of maybe Home Depot. So I asked Alex to go with me. I had my list of wig shops in the area from my "Look Good…Feel Better" seminar, Alex and I decide to go the easy route and visit the wig and cosmetic store that is located in the Hospital (yes, they have their own store). We drove to the hospital and hunt for the store, and guess what? The store was closed Mondays we went there on a Monday. Rats. We checked the list for another store. Looking at the list, Alex saw a store located right down the street from her favorite Portuguese Restaurant and she know where there was cheap parking in that neighborhood. Sure sounds like a logical reason to chose a store to me.
We find Alex's secret parking spot and walk toward the store, we heard three or four different languages spoken just on the walk from the parking lot to the wig shop. We checked the address and locate the shop and walk in. Our hearts sank, the place was not a wig shop but a beauty shop and it looked like a disorganized dump. We didn't see anyone, not an employee or customer in sight. The shelves were well stocked, but nothing was labeled it looked like items were tossed on the shelves helter-skelter. We saw a few broken mannequin heads with cheap green, orange or purple wigs on them. We were shocked, and we wondered how this store got on the American Cancer Society's approved wig shop list. Without saying a word Alex and I turned to the exit when two African-American teenaged girls walk in. Suddenly an African-American man about forty, and dressed casually stood-up behind the counter, we hadn't notice him. The girls walked up to the counter and addressed him by name, then asked him for some product that I had never heard of. I figured that he would be spending the next hour just looking for the item.
"Second shelve from the top, five items over." He said pointing to his left. The girls walked over to that spot and there was the item they wanted. I was amazed; I gave the place a second look. It was then that I realized that I was use to shopping in corporate stores where everything was lined up in perfect order. This was a privately owned shop where the owner had his own way of doing things, the place looked like a mess to me, but it was obvious that this man knew where every item in the store was located. I was impress, but that didn't help me find a wig, so again Alex and I headed out the door when an well dresses African-American woman who looked somewhere in her thirties walked up to us and asked.
"Can I help you?" I held up the paper with the list of wig shops on it and said.
"I was looking for a wig."
"Follow me." She headed for an open door in the wall that I hadn't notice before, we went through the door and stepped down a step. We entered a wig shop, a real wig shop. It was beautifully organized, there were close to fifty mannequins heads each wearing an expensive wig. Every color, cut, and length was there, it was a bald woman's paradise.
"Have a seat." She said pointing to four conformable looking chairs sitting in the middle of the room "I'm Yvonne." Alex and I headed for the chairs, one of us must have looked at the door and then looked at her with a confused expression on their face because Yvonne looked at the door also.
"My husband and I have different business styles, but they both must be working, because we've been in business for over twenty years." Twenty years? Obviously she was older than I had thought.
"You can't argue with success" Alex said to keep the conversation going. This made Yvonne smile.
It had now been about three weeks since my first chemo treatment and just like Eva had said, my hair was falling out, fast. Yvonne put a tan skull-cap over my head and then selected a wig from her collection, placed it on my head, then styled it. The wig was similar to my own hair (or what was left of it) in length and color. It looked nice but I wanted to try different looks.
First Alex picked out a wig for me to try on, and then I pick one. It is interesting that each of us select a different cut and color for me to try on, each of us saw me differently. We were having a lot of fun, I hadn’t laughed that had in a long time. At one point I watch Alex who was at the other end of the shop, taking a blond wig off a mannequin for me to try on. I was not looking in the mirror at the wig that Yvonne was putting on my head; she styles it then walked to another area in the shop to help another woman who has just walked in. Alex turned from the mannequin and started walking back to where I was sitting, she was staring at me strangely.
"What?" I ask her as she slowly approaches me, never taking her eyes off my head.
"Look" she said as she pointed to the mirror in front of me. I was amazed at the woman that I saw staring back at me. That woman had beautiful hair, it was dark blond, with expensive highlights, the cut was exquisite. She looked so sophisticated, like she should be drinking a mint-julip at the Yacht Club or heading out for a day at her stables. I was standing there looking spell-bound into the mirror seeing myself as I have never seen myself before when my thoughts are broken by the sound of Alex's Brooklyn accent saying…
"…Too top of the mountain for you!" (top of the mountain is an expression that we use in referring to the RICH people who live in our town) we burst out laughing standing there in our jeans and tee shirts, pointing at the imposter in the mirror. Yvonne has given-up on us and told us to call her if we needed her.
I tried on a few more wigs, I found one that was my fantasy hair, it is not-quite to my shoulders, dark red and slightly curly, hesitantly I put it on, after the 'top of the mountain' wig I was gun shy. It looked great, fun, even sexy. I love it, Alex loved it even Yvonne who had rejoined us approved. Then I start thinking about seeing Beth and her red wig, it looked soooo, un-natural, soooo wrong. I took the wig off, then tried on a short light brown boring wig with slight red highlights. It said unassuming suburban house wife-I bought it. I am what I am.

Chemo Angles: Chpt 29

2007-03-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Between my cancer and 9/11 my children were under a lot of stress. So Mark and I decided that instead of a babysitter picking them up from school and staying with them while he took me to my first chemo treatment, that he would get them at school and I would have a friend take me to the hospital. So I asked my co-worker and good friend Alison to take me.
I didn’t know what was in store for me at the chemo center so I needed someone there that I could depend on. Someone who was mentally strong and would be able to help me get through whatever it was that was going to happen, the first name that came to mind was Alison.
Alison, Alison, Alison, how do I describe Alison, a woman who stands a little over 5feet tall and is a bundle of energy. She is a talented artist, with an artist's soul. She has a slight southern accent, a dazzling smile and a kind word for everyone. Because of her height (or lack of it) people sometimes try to take advantage of her, and that is always a big mistake. Alison is the mother of three teenage boys, so she has been there and seen that, anyone who thinks that they can get one over on her is mistaken.
One time when we was only the two of us working in the library, we heard a loud thump or two on the wall behind us. I couldn’t figure out what the noise was, but Alison knew. The room behind us was the men’s bathroom and the noise was the sound of bodies hitting the wall. There was a fight going on in the men’s room and I didn’t know what to…Alison did. She marched over to the men’s room door and starting banging on it yelling.
“WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?” The fighting stopped.
“ NOTHING!!!” Someone yelled. Then the two teenage boys came out of the men’s room and quickly left the library. Problem solved, I was impressed. I needed someone like this who was quick thinking to help me through my first treatment.
We drove to the hospital and park the car where I usually park, Alison didn’t want me to walk the distance between the parking lot and the cancer center, but I told her that I enjoyed the walk. Anyway I wanted to show her how funny the hospital entrance was. The entrance is set on a circular driveway, with a constant flow of cars picking up and dropping off people. The thing that always struck me funny me was how the front of the hospital was always littered with people standing around doing one of two things; Smoking or talking on a cell phone. Neither activity is permitted in the hospital, so the main entrance (and many other doors) had all theses people standing around smoking and/or talking. I found it funny to see so many people smoking at the entrance of a hospital. I must not have been the only person who noticed all those smokers because sometime in the year 2002 the hospital made the front of the hospital a “NO SMOKING” zone. Now if they could do something about those cell phones.
-
I had asked Alison if she would mind staying in the waiting room while I had my treatment? I didn’t know what was going to happen or how I was going to react, and I didn’t want Alison to see me acting like a baby. I also didn’t want to be in the position of having to entertain her. Alison said that she was ok with that, being a librarian she brought a book. I checked in and we hung out briefly before I was called. It was nice to have someone there with me I enjoyed the company.
They took some blood then sent me to the treatment room. Alison went to the treatment room with me to help get me settled. Eva greeted us as we walked in to the room and she guided us to the other side of the nurse’s station, the part of the room that I couldn’t see on my first visit. It was an interesting sight; there was a row of blue chairs along a long wall of windows. The room was bright and the chairs look convertible. Eva told me to sit wherever I wanted. I noticed that there was a TV at each end of the row of chairs; both TV’s were showing news programs. I really didn’t want to watch 9/11 coverage while I was having poison put into my body. I chose a chair in the middle of the row.
Alison sat across from me. I sat there kind-of dumb struck while Alison was making friends with the people on each side of me. To my left was an older man getting chemo, he looked like he was sleeping, his wife was sitting next to him knitting. On my right was a man about my age, he was reading a book. Alison said hi to each of them (did I mention that Alison was very friendly), the guy to my left was too tired to talk, he just gave a kind-of wave. But the guy to my right was very chatty. It was amazing to watch them, she asked the guy what kind a cancer he had and how was his treatment going. He started telling her his whole cancer story.
Alison is a great listener, and she knows which questions to ask, then actually listens to the answer, she should have been a reporter. Anyway the man told us that he had bone cancer, and the he had been in and out of the hospital for the last year. His cancer was so bad that he had to stay in the hospital while they gave him his first chemo treatments. The treatment was the 24/7 kind for I forgot how many days he said he was in the hospital. It sounded terrible, he said it was, but he though that the worst was over, until today.
He still needed out-patient chemo treatments like I was getting, the problem was…the type of chemo he needed was flown in everyday from Florida and all the planes were still grounded. So the nurses were giving him some substitute treatment until the planes were flying again. It strange, you would think living in a small town in New Jersey that a terrorist attack in New York City would little if no effect on you, yet it did. The world is so inter-connected that when something happens in one place it affects the strangest things in another place.
Eva came back caring two needles, a small one with a shunt type thing and a huge needle (about six inches long) and Alison and I knew that it was time for her to leave…I wish that I was going with her. That first think Eva did was look for a vein, she told me that it was very important that she find the right one because if my vein burst while there is chemo in it, my arm would feel like it was burning and it would be very painful. I told her to take her time.
As Eva looked for a vein she said…
“Nervous?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“When a person is nervous the veins contract, you are making my job harder.” She said with a smile in her voice.
“Sorry.” It took a while but she finally was able to get the shunt placed in my vein properly. The shunt is the same thing that is put into your hand when you are in the hospital so that you can be hooked up to the IV bottle, and different liquids can be injected in to you body with out you having to get a new shot each time. Next Eva hooked up the huge needle to the shunt and then put the needle in for the lack of a better word I call it a little machine. It was wild; the machine pushed the non-sharp end of the needle so that there was a constant amount of liquid entering my vein. It was cool to watch.
“That liquid entering your body is a combination of steroids and anti-vomit medicine. The machine will beep when you are done or if something comes unhooked, I’ll be back in a few minutes.” It didn’t hurt, in fact I didn’t feel anything, so with my one good hand I put my headset on and turned on my tape player to listen to Martin Cruse Smith’s “Havana Bay”. Arkady Renko has left the cold of Moscow for hot sun and Spanish rhythms of Cuba when an old friend is found dead… The tape ended and I tried to replace it with the next tape but I couldn’t get the second tape out of the box with only one hand. I was about to give up with the wife of the sleeping patient next to me came over and helped me switch the tapes, then she went back to her knitting and I went back to Cuba. …The heat of the sun, the sent of the sea and Arkady meets a beautiful policewoman who will help him with his investigation. Another murder…a secret meeting and …Beep …Beep…Beep…The machine stopped pushing, the needle was empty. Eva came walking over holding four or five syringes of various sizes.
“I didn’t bring all the needles over at once because I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Well, you’re scaring me now.” I said staring at all the needles in her hand, if I wasn’t strapped down I would have been running out the door. Eva sat down in front of me, placing all the syringes on a small tray, she then removed the needle filled with the steroids from the little machine and disconnected it from my shunt.
“Now comes the fun part.” She said “I will inject the chemo in to you myself.”
Unlike the steroids that can be steadily administered by an IV type machine, the chemo needs a thinking person behind the injection. Eva explained that the large needle that was filled with red liquid was the actual chemotherapy and it had to be administered slowly. If it was injected too fast the vain could burst or could be damaged so it was important that we worked as a team, she slowly injecting the chemo and I telling her if it start to burn (which it did sometimes).
“Before we start this, what kind of Popsicle would you like?” I know that asking about Popsicle’s at a time like this may seem strange, but there really is a medical reason for the question. Studies have found that eating a Popsicle during a chemo session will reduce mouth sores. Really.
“Red” I said “I like red popsicle’s.” After Eva injected some of the chemo she would remove the needle from the shunt, then inject some of the clear liquid that was in one of the many smaller syringes. This was some kind of saline solution that was designed to help the move the chemo along in the veins. So a little red liquid, then a little clear liquid back and forth…back and forth… this process took about a hour, so we spent that time talking. We chatted a little bit about the history of chemotherapy.
“I read somewhere” My most frequent opening line “that modern chemotherapy was discovered after a ship was sunk during WWII.”
“Your right” she said giving me a smile. “Not many people know that.”
The origin of chemotherapy can be traced back to December 2, 1943. It was on this date that the "Tragedy of Bari, Italy" accrued. According to www.history.mil.com it was on this date that the Germans attacked Bari where British and American ships were anchored. By the time the raid ended 17 ships were sunk and six damaged. What dose WWII ships have to do with chemo? Plenty.
One of those ships was "The John Harvey" whose cargo was mustard gas. The Allies wanted the gas in Europe to use-if-the Germans used the gas first. Poisonous gas was first used in modern warfare by the Germans during WWI. The Germans started in 1915 with a chlorine gas, then they invented mustard gas. These chemicals were horrible weapons and the Allies were only going to use them in 1943 if the Germans used them first.
Anyway, when the John Harvey sunk most of "gas" was blown off-shore. But some of the "gas" was held in solution oil form, which floated on the water exposing many of the men to this, liquid from of the mustard gas. Of the 800 casualties hospitalized that day 628 of the men suffered from exposure to the mustard gas, with 69 of the deaths blamed whole or part of being exposed to the gas. Thats right-the weapon that were going to use on the Germans ended up killing Brits and Americans sailors.
Now this would have just been another deadly battle of a deadly war except when the exposed servicemen were being treated in the hospital someone noticed these men showed marrow and lymphatic suppression, what ever that is-and this suppression stuff caught the attention of some guys at Yale. Now, according to www.lymphomainfo.net/hodgkins/timeline.html a mustard gas derivative called nitrogen mustard was submitted by some guys named Good and Gilman for treatment for Hodgkin's disease and lymphosarcoma. Up to this point chemotherapy was something called "The Fowler's solution" which was arsenic containing medicinal. By 1947 my lymphomainfo web suite said "Alpert and Petersen published results of Nitrogen Mustard showing sticking dissolution of tumor masses in patients with Hodgkin's Disease and lymphosarcoma." And the rest is history-I love knowing stuff like that.
Back at the chemo center Eva and I told each other funny stories about our kids, she made me laugh all while gently injecting first the red, then the clear. As we talked I found myself looking at all the angles pins that were pined on her lab coat, there must have been over twenty. I remembered that one time when a Lab Tech was taking my blood one of the chemo nurses came into the room and the Tech started teasing the nurses about all the pins she was wearing.
“I have to wear them all” she said laughing “because the pins are gifts from patients, and if one of them see me not wearing the gift that they gave me they might get offended.”
Angles, the patients gave them gifts of angel pins, not pink ribbons, not funny medical symbol pins, but angel pins. Pins of every size, color and shape. Happy angels, sad angels, flying angels, standing angels, praying angels. When a patient looks at these women, they see angels, and why not. These nurses did the dirty work; they injected poison into your body, hoping to give you life. They hold your hand, calm your fears and just listen to you babble. There is a special place in heaven for these women and the patients knew it.
After Eva finished injected the last of the chemo, she put another large needle with more clear liquid back in to my hand and the little machine.
“More steroids.” She said. Then she was gone. I returned to my book on tape while waiting for the process to end. From beginning to end the whole process took about 2 hours. Eva came back she asked if I felt like I had to sneeze, Funny thing was I did. She told me that that was a normal feeling right after chemo, then she gave me some pills, more anti-vomit medication and sent me on my way. Alison got me home and I thanked her again for being there for me.
“How was it?” My husband asked.
“Not bad.” I answered, then I told him the details about what had happened. Much to my surprised I was feeling pretty good, so Mark suggested that we got out to dinner. Eva had said that there 'were no dietary restriction,' so I could eat what ever I wanted. The kids wanted to go to their favorite restaurant Friendy's, so off we went.
We don't go out to eat very often, so it is always a treat when we do. I always find it funny when I read some magazine article which is written to help the reader "Reduce their spending" because one of the first things the article always tells you is to reduce your dinners out to one or two a week. ONE OR TWO A WEEK! Who are these writers anyway? We go out to dinner once or twice a month.
We love the food at Friendy's-almost everything is deep fried I can hear my arteries harden while I munch on the tasty French fries. Mark and I have learned over the years that if we want to leave the restaurant not feeling bloated that we should share a meal and only eat a small ice cream. Knowing the right thing to do and doing the right thing are two different things. I was feeling really hungry when we arrived at the restaurant, more hungry than usual.
"LOOK" Mark said "They are having a special on fajitas, they look good." And they did. I though that he was going to order the fajitas so I thought that I would also. I ordered first, they he ordered something smaller and more sensible, but I really wanted those fajitas. The food came, the girls ate their chicken fingers, Mark had his hamburger and I devoured my fajitas. "I have never seen you eat so much food!"
"Really?" I said stuffing more food into my mouth, then I ordered dessert.
-
Around 7:30pm I started to feel nauseous, I was not supposed to take my anti-vomit medicine for another half hour. I took it anyway. By 8:00 I was feeling worse, so I went to bed, leaving Mark to take care of the girls.
While I was going through all this it was easy to feel sorry for myself, but I realized just how luck I was. I had a husband that took over the care of our children and/or the house anytime that I needed it. I was able to crawl into bed anytime that I wanted to and my husband would drop what ever he was doing in order to take care of his family, as long as the sermon got done, every thing else could wait. We were lucky that both his boss and the congregation not only back his decision to put us first, but helped us in anyway that they could.
One time while I was in the cancer waiting room I read an article in the magazine ‘Cancer Today’ or some title like that. Anyway the article was by a single woman who was dealing with the cancer treatment. She was married when she was diagnosed but she was single now. She said something like it was sad how many men left their wives when the woman found out that she had cancer. To paraphrase her “The husbands left with the health insurance, but left the women with the children.” The article just reinforced just what a good husband I had.
So, as sick as I was feeling, I knew that I could focus on myself. By 9:00pm I was vomiting over and over again. Mark looked so sad to know that there was not a thing that he could do to help me. It became to much work getting in and out of our bed every time that I threw up so I brought a blanket and pillow and lied down in the hall just outside of the bathroom (the bathroom was too small to lied down in). I threw up over and over again, remember I had a huge dinner and it was all coming up. This went on all night. I finally crawled back in to bed around 5:00 am.
I was scheduled to work on Saturday the 16th, nobody including me was sure how much work I could handle, I lasted only a few hours. This was the first day that I wore the gloves to work. My co-workers knew why I was wearing them but none of the patrons did. Here is where a reputation of being slightly eccentric comes in handy, some people looked at me a little strange, but most just accepted my wearing gloves without a thought. I was surprised to see how dirty the gloves were after working for only a few hours, I would have to wash them before I could wear them again. This only reinforced my decision to wear them in the first place.

I had been warned that the worst day would be the third day after the chemo treatment, It was, except for that throwing up part. I felt like I had not sleep in ten years. The girls and I skipped church and I stayed in bed all day.
I spent the rest of the week getting my strength back, I worked my normal hours On Saturday the church has their "First Annual Rummage Sale" (we are having a lot of firsts at the church this year. Mostly it consists of church members cleaning out their attic and basements but we have managed to attract some real venders. We also are having a bake sale if there is anything that Methodist cane do well is cook, the cup cakes and cooking look delicious, to bad the mer thought of a cupcake makes me want to throw-up.
Not only did I bake some great looking cupcakes (chocolate filling, white frosting and each decorated with a single colorful M&M, they were a big hit). But we had a table of our own. It was fun, I sat in the shade most of the time hocking my wears. Mark spent most of the time wandering from table to table doing that Pastor thing that he does so well. It was also good for the Church members to see me out of the house, smiling and not looking various shades of green. Remember I didn't go to church last Sunday, and as Mark and I would learn, if I don't go to church everyone thinks something terrible has happened to me, they worry so. One of the Church members gets elected to find out how I am and the report it back to the rest of the church members. They were so upset last week that Mark I decided that no mater how bad I feel I have to go to church so the congregation won't worry so much. It is wonderful to have so many people looking after me, but it is also a burden.
The strangest thing about having cancer and telling people about it is that you become the center of attention. Being notice is something many people strive for, whether it's local fame or international fame and I have always wonder why. I wonder even more now. At first it was kind of cool having all the cards sent to me, I felt very loved. Then I found that whenever I entered a room people would come over to me to ask how I was doing, and what was next in my treatment schedule. Even the ladies that I met every day at the middle school when I pick up Ronnie would stop their conversations as soon as I join the group and all of them become focused on me. I am not used to being the center of attention I found it unsettling. Being one of four children you get use to being part of a group, not a stand alone individual.
I find myself feeling frighten sometimes, all these people telling me how strong that I am, and that they could never handle the cancer as bravely as I am.
"You have no choice" I tell them, "You do what is necessary to survive."
"No, no" they tell me "I could never go through what you are going through, and handle it so graciously." I just give them an "Ahaw shucks" look and try to change the subject. They don't see me when I am alone. They don't see me when I get so depressed that I that I become almost comatose, or when find myself crying suddenly. They don't see me when I get so angry that I throw things at my walls or hold a pillow over my face and scream in to it. I am not brave, yet I feel that everyone wants me to be brave for them, I can't always do it, some days I allow myself to fall apart just a little in front of people, but most of the time I try to make jokes about my treatment. I feel this weird need to perform for my audience. With the exception of my wedding day when I got to play 'The Bride' I have never been the focus of so many people. Every cough, every sneeze and it…
"Are you ok?" or "Do you need to sit down" I go from liking it to hating it. For the first time I understand why people who get sudden fame crash and burn so often. Sometimes I'll ask Mark to run some of my errands just because I don't want to talk to anyone that I might run in to. I want my friend's help, I need my friend's help, but sometimes all these people around me gets to be too much.

It Was A Beautiful Day: Chpt 28

2007-03-06T14:05:00.001-08:00

D-day: decision day. At 4:40pm in the afternoon I was scheduled to see my oncologist and tell her what kind of chemo I would take. I had read as much as I could on the subject, and it has been a long hard decision. Along with the chemo decision I have to make, I also had to decide whether or not I wanted a port, I decided that I didn't want one. A port is this thing that is surgically implanted into your body for the nurse to inject the chemotherapy needle into instead of stabbing you in the arm with a needle each time you got a treatment. I know that the port is better for your veins, but I was concerned that it would give me another scar, and I didn’t want anymore scars.
Another reason for not wanting a port is fear. I had mentioned that our Church sexton's wife also had breast cancer, hers was worse than mine. I was talking to the sexton one day and he told me that his wife was back in the hospital.
“Her port collapsed and she had to have it surgically removed.” I was not sure how a port could collapse but it sounded scary to me. I decided that I would tell Dr. O’Brian that I didn’t want the port and I would not let her talk me into getting one…with out a fight.
Between the start of school and all my doctor visits, the past few weeks had been very stressful. Although I have tried to be up-beat I didn't always succeed. I was in a lot of pain, almost every inch of my body hurt except the parts that were still numb, and I was grossed-up by the puss was that coming out of my navel. I was tired all the time and I was terrified of my impending chemo treatments. I found myself being infected with the "why-me syndrome", and I was feeling sorry for my-self more and more often. I frequently felt that there was no one in the world-who had it worse-off than I did. It hurt Diane to see my so down, so to cheer my up invited me to breakfast.
Diane's wanted to distract me for a while and to get me thinking of something other than doctor’s appointment and chemo treatments. She had a 'buy one breakfast and get one free' coupon for the local Friendly’s that was about to expire so that is where we decided to go for breakfast. The plan was that after we drop off our kids at school that she would pick me up and we will go to Friendly’s. As I got into her car she stopped and looked at the sky then remarked,
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” I had to agree with her that it was. It had been a long hot summer and even though the sun was shinning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky the temperature was cool and day perfect. The sunshine and the thought of my impending big calorie, fat soaked breakfast-brighten my mood also.
We got to Friendly’s and ordered our breakfast. We ordered way too much food, when our meals arrived we said that we would each eat only half of our meal. Wrong. Diane kept making me laugh as we both ate; she was doing a great job improving my mood. I was finally starting to feel more relaxed, maybe, just maybe I would feel better before my doctors visit. We were trying to figure out the tip when a waitress-who was standing at the cash register, cashier shouted:
“A PLAN JUST FLEW INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER!!!” The restaurant went silent as we all just looked at each other in disbelief. I immediately thought about the time in the mid 1940’s when a small airforce plane flew into the Empire State building, killing the pilot and some office workers. There were so many tragic things accruing during WWII that many people have forgotten about this crash.
I knew about the incident because of a story that my father told me as a child. It was toward the end of the war and he as was training to be a B-25 bomber pilot. Edward and his crew were scheduled to fly a training mission from the Carolina’s to New York, he wrote to his parents about the flight and he told them that he intended to fly a circle around the Empire State building. Well, the training mission was canceled and he didn’t think a thing out it until, as he put it:
“I was walking down the street when I saw the headline on all the newspapers at a newsstand saying something like “PLANE CRASHES IN TO EMPIRE STATE BUILDING’ I ran to the nearest phone booth to call my parents and let them know that I was all right.” So, when the waitress starting yelling about a plan crashing into the World Trade Center I though that a small plane had veered off course and hit the tall building. Diane and continued to calculate the tip when the same woman started screaming:
“ANOTHER PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, WE’RE BEING ATTACKED BY TERRORIST!!!” At that moment our waitress starts screaming:
MY DAUGHTER WORKS THERE, MY DAUGHTER WORKS THERE” Then promptly fainted. One of the other waitresses caught her enough to break the fall. Figuring that at this moment that the amount of the tip was unimportant, one of us threw down a five-dollar bill and Diane and I hopped in to her car and raced to my house.
We ran into my house calling to Mark, I figured that he didn’t know what had happened because he doesn't tend to have the TV on in the morning. As I called upstairs to him he came running down the steps telling me about the attack thinking that I didn’t know.
The three of us sat on the couch watching CNN, we were mesmerized, together, yet alone, each one of us was lost in our own thoughts. Looking around the room I noticed that my house was a mess, cleaning hadn’t been a high priority that week. The events that were unfolding gave me a lot of nervous energy, so I started to pick up the toys. Watching me start to clean Diane commented,
“You don’t have to clean on my account.”
“I’m not” I answered, “I just need to do something.” I continued to pick up stuff animals and toss them in to the toy box.
“Me too” she said as she started picking up crayons. Soon the three of us were cleaning, rearranging, sorting, dusting, etc as we watched CNN.
Eventually the minister in Mark kicked in and he started the think about his parishioners, who do we know that works on Wall Street. Only one name came to mind Paul, Mark called Paul’s wife Lindsay. She told Mark that Paul called her right after the planes hit and told her that he was OK, we felt better because Lindsay just had a baby a few months ago and was still battling post-partum-depression, we didn’t think that she couldn’t handle anything else.
I made coffee, it sat un-drunk on the sparkling coffee table. At noon Diane left because she was scheduled to volunteer for lunch duty at the elementary school, she was also anxious to see her first grader, and hold him I’d imagine. A few minutes later the phone rang, it was someone from the elementary school calling. They wanted to make sure that there would be someone home to pick up my second grader; I told her that I would be there. I was impressed, there must have been some kind of emergency system in place because each parent or guardian of all six hundred students were called. They wanted to make sure that not one child got off the bus or walked home, only to find that no one was waiting for them. Someone also quickly gathered volunteers at the school to set up a pizza party for children whose parents could not be found. How many were we going to loose. Even though we were over an hour and a half commute to Manhattan, there are many local residents who work in New York City.
Once we get settled again, Mark got a call-there was an emergency meeting of all the local clergy, he went upstairs to get dressed for the meeting, then left the house. Now I was alone watching CNN, in the last few hours I had been on an emotional roller-coaster ride. I had gone form sad to happy to shocked to frightened to angry. How dare they, I mean how dare they do this. How dare they kill so many innocent people? And for what? I thought about the many people who just like me were fighting one kind of disease or another going through painful treatments so that we might live a few more years, then these idiots highjack a plane and crash it in to a building killing thousands. The victims didn't have a chance, there weren't even giving the opportunity to fight for their lives, it was not fair. For the next few hours I focused on a real tragedy, and stopped thinking about myself.
I was anxious to see my girls, so I went to the Middle School early to pick up Ronnie and to get some comfort from my friends. Most of the kids ride the buses some are driven by their parents and a few walk, so there usually is a standard amount of cars waiting for their kids every day. Not today, the parking area was overflowing with parents that needed to get their kids in their arms as soon as possible. We stood around shocked, and wait…and talk. The conversations were focus on the WTC, as I walked from my car to my friends I heard bits and pieces of them.
“My sister works there…off today, her daughters class trip”
“…caught in traffic…”
“A breakfast meeting.”
“My neighbors were on vacation this week, both work on wall street” and so on. I reached my friends as Alex was telling them about her workaholic brother.
“This guy never, never takes time off… except for today, he took one look at the beautiful sky this morning and decided to go fishing.” How weird that so many local residents just happened to take the day off. The illusion was growing in my mind that the town really was special it seemed un-touched by the real world.

Once we all got home and we were able to sit down and talk. Trying to explain what had happened, what was happening, yet trying not to frighten them too much, I found it harder then trying to explain my cancer. These poor kids, they have spent the whole summer thinking that their mother was going to die, and just as things were starting to look better for them the world goes mad. I had called earlier to check if my doctors appointment had been canceled, it hadn’t. I hated to leave them but I had to go. My fear of the chemo was gone I just wanted the appointment over so I could get back to my family. Just before I left the phone rang again, it was Lindsay, she was crying because she has not heard from her husband since the second buildings collapsed.
-
It took longer to find a parking space, I don’t known why this surprised me but it did. There were more people in the waiting room then usual this also surprised me. There was a loud guy in the waiting room causing trouble; he kept yelling that he needed to see his doctor.
“I WANT TO SEE DR. O’BRAIN…NOW!!!” An employee came out to the waiting room to speak to him and calm him down. Oh-boy, I realized that I was in for a long wait, I picked up my book. Surprisingly a few minutes later I was brought in to the lab section and had my blood drawn, then Dr O’Brian came to get me. For the first time since I had met her she looked frazzled, she didn’t zip around the place like normal, she walked at a normal pace, and she looked like she had been mentally beaten up all day-she probable had.
We sat in her office when Sally-one of the clerical workers interrupted. The man was still yelling, what were they going to do. As they spoke I focused on my hands (I thought that reading my book would be rude) I notice for the second time that week that my fingernails looked great, all ten were long, filed and polished. Considering that I bit my nails until I was thirty, this was a major accomplishment.
I had mention my nails to Mark earlier that week and he said;
“Of course your nails look great, you’re not doing anything.”
“What do you mean I an not doing anything.”
“ You have been resting, you are not working, not washing dishes, or doing laundry, or scrubbing pans or floors, I am doing all the cleaning. So of course you nails should look good.” He said.
“ I do a little cleaning” I protested.
“HA” I think was his retort. He was right, while the rest of my body was recuperating, my hands were being treated like princesses.
I looked up from my hands to the scene being played out in front of me. Dr. O shook her head, and muttered that she had been trying to get the man to make an appointment to see her for months, but to day he decides to show up. After Sally left, Dr. O’Brian turned to me and asked;
“So what did you decide?” Remember this woman never wastes time on small talk.
“I’ll go with the three month treatment.” I responded. She sighed, with relief, and said.
“Thank goodness.” This surprised me. Why should she care whether my treatment takes three months of six months? I looked at her quizzically,
“Why did you say that?”
“Because a six month seems soooo long.” She became flustered, something that I don’t see very often, but she quickly gain control of the conversation. “Why did you chose the tougher but shorter treatment?” she asked. I responded,
“Because, as a mom I don’t have the time to be sick, the shorter the time period that I feel bad, the better.”
“That’s the responses that I get from most women.” She stated. Interesting I thought as I started to drift into my own thoughts.
“…a port” What, oh she was still talking to me.
“What about a port?” I asked
“You can’t have one” She stated.
“Why not?” I asked. “Did I just say that?
“This hospital is a trauma center, and with what is happening in New York, we are now on high alert. So all non-emergency surgery has been canceled. Which means that your can not get a port.” She said as she stood up “I want to introduced you to the nurse in charge of your chemotherapy.” And she was up and half-way out of her office. Grabbing my purse, I notice my hands again and said, trying to lighten the mood.
“The positive side of recovery is that for the first time in my life I have long beautiful nails.” With out missing a beat she retorted.
“Don’t get used to them” As she jogged down the hall with me chasing after her.
-
The chemotherapy room was at the opposite end of the hall from the waiting room. We walked/ran down a short hall that opened into a large room. The room was bigger than I had excepted. It was rectangle shaped, with a nurse’s station in the center the nurse’s station looked more like command central. Anyway, the good doctor and I were standing at the entrance when she sees the nurse that was in charge of my case. I stood there taking it all in as the two women talked.
The first thing that I notice as I walked into the room was the smell. Chemotherapy has a distinct order, I can’t describe it, yet I will never forget it. Aromas are powerful, one whiff of a familiar smell can send your mind racing down memory lane. Fragrance companies know this and have been capitalizing of it for years. While breathing in the chemo smell I looked around the room, I could only see what was to my right, because the nurse station blocked the view in front of me and there was a small wall to my left. I saw three beds, each with its own hospital curtain, one was occupied and the curtain was drawn. These beds frightened me because my only experience with chemo was from the movies, where I’d see a person looking half dead, laying on a bed with and IV attached to there arm, the movies made it look like the chemo was taking hours. Seeing these beds didn’t make me feel any better.
“Traci, I want you to meet Eva” The two women were standing right in front of me, I was staring at the beds and I didn’t notice that they had walked up to me. We shock hands. Eva was in her late thirties to early forties; she stood about 5’6” and was of medium build. There were two things that I noticed about her. One; she dyed her hair a very light shade of blond. Second; that she was wearing a white lab coat over her dress, and on her lab coat there were a dozen or so angel pins. Dr. O'Brian turned to Eva and said,
“This is Traci, she is well read.”
“Oh,” was Eva’s reply. And Dr. O was gone.
“Well read?” I thought, “What did she mean by that? Is good that I have read a lot about cancer and its treatments? Or is it bad because that would make me an annoying patient who thinks that she knows as much as the medical personal?” I was never sure if that comment was a complement or an insult. Anyway Eva gave me an information packet, kind of like “Chemo and you” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already had every pamphlet that was in the packet and I and had read them,
“You are schedule for you first treatment on Thursday at 2:00”
“Wait!” I said “I can’t come here at that time, I have to get my kids from school!” Eva shrugged her shoulders,
“That is the only time this week that I can fit you in, and Dr. O'Brian wants you to start immediately ”
“Ok, I’ll work something out” then I headed for the parking lot. Weird I thought, they wanted me to start my chemo on the 13th, there was that number again.
-
As soon as I got home I asked Mark about Paul, there was still no word. Although the temptation to watch the news was pulling at Mark and I-we kept the TV off, tried to have a normal dinner. The phone rang. Normally we don’t answer the phone during dinner, but nothing was normal that day. Mark answered the phone, it was Lindsey. She called to tell us that Paul was home.
A brief note: It took a few days for town to learn its fate. We had lost two residents, also one of the elementary school teachers (who was out on maternity leave) lost her husband. With the death of the teacher's husband 9/11 turned from abstract to the very real for the local school children. Although no one from our church died at the World Trade center, we had two parishioners who lost co-workers.

More Test: Chapter 27

2007-02-22T06:34:00.001-08:00

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.
-
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

2007-02-19T11:17:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-17T16:36:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-11T20:29:00.000-08:00

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.
-
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

2007-02-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

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.
-
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

2007-02-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

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.
-
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.
-
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.

-
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

2007-02-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

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...

2007-02-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

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.

Visiting Hours: Chapter 20

2007-01-25T20:22:00.000-08:00

At 6:00 a.m. the hospital woke up and so did I. Dr. Doogie showed up for my daily checkup. He asked me how I was feeling and we chatted as he checked my vital signs. I told him that I was feeling fine except that I was still having trouble breathing, he told me to keep using the breathing tube. Thanks!
Along with the other indignities I was put through, every few hours a nurse stopped by to empty my catheter bag and drains. What are drains-you ask? I will tell you. In surgery the doctor puts these draining tube things into your body where the surgery was. At the end of the tube is a plastic bulb. The bulb is squeezed to create a vacuum and the vacuum pulls the extra fluid through the tube and into the bulb. Every few hours a nurse empties the bulb and—you guessed it, measured the amount of fluid in the drain.
I had three drains in my body, one in my stomach, and two in my chest. They didn't hurt or anything, I just found them annoying. I was told that the drains would stay in until there was very little liquid going into the bulb. The same woman who showed me how to use the funny breathing tube also showed my how to empty and measure the drains. This was important because most women go home from the hospital with the drains still in their bodies, and need to know how to properly empty them and measure the drained fluid, an experience that I was not looking forward too.
When Nurse Patton came in to my room to check on me I started to whine about the drains.
"So, how did you guys torture your patients before some sadist invented the drain?" I whined sarcastically. Nurse Patton actually had an answer. “Remember those old westerns we all watched on TV years ago?” She asked.
“Yea” I said suspiciously. She continued, “The ones were the hero gets shot, and a woman tends to his wounds, changing his bloody bandages all day long?"
"Yea." I said, wondering where this conversation was leading.
"Well, that's because of the fluid coming out of a wound. The problem with that method was the constant changing of bandages was hell on a person’s skin." Then she smiled and said. "Some very caring person invented the drain to save people's skin.”
O.K. now I understood why I had the drains. And I also so understood that measuring the amount of liquid leaking from the location of the surgery was one of the indicators used to gage the rate of a patient's healing. I understand the need for the drains, but I still don't like them.
As visiting hours began Helen’s friends and family started appearing, I put on my head-set and started listing to “At Home at Mitford” again. The story follows a minister called Father Tim as he went about his day, at first it seemed that nothing really exciting was happening in the book, then you realize what a great minister Father Tim was. He visited this person here, and that person there, before you know it he had solved many little problems that had the potential to become big ones. He seemed to hanging out-not working, then the reader realizes that he was working all the time.
I started thinking about Mark, and the many hours he spent chatting with parishioners, a visit here, a phone call there, the counseling sessions held in the church office. I thought about all the time he and “the guys” spent in our garage hanging out and working on one of his cars. I wondered just how much counseling went on while the wrench was being passed around, and I also wondered if we could deduct any of the money he spent on his beloved old cars as “a business expense.”
I knew that Mark was well loved by the members of our church, they were always telling me how wonderful he was. The book showed me another side of him. It made me realize how hard he worked. I tended to think of him as my goofy husband and not and as other people's Pastor. After reading Ms. Karon's book, I started to look at my husband differently. When Mark came for breakfast, I told him about the book. I gave him a brief summery of the story, and said that I was impressed about all the "little" things that the minister did to improve the lives of the members of his church.
"That pretty much describes my job." He said, "I spend hours putting out little fires, before they became three alarmers.
When Mark needed someone to talk to about the pressures of his job he would call his father or sister who are also ministers. He rarely talked to me about church business, mostly because I didn't care. Now I was interested. Funny how this little piece of fiction could change our marriage, I had decided then that I would become more active in my husband's church, and never again give him a hard time about the long hours that he worked.
-
Dr. Sullivan came by again and he brought me good news. The preliminary exam of the lymph nodes was negative; it looked like we caught the cancer in time. This was good news, but he reminded me that the results of the secondary test would take a few more weeks, so we would not be sure until then, but again he felt very optimistic. I was finally starting to feel that every thing was going to be ok.
Dr. Sullivan examined me and told me that I was doing well; I told him that Dr. Asgari wanted to release me from the hospital later that day and that I did not feel I was ready to go home yet. Dr. Sullivan told me that Dr. Asgari had the final say about when I would be released and that Dr. Asgari had a reputation of releasing his patients early. Dr. Sullivan agreed with me that I should stay an extra day. I wondered why a plastic surgeon and not the primary surgeon had the final say about my length of stay in the hospital.
“Tell him that you need to stay that extra day” he said.
“Just like that! Say I think that I am not ready to go home yet?” I asked?
“Just like that” he answered.
-
I got tired of not being able to take a real breath. I sat up as straight as I can and coughed, pain, pain, pain. I coughed again, pain, pain, pain. And again, there were tears running down my face because I hurt so much. Then suddenly all kinds of disgusting stuff came out of my mouth, I didn’t know that the human body could hold that much mucus.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.” A real-clear-deep-breath. You know, breathing is underrated. I laid back in my bed and just enjoying breathing.
-
Later, I sat up in my bed, breathing and reading. I switch to a Dean Koonz book called “Ice Bound” and did I mention breathing? I was really enjoying the book, Mr. Koonz and I have a hot and cold relationship, I never know when I start reading one of his books if I am going to like it or not. This one I liked, it was about a group of scientist who go to the arctic to conduct some experiments and get trapped. Nurse Patton came by and told me it is time to sit in the chair again. She helped me get out of my bed and into a chair. I was surprised to find that she was just as strong as Nurse Max. I sat for awhile switching from reading the arctic book to listing to the Mitford book, because reading still tired me out.
Later after I was brought back to my bed Dr. Asgari stopped by to check on me again, he then told me that I can go home later that day.
“No” I said.
“No?” he answered.
“I am not ready to home I can barely sit up, I can’t walk, I am in deep pain and I still had a catheter and all those stupid drains stuck in my body."
“I’ll tell the nurses to take out the catheter, but the drains stay, you don’t know it yet but you are healed enough to be checked out.”
“No”
“Fine." He said in an exasperated voice. "You can stay another day.” He said tersely. "I will see you tomorrow.” And he huffed out.
-
Mark popped in just before lunch, we were both pleased when I was brought real food. Sure there was soup, but there was also a sandwich and dessert. Helen’s husband Henry is there too, so we open the curtain between our beds and the four of us have lunch together. Helen teased me about getting real food because she was still on the liquid diet.
Being tired of talking about operations and hospital stuff, I asked Henry what he did for a living; He told me that he was a flavotist.
“A whatist?” I ask.
“A flavorist” he answered. Actually he was a chemist who's company created the flavors that we the consumer enjoy so much when we eat processed food, or anything with a flavor. I love it when I meet people who have jobs in fields that I didn’t even know existed.
“Henry, can you answer a question about the flavors in children’s medicine? I asked.
“I’ll try” he answers.
“Why have all the children’s medicine switched from orange and cherry flavor to that awful grape? Not only that, but then they spends millions of dollars on advertising telling the public how much children love the grape flavor, my kids hate it!!! He laughed at the fact that my kids hated the grape flavoring, then he became very intense as he explained the change in flavors in children's medicine.
“It’s the American mother’s fault.” He said, his voice getting louder as he spoke “They demand 100% alcohol free in all children’s medicine. A little bit of alcohol can make a huge difference in the taste of a product. You see with a small percentage of alcohol we can use cherry or orange with no problem.” He was getting even louder now “But, the moms demand 100% alcohol free, and that tastes terrible, and the only flavor that is strong enough to cover the bad taste is grape.” Helen was giving him that wifely pat on the shoulder that meant ‘clam down.’ I obviously hit a nerve, opps.

Two Funeals and a Wedding: Chap 19

2007-01-22T19:41:00.000-08:00

My first morning in the hospital meant my first hospital meal. Helen and I were both put on a clear liquid diet, so for breakfast we each got some kind of broth. Yummm.
After eating our gruel, Helen got of out of bed and started walking around our room rolling her IV pole with her everywhere she went. I was jealous and amazed at her agility. After all, her surgery was only a few days ago, and she was up and about while I could barely move.
Visiting hours began a little after breakfast and Helen’s entourage started to show up, thus beginning the day’s activities. About mid-morning the flowers started arriving. Lots of them, I figured that maybe my father or sisters might send something, and they did, but I also received flowers from other people as well. There were flowers from an Aunt and Uncle, and flowers from some of my friends and Mark’s boss too. My side of the room was bursting with color and scent. My love of fresh flowers is widely known because of a story that I like to tell. It is about an event that happened when Mark and I were first engaged.
Before I tell the story I have to say something about my husband. There are women who complain that the man in their life is not romantic, this is a complaint that you will never hear from me. Because my story will show that not only is Mark a romantic, but he is very resourceful was well.
When Mark and I met he was working as a sexton in a church. Among his duties were to set up and clean up the sanctuary for Weddings and Funerals.
At weddings and funerals tradition dictates that the church sanctuary be decorated with flowers. Once the event is over, there are usually more flowers than people who want to take them home. The brides and grooms are off on their honeymoon so they don’t want them, and half of their families had come from out of town so they can not take the flowers home. The same thing happens at funerals. If there are a lot of flowers, the family will take some of the arrangements to the burial site and some other arrangements home, frequently leaving the rest at the church saying something like:
"Why don't you give the flowers to avcharity." Most of the time the flowers are left in the church to decorate the sanctuary for Sunday service, then thrown out.
One weekend, Mark's church, it's minister, the organist and the sexton were very busy because there were two funerals and a wedding, a big wedding. There were a half a dozen large flower arrangements left behind and a few smaller ones too. Mark asked the minister if he could take them home and the minister was glad to get rid of them.
Using a key that I had given Mark, he brought the flowers into my apartment. When I came home my living room looked like a scene from a Fred Astair movie. The room was filled with six large gorgeous flower arrangements, some white and others bursting with color. There was a note that read:
"Any jerk can send a dozen roses." How can you not love a guy like that? So now for the second time in my life I found myself in a room surrounded by beautiful flowers.
-
Mark came bursting into my hospital room excited:
“You will never believe who I just ran into at the hospital lobby!” I gave a few guesses that were wrong, then he continued,
“I ran into Beth from our first church, she was with her mother…ummm…”
“Doris” I state, I have always been better at remembering names then he has.
“That’s right, Doris.” Mark said. I remembered both women. It seemed so many years ago that Mark was assigned his first Church, and
we moved into our first home.
The first church that Mark was worked at was a small part-time Church whose minister was usually a student or a semi-retired minister. It was perfect place to start or end a career. We were there for four years and both of our daughters were born there. I have happy memories of the town and our time there. But no place was perfect and Beth had one of the ugliest divorces that I had ever seen. Beth left her husband of twenty years and he didn't want her to leave. The custody battle for their teenage daughter lasted until her 18th birthday when the daughter promptly told her father that she never wanted to see him again.
Later Beth met very nice man named Teddy, and his ex-wife made Beth's ex-husband look looked a saint. Eventually everything worked out ok. Beth and Teddy got married and lived happily ever after. That was until last year when Beth was diagnosed with “Breast Cancer”. Beth was a few steps ahead of me, so when Mark saw her and her mother in the hospital lobby he was updated on his old parishioners, and they had a long talk about her and my cancer and she wished me well.
So, Mark came into my hospital room with news of our old Church and friends. He told me about Beth's experience with a double mastectomy and reconstruction and how she was doing very well. It made both of us feel better. I introduced Mark to Helen and her guest. After a little while I told Mark that I was tired and I wanted to sleep for awhile. He told me that he would be back at dinnertime. I drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the day. I only woke up when a nurse needed to check my vitals.
-
I want to take a minute here a talk about the nurses. I have had many friends who were nurses, I just never really thought about what they did. I remember my old friend May-ling who worked with senior citizens. She told me that her job was to keep her patients as conformable as possible. And that is exactly what my nurses were doing for me. Trying to keep me conformable-in between the torture that is. The nurses worked in three shifts: day, night and overnight. Each group had its own personality. The day shift was mostly female, mostly white and mostly over forty, it looked like the mom and grandma shift. I called my day shift head nurse, Nurse Patton. She is best describe as a tough old broad. She was in her late fifties or early sixties, gray hair and a strong as an ox. She was a woman who ran a tight ship. Her movements were brisk and precise. She barged into a room, performed her duties, then moved on to the next patient.
Every two or three hours a nurse came in, took my blood pressure, my temperature, checked my hook-up to my IV and empty three drainage bags and my catheter bag and measured the contents. I sure that this was important, but I found it very weird.
At three in the afternoon the night shift came on. This shift was filled with younger people. Most of these nurses were in their twenties or early thirties. There was a greater racial mix, and this shift had the highest number of male nurses. Nurse Motorcycle Max (remember him?) worked this shift and he was in charge of my case at night.
The overnight shift I vaguely remember because I slept through most of their shift. A nurse did come into my room every few hours the check Helen’s and my vital signs. This shift seemed to be filled with woman, I’d say between the ages of thirty and sixty. The thing that struck me as odd was that most of these women were African American. I have no idea why, it just was.
-
Back to my day, Motorcycle Max came into the room to check vital signs. This time his shirt was a solid color, but not the subtle blue or white that the other nurses wore, no Max had on a bright blue shirt that suited his personality. He was outgoing and very funny. The only problem was that my body hurt whenever he made me laugh. He did his job expertly, yet he always seemed to be having fun. I was feeling a little better by the time his shift started. That was until he told me that I had to sit in a chair for one hour after dinner. I asked him very politely:
“ARE YOU CRAZY!!!!???” He laughed, then said that he would be seeing me later.
-
Mark came by at dinnertime, around 5:00 o’clock. He brought something for himself to eat and I had more clear broth. It wasn't exactly romantic, but it was nice to spend a little time alone with my husband, no kids, just us. Oh yea, and Helen and four or five of her closest friends.
I discovered that the combination of people, air freshener and flowers was to be too much for me, so I asked Mark to take some of the flowers home with him. He stayed for about an hour or so then left, flowers in tow.
Except for the fact that still I couldn't breath as well as I would have liked, I was feeling a little better. Then Max came by and told me it was time for me to sit in a chair. He stood on the left side of my bed, had me put my arm around his shoulders and helped me get out of bed. It was a s-l-o-w and painful process. He helped me get into a comfortable position, handed me one of my books called, Victory's Daughters, and left. At first I was in a lot of pain and I was very angry.
“How dare they treat me like this, these nurses are so cruel.” But as the hour progressed, I started feeling better. At the end of the hour, Max returned. He got me back in to the bed, another s-l-o-w and painful process. He made sure that I was ok, and checked on Helen. Strange, but I felt better after all the moving around. It was kind-of the feeling you get after a good workout, slightly in pain, tired, yet stronger.
-
I drifted in and out of sleep for a few hours. When Max returned, he was carrying a container of blood, my blood. He told me that my surgery went so well that the surgeons did not need to use any of the blood that I had donated for the surgery. One of my doctors told Max to give me one of the containers of blood to help me help me feel better. Another nurse came into the room. At first I didn't know why.
I start thinking that I hadn’t gone though the surgery just to die of tainted blood. So I said in a joking way I told Max that I wanted to check the container to make sure that it was my blood they were planning to give me and not someone else's. I expected rolled eyes or a smug comment when I said that. Instead Max walked closer to me holding the container so that I could read it. He showed me where my name was and where content information was written on the container. Then said:
“More patients should ask to see what we are giving them, most don’t.” He walked back to the other nurse and I learned why she was in the room. The two of them had some kind of standard form that made them double check any blood before if was hooked up to a patient. Max read the information off the container and the other nurse checked it against the chart. I saw this procedure again when they gave me the second pint of my blood. It was a smart system. I am sure the double and triple checking has stopped what could have been mistakes.
-
Finally visiting hours were over, and it would be two or three hours until a nurse would stop by the room. Time to relax, I turned on the TV. Remember there were TV's all over the hospital? They seemed to multiply like rabbits, and they were driving me crazy. But this time I had the control, I could turn on or off the television at will. I could control the channel and the volume.
It was strange how madding I found being trapped in a room where someone else controlled what I watched. I am not the only one who found watching someone else's choice of entertainment annoying. In his book “The Ayatollah in the Cathedral-Reflections of a hostage", former Iranian hostage Morehead Kennedy wrote about how the hostages were forced to watch bad American movies and pre-recorded TV shows over and over again. The person in charge of the hostage's entertainment never let them choose what show they could watch:
"…like the most saccharine Walt Disney films-most objectionable of all, Fantasy Island. And however tactfully we tried, we never did manage to turn his attention to some of the more interesting film cassettes piled up on the floor."
Loss of control about what was being shown on the waiting room TV's was what drove me crazy, not TV's in general. Now I was in control. The sound came from speakers in the hospital bed, so unless your roommate played their TV real loud, you only heard your own TV. I was afraid that Helen and I might have dueling TV’s but that didn't happen. First we both kept the sound of our TV's very low, when we realized that we were watching the same show we opened the curtains, watched TV, talked and started getting to know each other. She was really an interesting person.
I liked Helen, even though she was a needy person, she asked very little of me, until it was time to go to sleep. With exceptions (like major surgery) I have a difficult time falling asleep. I sleep mother-sleep. If you have children you know what I mean. If a convoy of trucks drives through my bedroom, Mark will sleep through it. If one of the children has a nightmare and started yelling, Mark would sleep through that too. If one of my kids has a slight cough I am wide-awake in a heart beat. I like my bedroom door closed and the room dark. Even so I hear everything.
So, when the show Law and Order was over Helen and I agreed to shut of the TV's and go to sleep. Since Helen could walk around, and I could not get out of bed by myself, I politely ask Helen to close the door. The light coming from the hallway was shinning right into my eyes. That was when I discovered that she was also a claustrophobic.
“No, no, no. The door must stay open.” She said. Well that’s ok for her, but my bed was on the side of the room that was next to the door and hall. Even at 11:00 p.m. there was plenty of activity in the hall. Helen closed the curtain that surrounded my bed which helped, but there was still too much light and too much noise for me too sleep. Helen closed the door-for about one minutes, then hobbled to the door and told me that
“The door HAS to be open.”
“All right, I’ll try to sleep.” I said, but I couldn't. This made Helen feel bad. We talked it out until we found a solution. She took some paper towel from the bathroom, got it a little wet, the placed the paper towel over my eyes. The dampness not only made the paper towel feel nice, but it made the towel stay in place. The wet paper towel blocked out just enough light so that I was finally able to fall asleep.

You like me! ou Really, Really Like Me!!! Chapter 18

2007-01-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

Mark was allowed to stay for awhile, but I was so out of it that we didn’t talk much. Soon after he left, I fell asleep. Since I was in a hospital, the nurses woke me every few hours to take my vital signs.
In my normal life, I go to bed some where between 11:00PM and mid-night and if left alone will sleep until 8:00 or 9:00AM. But since I have to get my children ready for school, the alarm wakes me at 6:30AM. I usually wake up very tired and very grumpy. So, you can imagine how surprised I was to find my self, without the benefit of an alarm clock, waking-up at 6:00AM. Who knows why I woke up so early? Maybe it was the brightness of the room or maybe it was the activity in the hall outside my door. I don’t know. What I do know is I had an opportunity to sleep as late as I wanted, and my brain woke my up at 6:00AM. Bummer.
I heard two voices right outside of my room talking (did I mention that I have really good hearing). I think the day shift was coming on and the voices I heard were two nurses. The night nurse was filling in the day nurse about their shared patients. The first voice rattled off some names and room numbers and basic information. I was not really listening. Then I heard my name, then I paid attention.
“Room 105, mastectomy; she is doing great!!!”
“Great, I am doing great! I hurt from head to toe, except for the parts of my body that are numb, and she thinks that I am doing great? Then how bad are the patients who are not doing great feel? ” These thoughts were going through my head as a doctor making his rounds walked into my room. I had read somewhere that one should never, never, ever be a patient in a hospital in the month of July if you can help it. That is because July is the month that med-students graduate to become residents, and residents become doctors or something like that. So there are all these men and woman running around with their shinny new diplomas and stethoscopes.
So, into my room walks a young man, about 5’8” dark hair, dark eyes, white coat, stethoscope around his neck and a big smile on his face.
“Good morning, I am your doctor, my name…”
“Doogie Howser, did this guy tell me his name was Doogie Howser?” Actually I don’t hear what his real name was. In my mind I called him Dr. Doogie because he looked like he was twelve years old and this was the guy who was charge of my case. Well, if the surgery didn’t kill me, the hospital stay would.
-
After Doogie left I had time to look around my room. The room was designed for two patients and it was your standard two patient hospital room: two beds divided by a white curtain, a bathroom and a window on my roommate’s side, the door to the hall on my side. We each had our own TV and side table. When either of us had a visitor the other could hear all conversations.
It was during my first waking hour that I met my roommate. Her name was Helen; she had short brown hair and glasses, and looked like she was in her late fifties. I spent the next three days with this woman who was very kind, very sick and a little crazy.
Helen had something wrong with her intestines. I think that she had about half of them removed and the other half were not working very well and-frankly she produces some pretty bad odors. She tried to cover them up with a spray type air freshener. Unfortunately she chose some strong floral sent that made me sick. Her scents added to all the flowers that were being delivered were making the room unbearable.
Helen’s surgery was two days before mine. Because of the nature of her problems I felt that Helen should have been in a room by herself. At first I was angry at the hospital for being too cheap to give her a single room. Later I find out that she was given a single room, but after one day she requested to be moved to a double because she wanted a roommate. It turns out that Helen is one of those people that can never-ever be alone. She needed to have someone around her at all times. Lucky me.
My first encounter with someone like that, was a woman that I had met when I was working as a department manager at a store called Bradlees (this was an East Coast chain of stores that was kind of like K-mart). This woman was hired as a manager. We had each had a baby recently, so we enjoyed talking about the joys and exhaustion of being a new parent. One day I mentioned my one and a half day stay in the hospital, and that my parents, my sister Janis, my in-laws, and both of my sister-in-laws, not to mention my husband had stopped by to visit. And her response was:
“Oh you poor thing, just like me hardly anyone came to visit you.” What!
Back at the hospital, the moment that visiting hours started Helen had a visitor, most of the time it was her husband, who was a very nice man. Other times it was her daughter or one of her many, many friends. Someone must have been coordinating the visits because as soon as one person left another showed up. That meant there was constant activity in the room. Most of the time I found it very annoying because I like quiet. Because I wanted to spend my time in the hospital resting I had asked my friends not to visit or call me there. But sometimes having her friends around came in handy. They were always asking me if there was anything that I needed, so I had all the ice chips and water that I wanted.
I had brought two or three books to read and another two books on tape to listen to, not to mention a half a dozen music cassettes. At home I am a wife and mother who is on call 24/7, I was really looking forward to some rest, I thought that I would sleep a little, read a little, listen to music or a story. Obviously I don't spend too much time in hospitals. Between the doctors, nurses, my few visitors and Helen’s retinue, my hospital room felt like grand central station. When visiting hours were over, Helen wanted to chat with me. The only time it was quiet was when one of us was sleeping.
-
I spent my first full day after the surgery drifting in and out of consciousness. I tried to listen to one of the books-on-tape but I kept falling asleep. It was not the book, in fact I was listening to a book that I have been wanting to read for a long time. The book was called “At Home in Mitford” by Jan Karon, I’ll talk more about this book later. What I want to talk about now is the daily life of a patient, and surprisingly, how quickly I got used to the routine.
As I said the hospital came alive around 6:00am, when Dr. Doggie showed up and checked a few of my vitals and asked how I was doing. This guy had a really good bedside manor. If he is as smart as his is kind, he will do well in his career. The biggest problem I had (besides the pain) was that I was having a hard time breathing. This must be normal because every new patient in my section had one of those funny breathing tubes that I learned to used it before my surgery.
I would breath into it and try to make the little ball rise to the appropriate line like the lady had shown me, but I couldn’t get the ball that high since taking a deep breath was impossible. I felt like there was a big clump of phlegm caught in my throat. Breathing in to the funny tube helped, but it didn’t solve the problem. I found myself scratching at my throat as if that would make the phlegm go away. It didn’t. I wanted the doctors to operate on me again to get the phlegm out, or at least stick a suction tube down my throat. I asked Dr. Doogie what could be done I begged for him to help me. He did not know what to tell me so he went looking for a more experienced doctor.
The experienced doctor came to my room. This man looked like a real doctor, he was in his late forties, maybe early fifties. He was of Asian ancestry. He told me the only way to get rid of the phlegm in my throat was to cough it out.
“Cough it out? Do you now how much it will hurt to cough it out?” I asked him. He told me that if I wanted to get the phlegm out of my throat, that coughing was the only way. This was one of the few times in my life that I actually wanted to kill someone, but lucky for both of us I was too weak. Later I tried a weenie cough or two. The attempt racked my body with pain so I stop then blew on my funny tube and suffered.
-
Did I mention that Memorial is a teaching hospital? I read somewhere that teaching hospitals were among the best places to be treated because they were always up on the latest medical information. I have no idea if that is true or not, but it sounds good. Anyway when I filled out the millions of pre-admission forms there were a few interesting documents. One was a walking will. This document let me state what kind of life saving procedures I did or did not want. I thought this was a good idea. Mark and I had a long talk about it. We wanted to make sure that everything was spelled out before hand, so that if something went wrong, my family and my husband would not end up in one of those stupid court fights, trying to decide whether or not I would want to be kept on the feeding tube. I didn’t.
The other interesting document stated that was a teaching hospital so they wanted permission to video tape my surgery, and to allow med-students following doctors on there rounds to watch when a doctor examined me. Ok, I thought, this was for science so I signed. I don’t know whether my particular surgery was taped but I did meet a lot of med-students.
Did I also mention that I am very modest? After all I am a minister's wife and a librarian’s assistant. So there I was in my hospital bed, all that I was wearing was a hospital gown. I brought pajamas, but because it hurt too much to move I never changed. The hospital gown had two snaps on each shoulder. When I noticed them I wondered why, I soon found out. It started with the arrival of Dr. Doogie. He came into my room and checked my chart, he talked to me for a few minutes, then asked if he could check to see if I was healing properly, he was the only doctor who asked permission. Then he unsnapped the right side of my gown and looked at my scars. He told me that my breast was healing quite well, then he re-snapped the gown. Again he was the only doctor who snapped my gown back up, then he left.
Later another doctor came by with a crew of med-students to check on my progress. I’ll call him Dr. Rude. Dr. Rude explained to the students (about six or seven of them) what kind of surgery I had and how I was progressing. Then he walked over to my right, unsnapped my gown exposing my right breast, explained that I had both a mastectomy and reconstruction, and that every thing went very well, and that I was healing at a very encouraging rate. He then closed my gown by placing the snap parts back on my shoulder, but failed to re-snapped my gown. He and the students left. Not only did he disregard my modesty, but he left my gown unsnapped. I didn’t have much use of my right arm yet so I could not re-snap my gown myself. I had to wait for a nurse to stop by and ask her/him to re-snap me.
In the afternoon Dr. Sullivan stopped by to see me, he was in a great mood. He greeted me with a big smile. He told me how well the surgery went. He also said that although he wouldn’t be sure until the pathology test came back, he felt that the cancer had not spread.
“Tissue has a certain feel when it has been infected with cancer, your tissue did not feel that way.” He stated again that I would have to wait for the pathology report to come in but he was optimistic. He too unsnapped my gown and was pleased at the progress of my healing. He placed the snaps (unsnapped) back on my shoulders and left.
little later Dr. Asgari stopped by. It was strange, he was so happy when he walked in to my room. With his arms enthusiastically waving and a big smile on his face (Dr. Asgari smiling, who would have thought it?).
“You have great blood flow!” he ranted. “Great-Blood-Flow!!!” He explained that when he does a trans-flap, he divides the stomach into four sections. The first three are together from the left of my stomach area to center, there the blood flows horizontally. The forth quarter is on the right side of my torso and the blood flows vertically. Dr. Asgari told me that he rarely uses the forth part because the blood flow is typically not good enough. But my blood flowed wonderfully (except when I was donating blood). He had more than enough stomach parts to build a beautiful new breast.
As he was saying this I remembered Frances telling me that a friend of hers had wanted Dr. Asgari to do a trans-flap on her, but he refused, because she smoked, and smoking effects the blood flow. He would do implants on a smoker, but never a trans-flap. So there I was, the woman with the great blood flow that can make this stoic doctor smile. He unsnapped my gown, to check out his handy work, declared it a success, then puts the snap parts (unsnapped) back on my shoulder and leaves.
This goes on for the next two days. I must have had the best reconstruction that this hospital had ever seen, because doctors seem to wandering in and out of my room all day long. I was beginning to think that men are putting on a white coat just to look at me. I swear that the last guy who checked me out worked for the food service department. Ok, that was a joke, but it seems like my breast got more attention in the three days that I was in the hospital, then they ever did when I was single.

Surgery: Chapter 17

2007-01-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

We woke up before dawn on the morning of July 17 because we had to be at the hospital by 6:00 am. The only good thing about driving anywhere so early is that there is very little traffic. We got to the hospital and found a parking space without a problem (so this is what time you have to get here to find a parking space). We went to the surgery check-in place. The woman there was way too bright and cheerful for 6:00 AM I asked her:
“How can you be so happy this early?” She told me that she loved the mornings. The woman was a young, pretty and dressed very nicely. I could tell that she loved gold jewelry. She had on so many necklaces that she made Mr. T look under-dressed. After checking in, we went to another area where Mark and I were separated. He had to stay in the waiting room (I can not grade this waiting room because I have no memory of it), while I followed another woman to the patient area. This woman was slightly older than the first woman. She was not as cheerful and not wearing any gold (cause and effect?). But she was very nice and showed me where to change from my street clothes to hospital clothes, then she put my clothes in a bag and tagged it.
Next I went into a room that could best be described as a patient’s staging area. Mark was there to meet me.
This area was bizarre; there were six patients, each in our own curtained-off area. Doctors, nurses and technicians were coming and going into each area. One Asian woman came to my bedside to get information, then someone else came in and took even MORE information. I was given an ID bracelet and put on an IV. Eventually a blondish man came in to my area and introduced himself as Dr. Davis-my anesthesiologist, finally. He was very handsome. I had seen so many good looking people employed in that hospital, that I was starting to wonder if someone from central casting was running the personnel office.
Dr. Davis and I talked for a few minutes. He explained the process (in laymen’s terms) of the anesthesia. Then he asked if I had any allergies.
“No, I don’t have any allergies, but I do suffer from ‘Cheap Date' Syndrome.” Dr. Davis burst out laughing. Mark was sitting next to me holding my hand and laughing too.
I turned to Mark and said.
“See, he understands.”
Dr. Davis composed himself, then said:
“I think what you’re trying to tell me that you are drug sensitive, right?” I nodded yes. He then said: “I just never quite heard it put that way before.” We talked for a few more minutes then he left.
Since Dr. Davis laughed at my joke and because I was able to check his breath to make sure that it didn't smell of alcohol (by talking low so he had to bring his head close to me to be able to hear me) I decided that he was ok.
At this point a woman came up to us and introduced herself as my surgical nurse. My mind started calling her Glamour Nurse. She told me it was time to go in to the operating room.
Her tone of voice told me that she was a no-nonsense gal. She had highlighted hair. "Glamour Nurse" was older than most of the women who had been prepping me. She seemed to be around my age I think, but it was hard to tell because she was wearing a surgical mask and all I could see of her face was her eyes. What struck me as odd was all of the eye make-up that she wore. It was only 7: a.m. and we were on our way to an operating room, not a Nightclub. Why would she be wearing all that make-up? I wondered. Then again, why did that other woman wear all those gold chains? I guess that in an atmosphere of sickness and death, each person finds something to make themselves feel better.
-
I was wheeled into the operating room by "Glamour Nurse" and someone else. The gurney came a stop, and I started looking around. The room was not what I had expected. It was huge. Three of the walls were painted yellow and the forth wall was floor to ceiling cabinets that looked like transparent glass or plastic. The cabinets were filled with items used in the operating room. It looked very organized. My closets should look so good! The room had lots of scary looking equipment. I didn't know what half of the machines were. I also noticed that the room was cold… I don’t like cold.
As they moved me from the gurney to the operating table, I was surprised how narrow the operating table was, I kept thinking:
“This bed is too narrow. I move a lot when I sleep and I am going to roll off!” What was I thinking? This wasn’t the hotel Ritz, this was an operating room. I decided the table was narrow so that the surgeons could work on their patients without reaching so far, but I still felt like I was going to fall off.
As I was being hooked up to the equipment, both Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Asgari approached me. I read somewhere that surgeons liked to disassociate themselves from their patients before surgery because the doctors need to focus on the process, not the patient. Since I knew this before hand I told myself that I would be on my best behavior.
So there I was, lying on the skinny table looking up at three masked faces. On the right is Dr. Sullivan, his gentle smiling brown eyes looking down at me in a reassuring way. In the middle Glamour Nurse with her over made-up eyes looking at me, then scanning the room watching the other nurses, doing their work. On my left was Dr. Asgari, his brown eyes acknowledge me and then move away and he was deep in thought.
Behind me I heard the anesthesiologist, he started to talk to me again and we started to joke with each other. I couldn’t resist, I tried to bring the other doctors in on the joking. They tried to join in for a second or two, then stepped away from me (I hope to re-focus). After another minute or two of joking, Dr. Davis became quiet and professional and I hear those dreadful words.
“Now count back from 100.”
“100.” At least he didn’t tell me that a member of my family ruined his life.
“99.” I love Mark and the girls, I will miss them when I die.
“98.” I will see my mother soon.
“97...” ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
-
Beep…beep…beep…everything looked blurry, then clear.
“I am alive.” I whisper to myself. I looked around. I was in a room that I had never seen before. It was a large room with curtains sectioning off my little area.
“I am alive.” I whispered again, this time a little louder. I was hooked up to some a machine.
“I AM ALIVE!!!” My brain shouted. A nurse was sitting to my left. She was another young, pretty woman. Next to her was another patient on a gurney. The nurse must have been monitoring both of us.
“Welcome back.” She said in the kindest voice that I had ever heard. “How do you feel?” she asked. Sounding very un-original, I said:
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
She just smiled, then said: "I called your husband as soon as you came out of surgery. How far away do you live?”
“About twenty minutes.” I answer.
“Figuring time to park he should be here any minute.” She checked what ever I was hooked up to and went to her monitoring desk, which I could see from my bed.
Before the surgery, Mark and I had agreed that he would to go home rather than wait for me at the hospital. In movies and TV shows, when someone is in surgery, their family is seen in the waiting room pacing back and forth and bugging every doctor or nurse that comes in to view. That may make great drama, but in reality I think it is dumb.
Frances had told me that her double mastectomy and reconstruction had taken about ten hours. My doctors told us that my surgery would take six or seven hours. I am a very pragmatic person and I think sitting in a hospital for seven hours is a waste of time and Mark is not good at doing nothing. If I knew that he was waiting for me in the hospital, I would be worried about him pacing in the halls. Since we both felt that I needed to concentrate on me, we decided it would be better for him to go home and work on his 66’ Dodge Charger, and come back to the hospital after the surgery.
Working on the car always makes him happy. He can easily lose himself working in the garage, and time passes quickly for him. We asked that Mark be called as soon as I was wheeled out of surgery. By the time I woke up, he would be there by my side. So much for the best laid plans.
I slowing moved from being groggy to being fully awake. No Mark. The nurse came by and checked on me and we chatted. No Mark. The guy next to me moved to a room where his whole family was waiting for him. Still no Mark. The nurse calls my house again. No answer.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a worst case scenario- type person. By this time I was convinced that Mark was dead in a car accident. I was starting to get very upset, so was the nurse. Someone came by and told her it was time to move me to my room. I had been in recovery much longer than I should have, and they needed to move me to my room. The nurse won't let them move me, saying that she would check the waiting room one more time. A few minutes later running back to the recovery room saying:
“We found your husband, and you won’t believe this.” She told me that my surgery went much faster that expected, the operation was only four hours long. They called my husband when they were supposed to, someone sent a volunteer to the waiting area to find Mark as planned. She must have just missed him, so everyone thought that he was not there. So he sat and waited for someone to get him, while they were waiting for him to show up, Anyway they found him.
-
Once Mark was located I was moved to my room. The irony was that since Mark is a minister he can move around the hospital with fewer restrictions that the average visitor. Mark could have entered the recovery room at any time!
He didn’t hunt down anyone to ask about my stats for two reasons. First, he is a very polite person. Second, as he looked around the waiting room he saw people who had a family member who entered surgery around the same time that I did, and they were still waiting for information about their loved one. At least Mark knew I had survived my surgery, so he waited, until my nice nurse finally made the connection between Mark and me.
-
Mean while, I slowly woke up. Along with the joy of realizing I was still alive I also came to the realization that my body was numb. As the anesthesia wore off, I started to feel pain. Although the pain was concentrated in my torso, I hurt from my hair to my toes, with the pain increasing every second. I didn’t think it was possible for a body to hurt this much. After all, I have experienced pain before. I had given birth to two children. But this hurt much more. I didn't think it was possible for my body to handle any more pain.
Soon I was unhooked from the monitor and some people pushed my gurney through the catacombs of the hospital. We turn left, then we turn right, in an elevator-up, down who knows. We go over hill and over dale, and through the woods (ok I just made that one up.) It seemed like they were pushing me forever. My biggest fear was that I would become one of those ‘left in the hallway people: Luckily my gurney kept moving. Eventually I arrived to a room.
The first thing I noticed was a handsome young man standing next to an empty bed. He was wearing some kind of loose white shirt that looked like it had mice riding motorcycles on it-man those drugs were gooooood. On his command the gurney was moved parallel to the empty bed.
“On three.” Motorcycle Max said.
“Your not moving me are you?” I stupidly asked.
“One.” He continued.
“This is going to hurt.” I thought.
“Two…three” they lifted me from the gurney to the bed.
“Ouchhhhhhhhhhhh” I yelled. If I thought that I was in pain before, it was nothing compared to this agony. This was the worst pain that I had ever experienced. I hope that I never feel pain like that again.

A Night of Romance?: Chapter 16

2007-01-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

And wait….
In her book "Just Get Me Through This" author Debra Cohan wrote about different things that women did the day before their mastectomy.
Since I was convinced that I was going to die on the table, I wanted to make sure that Mark’s and my last night together would be special. If you watch as many movies or read as many books as I do, then you know that in fiction a person’s last night alive is a special one. So, just like John Travolta and Kara Sewick in the movie “Phnom,” we did what every couple in love does; we made our last night together a romantic one.
First, I called to the girls to tell them that I loved them because I wanted to say goodbye. Next Mark and I had a romantic but small meal (no food or drink after midnight). Then I took long candle lit bubble bath as the book told me, to give me time to say goodbye to my breast. Then we planned an evening of lovemaking. What nobody talks about in romance novels is how awkward it is to have sex is when you think that you are about to die.
From the moment that we started kissing, I felt that making love was a mistake. But I continued for my husband, because I felt that he wanted, no he needed the intimacy. I just didn't realize how weird it would be to use sex to say goodbye. The irony was that Mark felt the same way that I did. He also felt very uncomfortable but continued because he thought that I wanted the intimacy of the moment. I guess you could call that night the modern day version of “The gift of the Magi.”
Anyway during this awkward moment the phone rang, we don’t as a policy answer the phone when we are fooling around (I have had friends that do). We knew that it wasn't the kids because we had already called them, so we ignored the phone. Later Mark went down stairs to get a snack and he checked the answering machine. Beep…
“Good evening, this is Dr. Davis calling, I will be your anesthesiologist tomorrow and I wanted to touch base with you before your surgery. I am sorry that I missed you tonight and I will see you in the morning.” Beep… I could not believe it, we missed the call that I had been waiting for because of “Death Sex.” I told myself that if I lived through this, the next time that I had surgery scheduled-we would rent a movie the night before… a comedy.

Prayers: Chapter 15

2007-01-17T21:19:00.000-08:00

And wait…
On Sunday July 15th prayers were being said for me. Not only were the members of my church praying, but people in churches around the state were praying. In fact there were people all over the country praying for me. I kind-of felt like the character 'George Bailey' from the move "It's a Wonderful Life" a man who had a whole town praying for him. How did I get some many people to pray for me? I'll explain.
First; there was the congregation of my church who had been praying for me since they first learned that I had cancer. Also, many of my wonderful co-workers, most of whom were church goers (they were Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic and Mormon). have put my name on their church's prayer list.
Second; there was my family. I did not have a religious up-bring. In fact my parents never took me to church when I was a child. There were some religious conflicts when I was growing up. My father was raised Catholic, and most of his side of the family remained Catholic. My mother was first raised Lutheran, and then somewhere along the line my maternal grandmother became a Jehovah Witness. On that side of the family the religious beliefs run all over the place, from Presbyterian to Greek Orthodox. So with my aunts and uncles putting my name on each of their church's prayer chain I had many different houses of worship in dozens of states and Canada praying for me.
Then there was my husband's family with their generations of devout Methodist Ministers, my father-in-law and my sister-in-law (who are both ministers) have put my name on their pray chains also. So that is how I got so many people praying for me.
Speaking of my in-laws, they drove up from their home in South Jersey to pick up my girls. My in-laws kindly offered to take my kids home with them for the next few days, suggesting that it would be easier for everyone if Ronnie and Leah stay with them while I went to the hospital. Mark and I thought that it was a great idea because the tension was getting pretty thick around our house.
-
And wait…
On July 16th my husband 's boss Katharine showed up unexpectedly at our house. Yes ministers have bosses besides…Him. Let me take a minute to explain the hierarchy of the Methodist Church. First, this is a world wide religion. Each country is broken down in to districts or conferences. Mark is a member of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference. Each conference has a Bishop and several district superintendents or DS's depending on the size of the district. Each DS has x-number of churches or charges. The first time that I tried to explain this to my father his first question was:
"No Pope?"
"That is correct Dad, no Pope."
Every year each church holds a Charge Conference which is presided over by the DS. At the Charge Conference the minister and members discuss the events that have taken place over the last year and set goals for the next year.
Every year each charge (or church) sends representatives (both ministers and lay people) to the three day Annual Charge Conference (a minister's convention, there is a joke there somewhere), which is presided over by that Annual Conference's Bishop. At Annual Conference, ideas, changes, wants and needs are discussed.
Every four years there is a General Conference where representatives from each Annual Charge Conference from around the world meet and set the stance of the United Methodist Church (your church donations at work). Each Conference is linked to the other Conferences and each Methodist Church. So each church and each minister is connected to each other. Get It? Then you are way a head of me.
Anyway Katherine showed up at our house to pray with us. After I got over the shock of her showing up, I found myself enjoying her visit very much. After a few minutes of small talk she opened her Bible and read some scripture that she had selected for me. The three of us held hands and prayed. She then told me that there was an international Minister's prayer chain on the internet and she had put my name on it. So that is how I had gone international. I was even bigger than George Bailey…double cool.
-
I confess, even with all of these people praying for me, I was still terrified. I felt pretty confidante about Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Asgari, but the anesthesiologist scared the hell out of me, because he/she was an unknown. After all, I spent weeks searching for Dr. Sullivan and he recommended Dr. Asgari who had great references. But the hospital assigns an anesthesiologist to each surgery. So I will get assigned one by the luck of the draw.
Maybe it was because I watch too many of those TV News Magazine type shows, but it seemed to me that every other week there was a story about a patient dying because the anesthesiologist was drunk or on drugs. Remember those stats; 1 out of 250,000 die on the table because of anesthesia-related mistake. There is more.
Back in college I showed the bad judgement of dating one of my professors (do you get the feeling that I didn't do well with men until I met Mark?). Anyway, the professor had a reputation of being what my mother would have called a "cad."
I was very much in love with this guy, in spite of the fact that he was sixteen years older than me and in the process of his third divorce. His mode of operation was to have one steady woman in his life and a few more on the side. He liked to tell people with his sly grin and a twinkle in his eye that "Many people thought incorrectly (wink-wink) that in the book 'Looking for Mr. Goodbar' the character of the cold, seducing college professor was based off of him." If you have read the book or seen the movie you know that this was nothing to be proud of.
I mention this old boy friend and his reputation because of another story that he loved to tell. It was about his mother, an operation, and her anesthesiologist. It goes something like this.
So, there my mother was, lying on the operation table when the anesthesiologist approached her asking;
"Is your name Sandra Fitzgerald?"
"Yes," she whispered, then he asked,
"Is your son Seth Fitzgerald?
"Yes" she said. Then he starts yelling at her saying,
"YOUR SON STOLE FROM ME THE ONLY WOMAN THAT I EVERY LOVED!!!, HE RUINED MY LIFE!!!" He then lowered his voice and as he put the mask over her face said, "Now count back from one hundred." my poor mother went under thinking that the doctor was going to kill her…HA! HA! HA!…

This was a funny story when you were sitting around a bar with friends, but I did not find it funny when I remembered it the day before I was scheduled for major surgery.
-
I was told that the anesthesiologist would call me the day before my surgery. I was looking forward to the call. I wanted to talk to him so I could get a feeling of the doctor. I have sharp instincts about people (except when I date them). History has shown that when I get a bad feel about someone I am usually right. I also wanted to discuss that fact that I am drug sensitive. I am not allergic to any drugs, but I seem to react to them differently than most people. If I am given a drug based on weight and height most of the time I end up being over medicated. I need one aspirin when other people need two. Also I can get drunk on two beers. I felt it was important to tell him/her that, so I was looking forward to the phone call.

Donating Blood; Chapter 14

2007-01-16T17:54:00.000-08:00

And wait…
While I was in the hospital for my pre-admitting test one of the women who helped me suggested that I donate my own blood so it would be on hand in case I needed a transfusion during my surgery. Good idea I thought. After all, I certainly had the time. So I made the arrangements and was told that I had enough time to donate twice.
-
Since school was out for the summer so Mark and I decided to bring the girls to the blood bank with us. I didn't want to go alone because I had a history of bad reactions to donating blood and I wanted Mark there in case I had another bad reaction.
The first time I gave blood, I was in my twenties and I was working for Eastern Airlines as a reservationist. The building that I worked in was the largest reservations center in American. With over a thousand employees, it was logical to have a blood drive at the office.
I thought that it was great to be able to donate blood during my shift because this would mean that I would be paid to give blood and drink juice and eat cookies. So, I went to the donation room where the medical people had set up, I filled out the paper work then took the next available cot. The technician inserted the needle in to my arm and the blood started to flow in to the catch bag. After a while I didn’t feel very well. I started feeling both sick and sleepy. A doctor was walking up and down the rows of cots looking at the donors. He stopped next to me looked for a moment then turned to the technician who was monitoring the people in my area. He said while pointing to me:
"Take the needle out of her arm." The technician touched my catch bag and said:
"She is almost done." The doctor took a step toward the tech and said in a not so friendly voice:
"GET THE NEEDLE OUT OF HER ARM-NOW, SHE IS TOO PALE!!!"
The tech took the needle out of my arm and helped me to stand. I stood for few seconds, and then promptly fainted, (bet that helped recruit donors). When I came-to, the tech helped me to a table where there was juice and cookies. I took a few bites, and then fainted again; this time there was no one there to catch me. I slid off my seat and under the table. Needless to say it was fifteen years before I tried to donate blood again.
The next time I bravely tried I had been married for a few years. Being
a minister's wife I wanted to be more active in community service. When a parishioner asked me to donate blood at a local VFW blood drive that she had organized I said yes. Anyway I was older and wiser and I ate better too, so why not.
The second time I donated blood I did not faint. The weird thing that happened that time was that my blood just didn't want to leave my body. So, there I was lying on a cot with a needle in my arm and my blood s-l-o-w-l-y draining in to the catch bag. Meanwhile on each side of me the donors were coming, donating, and leaving. My blood was still drip-drip-dripping. When a doctor came by me this time he said as he was laughing:
"I see that your blood is very attached to you." Yea, yea everybody is a comedian I thought.
I tried again a few years ago. Twice a year the B'ville Library has a blood drive, so I tried again. Mark went with me this time and everything went very well. My blood drained at the right speed and when the doctor walked by me, all he said was "Thank you for coming." We ate our cookies and juice and both Mark and I were given a Give Blood T-shirt as a thank you.
The last time I tried to give blood they wouldn't it. Something about my iron count being too low. So on the whole my luck giving blood has not been good, that is why this time when I donated I wanted Mark there to help me if I need it.
The blood donation center at Memorial was on the same floor as the radiation center, which meant going down to floor 4D again. After a quick stop to the out-patient registration deck, it was off to donate blood. We arrive at the blood bank and SURPRISE! I had to fill out more forms while Mark and the girls stayed in the waiting area. This waiting room was an L-shape. The reception area was right at the front (+). We were immediately taken care of (+). The room was painted in hospital uninspiring, with artwork to match(-). Then there were some boring chairs and couches located at the bend of the L (-) followed by a small area with a refrigerator full of juice and a coffee table with snacks (+). All in all I gave it a C it was not bad, but not good either.
The donating room was a small room with four or five very comfortable bed/chairs to lie/sit on. The technician guided me to the chair nearest to the door then hooked up my arm and asked me if I was comfortable.
"Could up help me with my walkman?" I asked the woman. I wanted to set the walkman next to me on the bed/chair and turn it on, but because one of my arms had a needle in it, I needed help. Why did I want to listen to one of my books on tape? Because the bed/chair is located right under a BLARING TV(--) that’s why.
After I finish we headed toward the exit, unfortunately this was a hospital, which means that there were people walking though the hall with bandages, and on crutches. We pass one patient parked lying in the hall on a gurney, moaning in pain. All this upset Leah. She was in tears by the time we got to the car and she asks that we never bring her to that scary place again. Mark and I promise her that we would not.

And wait…
A week later Mark and I were back at the blood bank. Funny but when you give blood at a blood drive they make you wait x-amount of days before they will let you donate again. Yet this time I was able to give blood with only seven days in-between.
We didn’t have a problem getting a sitter for the girls, the problem arose when we walk into the blood bank and the tech noticed my pale face and running nose.
"Do you have a cold?" the woman asked. I want to say something like, no I don't have a cold, I always look this bad. But instead I said,
"Yes, I have a cold."
"Sorry," she tells me, "but you can not donate blood if you have a cold."
"It is only a little cold." I told her. No good. They would not let me donate. I had to be healthy for x-amount of days before they would take any blood. It was getting very close to my surgery date, but I was not worried, I told the tech that it was ok because my husband and I were the same blood type and he would donate blood for me.
"Are you pre-menopausal?" She asks.
"Am I what?"
"Can you still get pregnant?"
"Yes, I think.” I tell her.
"Then your husband can not donate blood for you." She went on to explain that if I got pregnant while his blood was still in my system then there would be an increased chance of some kind of birth defect. I had no idea.

And wait…
I went back to the blood bank again. This time I went alone because we were unable to find anyone to watch the girls. I told Mark that I would call him if I felt that I could not drive by myself.
First stop, the out-patient check-in. This time the window was manned by a very pretty twenty-ish Spanish woman. I filled out the standard insurance forms. She looked them over to see if they were filled out right. After looking at the employment box she looked up at me then asked,
"Is you husband a minister?"
"Yes," I answer. She continued,
"That makes you a minister's wife."
"Why, yes I guess it does." I wondered where this conversation was going.
"You must be very holy." She said. How do you respond to a remark like that? I just nodded my head and left.

And wait…

Chapter 13: What Do We Tell the Children?

2007-01-15T19:37:00.000-08:00

During this time Mark and I spend a lot of time talking about what we were going to tell the girls. At this point they knew that something was wrong, but they were not sure what. They noticed the tension in the house, and the extra phone calls. I usually talk to my sisters and father a few times a month, now I was talking to them a few times a week. My kids knew that something was up.
Mark and I talked to friends and family about how to approach the subject of my illness and we consult a few books on the subject. Each had a different point of view. Some said to tell them everything, and some said to tell them nothing. We went with the "tell them everything" theory, probably because it is in my nature to blab. Maybe it was because I used to watch soap operas, or maybe because I had read so many novels, it seems to me that many of the plot lines of these types of entertainment are centered around misinformation.
Stories ranging from then soap opera "General Hospital" to one of Mark's favorite movies "White Christmas" center around someone hearing a part of a sentence and misunderstanding what was being said. Then they fill in the blanks and come to the wrong conclusion. This is great fun for fiction, but could cause problems in reality.
We told the girls that I had cancer and that I had to go into the hospital to have an operation. We explain that when I came home it would take weeks for me to heal, and that I would need their help with things like bringing me glasses of water and so on.
"Are you going to die?" My little Leah asked with tears in her eyes, Sam started to cry also.
"NO!" I said trying to sound convincing. "I am not going to die, but I will be real sick for about a month or so." I hugged them both and we try to answer all of their questions. The knowledge that I had cancer frightened them, yet they were actually relieved, because they knew something was going on and now they understood why I had been so sad.

And wait…

I called Diane and told her that my surgery had been rescheduled and asked if she can readjust the cooking schedule. She called me back to tell me that she was able to reschedule everyone but Ruth. My friend Ruth was the mother of one of Leah's friends. Ruth still wanted to cook for us on the thirteenth because she didn't want to loose her place in the cooking line-up. So she told Diane that she would bring over dinner so I could have a night off. Cool. So at 5:00pm on Friday the thirteenth my family receive our first meal from The Traci’s Friends Delivery Service, the meal was wonderful.

Chapter 12: Who Moved My Surgery Date

2007-01-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

And wait…
Okay, it was now July 2nd and I had done my little bit to save the world, now I had to save my mind. I had too much time to think and feel sorry for myself. At this point I could have spent a lot of time on the internet getting more information about cancer and mastectomies. I am pretty good at surfing the net. At work I helped students find information for their homework all the time, but I was leery of the internet. For every good piece of information that I found, there was an equal amount of bad information. I found some statistics on line that stated that in the year 2000 there were 2,100 deaths from complications and adverse reactions to anesthesia in the United States. Which I learned meant that anesthesia kills 1 out of every 250,000 people who go in to an operating room (like I really want to know this, as if I was not scared enough). I decide to turn off the computer and find something else to focus on.
My family is of course the center of my life, but thinking about them made me think about their life without me. Well, that didn't help my mood much. It was time to turn to my old stand by, books. I usually try to read about three books a month. This time I went on a reading frenzy. Among the books I read was one called "Absolute Power" by David Baldacci, I enjoyed it very much. I remembered that Clint Eastwood made a move from the book, I make a mental note to find a copy of the movie (can we say, based 'loosely' from the book?). Next I read "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austin and I now understand why the book is considered a classic, it was great. I like different kind of books; I am very eclectic in my reading. I also read a lot of non-fiction. Next I read "A walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson, a man who would become one of my favorite writers. Who knew that hiking could be so funny?
It was around this time that I found a book that profoundly affected my life, called "Who Moved My Cheese" by Spencer Johnson. It was strange that this book should catch my eye at this time of my life. I became aware of the book because of its high circulation. The book was being checked-out of the library all the time. "Who Moved My Cheese" is a small book that the average person could read it in one sitting. The story was about change and how different the four individuals in the book reacted to it. At one extreme is someone who embraces the change and handled it well. At the other extreme was someone who was so frighten by change that he was unable to react at all. Then there were the other two who were somewhere in the middle. The book asked-which one are you? I guess I was about to find out.
-
My boss wanted to know how much time I would need off from work. Our library is small, there were only fifteen employees, so my being out would effect the scheduling. Because each time I couldn't work someone else had to work in my place. Luckily it was summer and the library had shorter hours, so filling in for wasn't that difficult. I figured that I would need about two weeks to recover, but before I said anything to my boss I wanted to check with Francis.
"Six weeks is what you will need." She told me.
"SIX WEEKS!!! ARE YOU CRAZY?" I responded.
"Six weeks." She said with an emphatic tone, then continued “a trans-flap is a serious operation. You have never experience such pain. You will need time to recover."
"Pain-HA." I said indignantly, "I gave birth to two children-HA!"
"So have I, and I tell you there is no comparison." She told me looking down at the floor and nodding her head. Francis had given me outstanding information up to this point so I started to turn white and feel a little bit faint.
I asked my boss for six weeks off. My co-workers told me to take all of the time that I needed. Wow, I worked with some really great people.
In her book "Just get me through this" author Debbie Cohen wrote horror stories about women who had breast cancer and who were given a very hard time at their jobs. Ms. Cohen cites examples of women who were treated as if they just had a lobotomy instead of a mastectomy. She wrote of co-workers who didn't want the cancer survivor returning to work. When the survivor did return she was treated cruelly or like she was a leper. Not me, my co-workers were kind and helpful.

And wait…
Meanwhile I was starting to get depressed again and started planning my own funeral. Again Diane came to my rescue. Both the church people and my co-workers knew that Diane and I were friends and they kept approaching her to ask what they could do to help me. Diane and I brain stormed and came up with an idea. She offered to coordinate special meals-on-wheels for my family. Starting July 13th anyone who told her that they want to do something for me could sign up to bring my family dinner. We figure five, maybe six people tops would sign up. As soon as people heard about the list they started signing up. Even a few of the mothers of my kid's friends wanted to cook. Diane told me that I didn't have to think about making dinner for a month. Cool.

And wait…
Seven more days…I found myself scrubbing my house, I want it to shine. Cleaning house before I left it for a few days goes back to my airline days. I found that it was much nicer coming home from a trip to a clean house than a messy one.
"Hon!" My husband said to me, "My mother just called and wants to know when you are having your pre-admittance test done?"
"What's a pre-admittance test?" I asked him, I had no idea what he was talking about.
"My mother said that before any surgery a patient has to have certain tests. You better call you surgeon."
-
"Hi this is Traci calling and I am scheduled for surgery on July 13. Do I need any test dome before the surgery?"
"Of course you need pre-admittance," the woman on the phone said to me, her tone implied that I was stupid. She continued, "Everyone needs pre-admittance test, we told you all about them."
"No you didn't"
"Yes, we did."
"N-o, y-o-u d-I-d n-o-t!!"
"Y-e-s w-e d-I-d!" We sounded like five-years-olds.
"Whatever." I said. At least now I sounded like a teen and not a pre-schooler. "Just tell me what test I have to have done and how do I schedule them?"
"I'll set every thing up for you and call you back with the when and where. After all there is no hurry, as you know you're surgery has been changed until the seventeenth, bye." Click.
" WHAT!!!"
-
And wait…longer

A few days later I found myself back in the Memorial Hospital, in the pre-admissions department. The women who worked there were great. They helped me fill out all of the forms, including a 'walking will' which stated what I wanted or did not want done medically if something went wrong during the surgery. This paper did not helping me to feel any better, I was getting more and more frighten of the surgery every day.
While I was filling out all of the paperwork, one of the women asked me if I had seen any of the cancer counselors. I told her that I had not, so she made a call. A few minutes later the counselor walked in to the room and asked me to follow her. We went in to her office.
She introduced herself as Grace, she looked a little younger than me, and she was trim, with long brown hair. She was very professional looking, but she had very kind eyes. We stared to talk.
For the first time I understood what was going happen to me. Dr. Sullivan explained the surgery part fine, but I had no idea what my stay in the hospital would be like. Up until now the only time that I had been admitted to a hospital was when I gave birth to my daughters. In maternity wards, women are pampered. The surgical ward would be different. I would not be getting my own room. There would be many people who would need a lot more attention than I will.
Grace walked me through the surgical process. She told me when and where to check-in (for once I will not be an out-patient) how I would be prepped, and what things would be like after I woke up. Ahhhhh, waking-up, I like the sound of that. Then she showed me this weird tube thing that everyone gets after they have surgery. It was some kind of breathing tube. She showed me how to breathe in to it then she made me try. I felt silly. As I breathed into the tube, I saw a little ball thing measuring how hard I was breathing. She told me that this silly thing would become my best friend after my surgery.
Grace then gave me information about the National Cancer Association and arranges for them to contact me. She also gave me some meditation tapes and books. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I am no good at meditating. Whenever I tried, either my minds wanders to a book that I have read or I day dream about winning the lottery. Mostly I just fall a sleep. I took the tapes and books and thanked her. She asked me if I had any questions.
"Well," I said, "my mastectomy will be on my right side, and frankly I have had problem with chronic pain in my right arm and shoulder for most of my life and I didn't know if that would effect my surgery." I told her about the odyssey of doctors I had gone to, none of whom could do anything about my arm. I said that I had learned to live with the pain.
"Have you told your surgeon about your arm?" Grace asked.
"No, I haven't"
"Then I suggest that you call him…today." I left the hospital in a much better mood than I came in with.
-
I called Dr. Sullivan as soon as I got home and left a message with his staff, hopping that they would remember to give it to him. To my surprise, he called me back with in an hour. His staff maybe inefficient, but he was not. I told him about my arm and shoulder, he listened patiently, and then asked me one question, did the pain limit the use or movement of my arm. I told him no. He said than that whatever the problem was; it should not his effect his approach to the surgery. Good.
And wait…

Chapter 11: 4th of July

2007-01-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

And waiting…
My doctors were working at a snails pace and all the waiting was making me depressed. I had to work hard not to be in a permanent funk.
Like many women, I suffer occasional boughs of depression. Luckily mine rarely lasted more than a day or two. Maybe it is because I have good body chemistry or maybe it is because when I feel down, I get up.
I have found that the best way to stop feeling sorry for myself is to focus on someone else. Try to do something nice for another person. I was not looking for a big project, something small would do. I don't usually have to look far because I find that if I keep my eyes open, an opportunity to help someone will present itself.
One such opportunity showed up when Emma, one of my favorite older church ladies, handed me a bags of books after church one day and told me that she wanted to donate them to the library. I thanked her and I thought that that was the end of it.
Later at a church coffee hour (a time of fellowship after church each week), I made a point to sit with Emma and thank her again for the books. The best way to describe Emma is to say that she was a character. Emma was in her eighties, about five-foot nothing and a bundle of energy. I got tired just watching her work a room. The children all call her 'The Candy Lady' because every Sunday she brought a bag a candy to coffee hour and gave each child (and adult) a piece or two of candy. I liked her because she cracked me up and I admired her because her husband had Alzheimer's and she had been taking care of him for years.
Anyway, Emma and I stared talking about books. During our discussion I discovered that she had lost most of her eye sight and the reason that she gave me so many books was that she could no longer read them. I was shocked. I had no idea that she could hardly see. I asked her if she listened to any books-on-tape.
"Books on what?"
"Books-on-tape." I said. I went on to explain to her that best selling books were recorded so people could listen to them.
"How do I get one?" she asked. I told her that we had books on tape at the library and I would be happy to bring her some. I asked her what kind of books she liked and told her I would bring her some every week. And that is what I did. Each week I would check-out two or three books-on-tape, make a list of what I brought her and record if she liked the book or not. It was a simple thing to do, yet it brought us both so much joy.
I needed another project to keep me occupied through all of the testing and waiting. I got my next project idea from an off-handed remark made by Claire, who is another (much younger) one of the church ladies,
Claire did a lot of volunteer work at the church. One of the things that she did was once a month gather all the donated food that had been put in the collection box that we keep in the church and take it to the local food bank. One Sunday as I was helping her put the food in her car, we both notice how little had been donated and she remarked:
"The food bank looks so sad this time of the year. People just don't donate as much food in the summer and they do around Thanksgiving and Christmas." That was it! That’s when I decided to coordinate a summer food drive. First I though to do a 'Christmas in July' theme, then I thought nahhhh too goofy, I left acting goofy to my husband. So I decided to have a 4th of July picnic food drive.
I have been involved with food banks in one form or another for years. My interest started in the late seventies when I became a fan of the late Harry Chapin. To see a Chapin concert meant not only listing to his wonderful music, it also meant listening to him lecture about how obscene is was that in our country of abundance, people/children went to bed hungry every night. I never went to a concert with out a few cans of food for the local food bank. Funny how being a Chapin fan turned out to be good training for being a minister's wife.
The first person that I call with my idea was Diane and we put together a typical BBQ menu: Hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, pickles, catsup, mustard, chips, chicken, soda, fresh fruit and corn-on-the-cob. I had talked to the woman who ran the food bank a few weeks earlier and asked if they had refrigerators to store the perishables, she did. We ask the congregation to donate food, money and freezer space. We got everything that we ask for and more. Everybody really jumped into the spirit of giving and I found myself very busy organizing everything.

And waiting…
For the next two weeks when ever a member of the church ran into either Diane or me they told us that they thought the food drive was a great idea. People drop-off bags of buns, condiments, pickles and beans at my house, other people gave Diane or me cash, telling us to buy what every meat or perishables we needed. On the morning of July 2nd, Diane and I took the cash and headed out to the local supermarket. We both brought our children. We turned the shopping trip in to a math game for the kids as we tried to get the best deal for each item. The kids helped. They liked to try and figure out which brand of pickles would give us the most jars for our dollar. Because of a big holiday sale we did better then we anticipated.
We bought hamburgers, hot dogs, coleslaw, and potato salad, enough to feed between ten to fifteen families. We still have cash left so we bought twenty bottles of soda, but like everything else that we bought, the soda was on sale. We still had money left. We bought bags and bags of potato chips. We still had money left over; we decide to donate the extra money to the food bank. It took two mini vans and my car to get all of the food to its destination. When we arrived, a volunteer (a very nice older gentleman) came over to help us unload. He asked us if we had a picnic that was canceled. We told him no, that this was the result of a food drive. He was amazed by all of the corn-on-the-cob and fruit. Soon staff members and other volunteers came out to help us unload the cars.
The manager was overwhelmed. I reminded her that I called a few weeks earlier. She just smiled and said 'thank you' but gave me a look that said 'I didn't think that you could pull it off'. I walked back to my car feeling the high of a job well done. I thought that our effort would feed people for days. What I didn't know was that this food bank (which was located in one of the wealthiest counties in the state) distributed about three hundred and fifty bags of food a day…a day. So our little effort barely scratches the surface. But it was a start!

Chapter 10: The Lucky Number Thirteen

2007-01-09T20:42:00.000-08:00

Finally the date was set. The operation was scheduled for three weeks later on Friday the thirteenth of July. Now you might think that the date itself might have freaked me out, but it didn't. I was upset because I had to wait for three weeks (I just wanted it over with) but having surgery on a Friday the thirteenth was fine with me. Since I met Mark, the thirteenth became a lucky date. Mark was born on a Friday the thirteenth and so was Leah. Ronnie was born on a Wednesday the thirteenth, and on June 25, 2001 Mark and I celebrated out thirteenth Wedding Anniversary. Weird huh?.
-
Now I waited, I am not very good at waiting. Patience is a virtue that I lack. My sisters and my father were calling me every other day they wanted to know
why I had to wait so long for my surgery, so did I.
My sister Valerie and I started talking about my mother and her course of treatment. I mention that I thought that when mom (Nora) finally had her biopsy, she got the results the same day, and had her surgery the next day. Valerie said that she would check with our dad.
A few days later Valerie E-mailed me the information that I wanted. It seems that in October of 1989 my mother had a mammogram that was "questionable" and was told to have another mammogram in a few months, sound familiar? I think that at this point my mother, like a lot of people, let fear override logic so she waited three years before she had the second mammogram. I knew that there was a time lag between the two mammograms; I just didn't realize just how much time had passed. I think knowing that my mother had waited so long, prompted me to get my second mammogram when I did.
Nora’s second mammogram was in June of 1992 and that test led to her biopsy. I was wrong. The surgery was not the next day, but five days later. So for my mother it was less than a week between the biopsy and her mastectomy. Heck it took me almost two weeks just to get the results of my biopsy. Things move much more slowly in up here then in Southern Jersey. I always thought it was the other way around.
My mother never had chemotherapy. They put her on Tamoxifen right away. Fifteen months later Nora had her first bone scan, and the test showed some problems. In January of 1994 my mother was told that the cancer had metastasized. The doctors tried radiation, but it didn't help much. Nora had become paralyzed by the winter of 1994 and by the end of the year all treatment stopped. Nora lived (if you want to call it living) until April of 1995. It was important that I know all of this, because I would have to make many decisions about my treatment in the next few months and I felt that my family medical history is important in making these decisions.
-
Six years…there was six years between the day that my mother was told that she had a suspicious mammogram and the day that she died, six years. When I started reading the statistics about breast cancer I found that survival rates were listed in five-year increments. For example; I found a chart from the year 2000, that showed survival rates for stage one (which is what my mother and I had) for was 95% end of five years (remember in chapter 7 I mentioned that I found different survival rate charts in different books). What I didn't know and still don't know is does the clock start from the first bad mammogram? In that case my mother lived for five years. Or dose it start from the date of the diagnosis? Or does it start from the date of surgery? Then she didn't make the five years. I just don't know. The chart also stated that at ten years the survival rate is 65% Ouch! The rate improved when different treatments got added on, such as radiation, chemo and Tamoxifen.
Six years. I am my mother's daughter. I am more like my mother than either of my sisters. Six years. If I follow my mother's pattern then I have six years from the first bad mammogram. That gives me till some time in the year 2006. At that time my children will be fifteen and twelve. That will put them in early adolescence, I can not die in 2006 my children need me too much.
Mark is a great father, but he can not be a great mother…he can not be any kind of mother. They need me to take them shopping for their first bra, and show them how to shave their legs. And what about when their period starts? My girls have a wonderful extended family, a great grandmother and four caring aunts. There are just some moments that are meant to be between a mother and a daughter, and I was determined to be there for them.
The information Valerie sent surprised me, because I didn't know that my mother got her first questionable mammogram in 1989. I mean that was the year that I got married. Why didn't she go back sooner, why? And, how come her surgery was so done so quickly after her biopsy? I have a lot of questions and there is only one person who can answer them, my father. He took such good care of my mother, he knows every detail of her disease, but he is so distraught by my diagnosis that I just can't ask him these questions, I just can't.

2007-01-03T20:07:00.000-08:00

After my experience at the plastic surgeons, the last thing I wanted to do was see another doctor, but I didn't have a choice. Mark and I dropped the girls off at Diane's, and then it was back to Memorial hospital. This time we went to a different section of the hospital called The Cancer Center. The Cancer Center was a newer building attached to the left-hand side of the
older main hospital building, it had it's own entrance and parking…valet parking. Did I mention how cheap I am? I will go to greatlengths to avoid valet parking. I have walked blocks out of my way at restaurants and banquet halls to avoid those guys. It’s the waiting for my car that annoys me almost as much as the cost of the parking and tip. Maybe if I drove an expensive car I wouldbe treated better, but my experience have all been negative. When Mark and I were looking for a place to have our wedding, any banquet hall that had valet parking was crossed off our list.
The parking lot that was closest to the main entrance was $2 an hour for everyone except the patients. We were suppose to park free if we got our parking stub validated. Actually, the price varied, depending on who was working the check-out booth. Some days I paid nothing, some days $1an hour and other days $2 an hour, hmmmmmm. The not knowing was madding, but making the extortion payment to the toll both guy was still cheaper than the valet parking, which was two dollars an hour plus tip. Needles to say we parked in the lot by the main entrance and walked to the Cancer Center.
The main parking lot was on the other side of the main building. When we parked there we had to walk to a sidewalk that paralleled the front part of the circular drive that was in front of the main entrance to the hospital. At the end of the sidewalk we turned right and walked down a steep slope then turned right again until we reach the entrance of The Cancer Center.
We walked pasted the valet parking guys and enter the building. Then, we had to go up one floor to get to the second level on The Cancer Center-which was the same level as the first level of the main entrance-I'm so confused.
We found the waiting room easily. Now this…was a waiting room! The room was large and could hold over thirty people. It had a color scheme of green, beige, yellow and black. These were not weenie colors, they were bold (+). There were many chairs most of which lined the walls and there were many well placed end tables (+). There was a group of about six or seven
chairs extending into the middle of the room back to back which broke up the room. It didn't feel like I was sitting with a big crowd, it felt almost intimate (+). The chairs alternate between solid color chairs and chairs with a leaf design. The waiting room served seven doctors, a few technicians and the chemotherapy area. There were two receptionists windows and one was almost always manned, that meant that I didn't have to wait forever to find an employee (+). There wasa closet with plenty of space and plenty of hangers for coats (+), and there was a lot of reading material, a very pretty fish tank (+) and NO TV (++) I gave the room an A+.
I checked-in and filled out a zillion forms then sat down and prepared for a long wait. A few minutes later my name was called along with four other people. We past through a door into a bigger room. There was a counter with chairs on the left (for billing
problems I think) and a small office on the right. We followed a woman a blond woman who had an Eastern European accent. The pathway seemed to lead forward, I though that we would go that way, but she made right turn so we did also. After a few steps we were at the lab area and I realized that we were called there to have blood drawn. There were two technicians
who took a vile of blood from each of us. When we were done we were sent back to the waiting room. A few minutes later the door opened again and a different woman called my name. Mark and I went to the door and the woman introduced herself as
Dr. O'Mally. She looked younger than me. Yes, I've reached the age when my doctors are younger than I am. This woman looked somewhere in her late thirties, she stood around 5'2" or 3" and her blond hair looked natural. She was pretty in an Irish, make-up free kind-of way. She wore a classic skirt and blouse and flat practical shoes. She told us to follow her then turned andheaded down the hall. Mark and I struggle to keep up with her.
Dr. O'Mally's office was at the end of the hall. We got there in record time. The décor of the hall and doctor's office was a variation on the waiting room theme. The carpet was green and the walls are a beige type color. Dr. O'Mally office was small and windowless, there was a big desk with a computer on it and two chairs for visitors. The chairs had the same leaf design as the chairs in the waiting room. I noticed as we walked (ran) down the hall that in some of the doctor's offices the chairs had the leaf design, while others had a black and green strip pattern. Do the boy doctors get the stripes and the girl doctors get the leaves? Hmmmmm.
Behind Dr. O'Mally's desk was a floor to ceiling bookshelf. In almost every other doctor's office I visited, I noticed some personal touches on the book shelf pictures of their family, trophies, art work, some indication of the doctor's personal life, here nothing. Well, almost nothing. Way up on the top shelf there was a beautiful picture frame, but it is empty. Weird.
As we sat down I was starting to think that I would get two doctors in a row with no personality. Wrong. This woman was bursting with personality. She was smart, funny and had a great bed side manor. She just had a lousy decorator. Unlike the two male doctors that I had seen recently where I was shy and let Mark do most of the talking, I felt very comfortable
with Dr. O'Mally, so we talk easily. She told me that she was surprise to see me, because she normally does not see a patient until after their surgery. But Dr. Sullivan knew that I wanted second opinion about the mastectomy. I know…I know to get a second
opinion a person should never go to a friend of the first doctor. My father also wanted me to see a second surgeon, because he believed (and he had the research to back him up) that too many women are not give the lumpectomy option. A small part of the reason I didn't want to see a second surgeon was time. It took me a long time and a lot of effort to find Dr. Sullivan. Another factor was the money, remember I'm cheap. Besides all that, I felt that Dr. Sullivan made his point for mastectomy vs. lumpectomy. It made sense that if the tumor was on the top part of the breast, i.e. 10:00 o'clock to say 2:00 o'clock that a lumpectomy will work.
But my tumors were on the bottom of the breast, at the 6:00 o'clock and 8 o'clock position. How does a surgeon cut out only thelower half of a breast and keep the natural shape of the breast? I felt that he might as well remove as much breast tissue as possible. After we talked for awhile Dr. O'Mally brought me into the exam room. After our experience in the plastic surgeons exam, Mark wisely chose to stay in her office.

Chapter 8 meeting the Plastic Surgeon

2006-12-30T17:43:00.000-08:00

When my co-workers first find out about my impending surgery some of the old timers told me to talk to Frances. Not only did I work with Frances, but she and her husband were long time members of my church (small town remember?). Frances didn't work at the circulation desk like most of us so I didn't get a chance to talk to her often. She was in charge of the technical services department, which is where the books are cataloged before they are shelved. Since I didn't see her that much during my normal work hours, I decided to come in to work a little early so we could chat.
I asked her about her cancer scare and why she had a double mastectomy and reconstruction, even though her biopsy was negative. Frances told me that her family had a long history of breast cancer. In fact, cancer was so prevalent in her family that many of the female members were in a long-term medical study. She told that she had many questionable mammograms and had gone through more biopsies than she could count so in 1990 after another iffy mammogram and biopsy she decided 'NO MORE'.
Frances was among the early group of women who had preventive bilateral mastectomy. Many people, including members of her own family, told her that she was crazy, but she was tired of living with the fear. At the time, she had two small children and staying alive for them seemed more important than having breasts.
It is important to understand that having a double mastectomy is not a guarantee that a woman will never get breast cancer, because it is impossible to cut away all of the breast tissue. But by having the surgery, that woman's chances drop about 90% of getting the disease. The ultimate irony of the story is that a few months after having the surgery, one of Frances's sisters was diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily it was caught early and the sister is alive and well today.
Frances discuss the different kinds of reconstruction I told her that Dr. Sullivan recommended that I stay away from implants and go with something called a trans-flap.
"That's what I had." Frances said, and then she told me her story. The procedure was still quite new in the early nineties. Frances was sitting in the waiting room of her surgeon when she picked up a copy of the magazine Red Book and read an article about trans-flap surgery. She showed the article to her doctor. He told her that he didn't know much about the surgery, but would investigate it for her. A few phone calls later he found that there was only one doctor in the area that did that surgery.
She had the trans-flap and was very satisfied with the results. Frances confirmed what Dr. Sullivan told me, a trans-flap operation is the taking of skin, mussel and fat tissue from the stomach of the patient (basically a tummy tuck), then transplanting it in to the hollowed out breast and Voila! A new breast. Sounds easy.
"Don't believe them when they tell you that you that you will never get a tummy bulge again" She says pointing to her stomach. "SEE, THEY LIE!" I thought that her stomach looked pretty flat.
"Who do you have your appointment with?" She asked me.
"Some doctor with a strange Arabic name.
"Asgari?" She asked.
"Yea, that's the guy. Do you know him?" I asked her.
"He was my surgeon! He is the best of the best." That made me feel better. It is always nice to hear a high praise about a doctor from a former patient. Frances told me a little about his background.
"Dr. Asgari is from Iran. He came the United States abound the time that the Shaw fell from power. The doctor is very sophisticated, very European, sooooo continental. Great! Now I am intimidated by a person that I haven't met yet.
-
We were now in the last week of school for the girls. The last week of school was all half-days and I felt that it was important for the girls have a good last day. Which is usually a day long party. I really want Sam to have a good send-off because this will be her last day in Elementary School. In Beaville Middle School starts in fifth grade, like, I don't have enough to worry about. In less than three months my ten-year-old will be entering Jr. High….oh, I mean Middle School.
-
On June twenty-first and Mark met Dr. Asgari. His office in was located in one of the very ugly building that stands across the street from the hospital. The street used to be called 'Millionaires Row' because of all of the grand houses that were located there. Slowly, one by one the beautiful houses were torn down and ugly modern buildings were erected in their place. Dr. Asgari's office was in the ugly building that almost never had parking. We are forced to park in a residential area about a 1/4 mile away.
The medical buildings were constructed on the same hill as the hospital. Like the hospital, what is the main floor in the front of the building is two floors down if you use the back entrance. So finding a doctor's office for the first time was confusing. I found the halls narrow as I walk down them looking at door after door until I find the right office.
The waiting room was small then again it was a one-person office.
The first thing that I notice was the fresh cut flower arrangement that was located on a table just inside the entrance. As I looked around the waiting room I noticed that Mark and I were alone, there were no other patients waiting. I had never seen an empty doctor's waiting room before. The room was done in yellows and beige's, with a few very nice matching leather couches and some straight backed chairs that had a floral design. There were also matching end tables. There was a clear plastic rack on the wall that held magazines and brochures. All the magazines were current. The room was conformable and practical. My mother (who only decorated in white and beige) would have loved it. I love it. And, because it did not have a television or music I give it and A+. But Mark didn't like it, he thought it looked cold.
We went to the reception window wondering if we are in the wrong office. We were not. The receptionist was somewhere is her twenties. She was beautiful, with blond hair and a great figure. Then again, what else would the receptionist in a plastic surgeon's office look like? I filled out all of the forms and had a nice chat with the receptionist. Her name was Lacy. It didn't take me long to realize that Lacy was actually hired for her brains. I like her instantly, which is a good thing because in the future we would be spending a lot of time together dealing with the insurance company.
Lacy explains that Dr. Asgari does not belong to any HMO. He gave up on them a long time ago. He sets his price and whatever the insurance company won't pay I will be responsible for. She told me that insurance companies are unpredictable so she had no ideal what my insurance will cover. The cost of the operation is-ready for this- $10,000. Yikes.
Understand that I am 1/4 Scottish and playing to stereo types, Scott's are notorious for being cheap. I will spend money on my kids in a heartbeat, yet not a penny on myself. Trying to get a dollar out of me is harder than getting a dollar from Jack Benny. I didn't need the surgery and my husband did not care if I got the reconstruction or not.
Some women have to have the reconstructive surgery. Their marriage wouldn't last with out it. Not mine, my husband loves me and the reconstruction surgery was for me, not him. I didn’t want to spend the money but Mark insists that we at least talk to the doctor.
A woman came from the exam-room while I was talking to Lacy. She waved to Lacy as she walked past us, through the waiting room and out the door. Moments later Dr. Asgari came out of his office and asked us to follow him. He was in his early to mid fifties. His hair was dark with just a touch of gray; his coloring was not light or dark. He could easily be mistaken for Italian or Hispanic, only his distinctive nose indicated his Arabic blood. He was dressed in suit pants, a white shirt, a tie and white doctor's coat.
Dr. Asgari had and average size office which was decorated just like waiting room, but there with a few small sculptures (which I later learn he made, it’s nice to have a plastic surgeon whose hobby is sculpting). On a bookshelf I notice a professional family portrait: beautiful wife, two sons.
Mark and I sat across from the doctor. I'm was feeling very uncomfortable. Unlike Dr. Sullivan who had a reassuring smile, Dr. Asgari was all business to the point of appearing cold. I noticed that he really did have that continental look that Frances told me about, and I found myself being intimidated. The doctor asked Mark and me few questions that told him that we were already interested in the reconstruction surgery. He did not have to try to sell the idea to us. Later when I talked to other women who had seen a plastic surgeon (including Dr. Asgari) and they told me that the doctors had shown them 'before and after' pictures of the results of an reconstructed mastectomy.
Once it was established that I was interested in the surgery, we all went to the examination room. The room was big for an examination room. It was painted the normal exam-room white and it had the standard sink and counters lining the walls. What it did not have was a traditional exam table. Instead it had a kind of exam chair, where the patient kind-of sat and kind of-stood at the same time. I have never seen anything like it before.
Dr. Asgari opened a cabinet and took out a hospital dressing gown for me. He told me to take everything off from the waist up, and then he left the room. I looked at the hospital gown. It was not like any gown that I had ever seen before. Hospital gowns are usually blue or white and made of cheep cotton, or they are green and made of paper. Not this one. It was a yellow gown was a gauze like fabric, it was kind-of see through. I thought why bother wearing it at all? I shrugged and changed in the yellow gown.
Now remember, I am a minister's wife and a assistant librarian, which makes me very modest. So there I was, half-naked sitting/standing wearing a gauze slightly see-thought hospital gown. And I thought I was uncomfortable before! Dr. Asgari came back in to the room; he sat on a stool in front of me and started to examine my breast. It was weird having a doctor that I have just met touching me, but it was even weirder to have this happen with my husband in the room.
I was getting more and more uncomfortable as the exam continued. Dr. Asgari talked more to Mark than he did to me. I think that was because I stopped talking. I tried to crack a few jokes, but the doctor had no sense of humor, so I stayed quiet.
Dr. Asgari explained that the reconstruction surgery would be done at the same time as the mastectomy. First he and Dr. Sullivan would work together with Dr. Sullivan performing the mastectomy, removing the breast tissue, but leaving the skin of the breast. Then Dr. Asgari will take muscle, skin and fat tissue that were removed from my stomach and use it to build a new breast. Then after I heal and complete my chemotherapy will the second surgery be performed. The second surgery involves Dr. Asgari reconstructing a new nipple on my right breast and reducing the left breast to match the right one.
"Could I go smaller?" I asked. I have always been at war with my breast. I have felt that I was a D cup body in a size A cup mind. Dr. Asgari looked at me and said:
"How small do you want to go?" Suddenly I have a choice! I have always wanted a breast reduction and this was my chance. The doctor explained that he would have to go a little smaller. The largest that he could manage was a C cup, and even that depended on how much fat/muscle tissue he could get from my stomach. He told me that he could only use 2/3's of my stomach muscle, apparently this has something to do with blood flow, and in most cases 1/3 of the stomach muscle was useless.
I found myself speechless. Here was a chance of life-time and I was too frightened to think. I looked down at my body, the body that betrayed me, and I realized that this was the only body I've know and I was going through enough changes that I didn't want anymore! I told the doctor that I wanted my breast to be to be as close to the same as possible. A decision that I later regretted. There would be many times between this doctor's visit and the operation that I wanted to call Dr. Asgari's office and say "A set of small C's please", but I was too shy.
Trying to lighten the mood, I told him that he would have no problem finding enough fat in my stomach to fill my breast. He looked at me with a very serious expression on his face and said that he thought that there might not be enough fat for the surgery. I was starting to like this guy.
As the exam was about finished he told me that he needed a few 'before' pictures. I knew this was coming because long ago back in the excessive eighties, I had a roommate who worked for a New York City photographer. This guy's job was to take the 'before' and 'after' pictures for many big named plastic surgeons. Through my roommate I always knew which New York celebrities were going under the knife.
This is the digital age, and I am in New Jersey, so my doctor took his own pictures. He told me to stand against a wall, then he poised my arms, opened my almost hospital gown, than sat back down on the stool and started snapping away. Now remember standing right behind him was Mark. It was just too weird.
There I was, standing half-naked in front of a man that I met thirty minutes ago and he was taking pictures of my naked torso with my husband standing behind him. The whole thing struck me as funny, and I wanted to laugh, but laughing didn't seem appropriate. So, while trying to suppress a laugh, my face looked as if I was scowling. Dr. Asgari took a few more pictures and quickly exited the room. Mark told me that my expressing looked like it is saying:
"You can take the pictures, but now I am going to have to kill you!!!" I guess intimidation works both ways.

Chapt 7 Cont..

2006-12-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

June 12th Mark and I drove the girls to school. Ronni was still in a great mood from a field trip to the Bronx Zoo she took the day before. The happy chatter was good because I was able to focus on her and not me. First we drop-off the girls at their respective schools, then it was off to the hospital. Mark drove while I give him directions. I don't like to drive. I do it all the time, but I don't like it. As a driver you have to watch the road. As a passenger you can look around, take in the sights and relax. So, given a choice I will be the passenger every time.
We sat in the waiting room briefly, and then entered Dr. Sullivan's office. After the introductions are made we discussed my biopsy results. The test showed that I had two tumors, one at six o'clock and the other at eight o'clock. Because of the locations Dr. Sullivan felt that a lumpectomy would not work. I would need a full mastectomy.
I was disappointed but not surprised. In my research, some books said that if a surgeon won't do a lumpectomy-run. On the other hand other books said that in certain circumstances mastectomies were the only option.
While I was thinking…second opinion, Dr. Sullivan went on discussing how he would approach the surgery. He drew pictures, showing his approach, explaining every detail of the process. Then he started talking about the sentinel node.
"The sentinel node?" I asked.
"Yes, the sentinel node test is my standard procedure." He said. Mark and I looked at each other and smiled, Dr. Sullivan continued explaining the procedure. "What about reconstruction?" I ask. That’s stopped him.
"Do you think you might want reconstruction surgery?" He asks.
"I might." I reply. I would love to say that I did lots or research on reconstruction or that I spent hours and hours reading about the pros and cons of the surgery, but that would be a lie. I became aware of reconstruction surgery in the early eighties when I was at the peak of my soap opera watching.
I started watching 'soaps' when I was a teenager, like many people my age I was a huge fan of Dark Shadows which was on at 4:00 pm. I just loved that show and I couldn't wait for it to be on. First I turned on the TV at 3:55 pm, then 3:50 and so on before I knew it I was hooked on General Hospital. Then One Life to Live and so on. Before I realized it, I was schudeling my life around my shows.
Why did I stop? Because of a comment I over heard at work one day. By this time I was in my early twenties and I working full time as a reservationists for Eastern airlines. On a normal day I would wake up somewhere around 9:00 am, then I schudeled my errands so that I would be home by noon and watch my soaps. I watched them from 12:00 to 3:45 pm, then hop in my car and rush to be at work by 4:00 pm (by this time Dark Shadows was cancled). Sometime I would be late to work because I just couldn't pull myself away from the TV.
Then one day when I was on my break and I over heard two women who were sitting near me talking. One of the women was very excited about a place that she had gone too recently and invited the other woman to join the next time that she went, but the second woman said something like:
"What time? I HAVE to be home by noon so I can watch my soaps." The first woman explained that the place didn't open until 1:00 pm so the second woman declined. I thought how stupid! Then I realized that I was living my life the same way. So I decided to quit.
It wasn't easy. The problem was I really wanted to know how the story lines that I had invested so much time in would resolve themselves. But if I watched to see how storyline 'A' ends-I got sucked in to storyline 'B'. I didn't think that I was ever going to get over my addiction, then techonolgy came to the rescue in the form of a VCR. I was able to tape the soaps and watch story line 'A'. Then I would fast forward through story line 'B'. With in a few months I was cured. This maybe part of the reason that I hate TV's in waiting rooms, it makes me feel like an alcoholic who is forced to sit in a bar.
Anyway, there was a character on one of my soaps that had breast cancer and was refusing treatment because loosing a breast would take away her womanhood. The TV doctor explained the wonders of reconstruction surgery, she had the surgery, lived and was still the town vixen. I didn't know much about the surgery, only that the surgery existed and that I might want it.
It wasn't that I looked at a mastectomy and as horrible disfiguring surgery. If I could find a plastic surgeon who can give me a fake breast, great. If not, that was okay too. This attitude can also be traced to the eighties.
When I was in my early twenties and working at the airline, I met a guy that I will call Paul. We started out as friends, then the relationship slowly changed. Paul had a secret, which he didn't tell me until it was obvious the relationship was becoming romantic. Paul's secret was that a few years earlier he was in an accident, an explosion really. A furnace at his job blew up, killing one and injuring others. Paul's injuries were the worst of the survivors. He had been burned on over seventy per cent of his body. Actually at the time he was given only a five per cent chance to live.
He had a body full of scars that I hadn't noticed. He had a few scars on his face but since he wore his hair long and had a full beard I didn't see them. I should have been suspicious about a person who wore long sleeved shirts in July. At the time of the accident Paul had a serious girlfriend, who stood by him through out his recovery. When he was well, they got married, but the marriage didn't last long. After the divorce he didn't date again until he met me. As our relationship became more physical, he started to panic.
I was going to be the first woman he met after the accident to see his scars, all of his scars. I will always remember the first time that we made love, watching him slowly, timidly taking off his shirt. Neither of us knew how I would react. Up until that point, the only burned people that I had ever seen were on TV. We were both nervous. There was nothing romantic or sexy about that day, just fear. As he took off his shirt he looked down at the floor and said in a quit voice:
"It's ok if you want to run out of the room, or throw-up. I'll understand." His chest and arms were full of scars, his back was the worst. I didn't run or throw-up. I walked over to him and held him, my fingers tracing the outlines of his scars. It was an important moment for both of us because he realized that his scars would not interfere with his love life, and I could confirm that even though I had always stated that I wasn't superficial, I now knew I really wasn't
In the long run our relationship didn't work out. We were two people who should have never been lovers. Our personalities were more suited to being friends. Years later when I was in a bar with some friends I ran into Paul. He was flirting with women at the bar, and they were flirting back. He wore a short sleeve shirt that was half unbuttoned, proudly displaying many burn scars, which were not slowing him down one bit-lets not talk about the gold chains. We talked for a few minutes; he even bought me a drink. I remember thinking that I had created a monster.
All of these thoughts ran through my head when I head the word mastectomy. I wasn't afraid of scars or losing a breast, I didn't think that having a mastectomy would change my quality of life. But if reconstruction was a possibility-why not? At the end of the meeting, Dr. Sullivan gave me the names of two doctors. The first one was an oncologist named Dr. O'Hara. Dr. Sullivan suggested that she look at my charts and x-rays, then give me her thoughts about having the surgery. All of the books said to get a second opinion from a second doctor NOT associated with the first one. But because of all the time I took finding Dr. Sullivan I trusted him.
I decided to follow his advise about the second opinion and set up an appointment with Dr. O'Hara. I wanted to meet my possible oncologist as soon as possible. My mother had a good surgeon, but a lousy oncologist. I wanted to meet this Dr. O'Hara and decide whether I wanted her to be my doctor or not.
The second doctor was Dr. Asgari who is a plastic surgeon, a type of doctor that I never thought that I would ever be going to. I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Asgari on June 22 and Dr. O'Hara on June 23rd. The problem was that June 21 was the last day of school. I wanted Mark with me when I meet these doctors but I didn't want to drag the girls to the doctor's appointments, we needed babysitting coverage. Another one of the women from the church came to our rescue offering to watch the girls both days.
Diane and her husband were both active members of our church. They were in their early thirties and both work as systems analysts (what ever that is). They have a son who is six and a daughter who is three. They were the first couple to invite Mark and I over for dinner when we first came to this church. Diane is a pretty woman who stands only an inch or two shorted then me, she is thin, and has shoulder length straight brown hair. When I first met Diane I thought that she was very shy. Later I would learn that although she was quiet, she could be a force to be reckoned with. When she gets involved in a project, she runs it with the precision of a Swiss watch. Lucky for me because Diane will become the coordinator of everyone who wanted to cook for me. She will set up a schedule that would make the next few months much easier.

A Brief History of Breast Cancer. Chapter 7

2006-12-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

In this chapter I will give a brief history of cancer. I used many sources to put this history together including web sites: http://www3.cancer.org; http://.harvard.edu/html/sch00028.html ;
http://www.freevas.demon.co.uk/students/Halstead.htm ; www.rainbowofhope.org ; http://undelete.org ; http://www.bcsc.ca/bsca_html/about/about_historybc.html . And I used books: he Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, fear and the pursuit of a cure in Twentieth-Century America by Barron Lerner. Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book by Dr. Susan Love. Take Charge of Your Breast Cancer by John Link M.D. And The Great Influenza, by John Barry.

I waited for a week for Dr. Sullivan's office to call. They never did,
I had called them about the results of my biopsy. The woman who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about. She said that she would look in to it and call me back. This was the first clue, or maybe the second (remember the missing x-rays?) that this doctors office was staffed by idiots.
The next day I went to work hoping that sometime during the day I would hear from Dr. Sullivan. At work I was helping a woman who was looking for information on 17th century France when I notice a friend of mine named Erin walk in to the library. We waved to each other as I rushed past her. A few minutes later I saw Mark walk into the library, which was a rare because he usually only comes to the library when he was dropping off or picking up our daughters. Since both girls were in school I wondered what he was doing there. He looked sad. I found the books on France that the woman needed then I walked over to Mark. He took my hand and led me to an empty section of the library. He held both of my hands, there were tears in his eyes. He told me that the doctor's office finally called with the test results…the tumors were malignant…I had breast cancer.
I paused for a few seconds then thanked his for coming to the library to tell me. He wanted me to go home with him. I told him that I was staying and that I that I would see him after work, and then I sent him home. Erin walked over to chat, I was hanging on by a thread and I didn't want her to see me burst into tears so I told her that I was very busy and that I would talk to her at another time. I walked back to the circulation desk, hoping that work would distract me. There was a pile of books that needed to be checked-in so I starting checking them in when my supervisor Caroline walked over to me. She stood next to me for a minute not saying a word. I turned to her and said:
"The tumors are malignant." Then I continued to check-in books as if nothing was wrong. She asked me if I wanted to go home. I said no. I kept checking-in books. Then I started to shake, me knees became weak, my eyes filled with tears and I whispered to her that maybe…I should leave.
I walked home and fell into Mark's arms. We didn't say anything; we just held each other and cried.
-
I was thirteen the first time that I heard the term breast cancer, it was the summer of 1969 and I was spending a week at my girlfriend Mandy Scott's house. Earlier that year my family had moved from Michigan to New Jersey. In July we drove back to Michigan for a family event. Instead of driving back with my family, I was allowed to stay with Mandy's family for a week then fly back to New Jersey. It was a trip of firsts for me. I had never been away from family that long, and I had never been on a plane before, I felt very grown up.
Mandy's mother was having a great time playing hostess; she took us to her in-laws summer home on Lake Michigan and on other adventures. She treated Mandy and I as if we were grown-ups, I was having a blast.
One afternoon the three of us were sitting around the livingroom, Mrs. Scott was entertaining us with another one of her funny stories.
"…so, I was sitting on the couch next to my sister talking, when her two-year-old crawled in to my lap and pinched my nipple. Seeing this, my sister whispered for me to yell 'ouch' I asked why, then she pointed to her son holding my fake breast and said 'if you don't yell it will confused him.' So I started yelling:
"OUCH, OUCH!!! Mandy and Mrs. Scott started laughing. Then Mrs. Scott noticed the look of confusion on my face then said:
"Ten years ago I had a mastectomy." She went on with her story thinking that her explanation was sufficient. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I made a mental note to ask my mother about it when I got home.
-
Modern day magazine articles sometimes give their readers the false impression that in the old days nothing was done to try to help women with this disease, yet there was Mrs. Scott, a woman who had her surgery in the late fifties. I got curious and wanted to know more about breast cancer, so I asked myself two questions. One: What is Breast Cancer? And Two: How long have people known about the disease?
I can give a very basic description of breast cancer, keep in mind that I got straight C's in science in High School and College. The first thing I needed to understand was why if two different people have cancer that spreads through out their bodies, why one person is said to have-say breast cancer and the other person-liver cancer. Isn't cancer just cancer? No, I found out, it isn't. What I learned is that cancers are named after the body part where the cancer originated, breast cancer starts in the breast, liver cancer starts in the liver, and so on. So, no mater what parts of the body the cancer spreads to, it will always be referred to by its first location.
Next I learned that breast cancer, like most cancers, are caused by cells that grow out of control. Breast cancer starts in breast tissue. About 86% of breast cancer starts in the ducts, another 12% start in the lobules with the remainder starting in the surrounding tissue. Theses rebellious cells then form a tumor. Cells from the tumor can break away and go to other parts of the body where they keep growing. If the cancer spreads, it is said to have metasidzed. Whether the cancer spreads to the other organs or not, can determine who lives and who dies. There are proximally 175,000 new cases of breast each year, with about 40,000 deaths. There are many factors that determined what kind of breast cancer a woman has, and what her chances for survival are. Doctors break breast cancer in to 4 or 5 stages (depending which book I read) 0-4 with each stage being deadlier than the one before it. I was in stage 1, but my oncologist said that I was just on the border of stage 2. This means that with surgery I had between a 75-95% chance of living for five years depending on whose numbers I looked at. But with each added treatment such as chemotherapy or tamoxifen my odds improved.
Describing breast cancer is a complicated, first there are the different stages, then there is the size of the tumor to take in to account, plus whether the nodes are positive or negative, and also if the estrogen receptors are positive or negative and so on. I get a headache just thinking about it.
Okay, now I had a vague idea what breast cancer was, the next thing I wanted to know how long doctors have been trying to treat it. This gets really interesting. There are documented cases I kid you not, dating back to the early Egyptians. The popular treatment back then was to cautery the disease tissue. Which means that the tissue was burned with some kind of branding iron which destroyed any dead or unwanted tissue. Considering they didn't have any kind of anesthesia back then, that must have hurt. Ouch!!!
Next there was Galen (130-200AD) a Greek physician who had served the emperor Marcus Aurelius in Rome and whose books on physiology and anatomy remained popular into the Middle Ages. The strange thing about these books was how inaccurate they were. In Galen's time it was against Roman law to dissect humans, so his books were based from the dissections of animals. Galen believed that a special diet should be the treatment for breast cancer, still some of the people of that time period preferred exorcism or topical applications.
It was during the Renaissance that a Flemish anatomist named Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) dared to question the thinking Galen. Vesalius did dissect humans, his studies lead him to believed that a mastectomy was the logical treatment. He also used sutures instead of cautery to control the bleeding. Then a physician named Le Dran (1685-1770) was created with being the first doctor to realize that breast cancer spreads through the lymph nodes.
Did any of these treatments work? No one really knows because it wasn't until the middle of the 1800's that doctors started keeping detailed records. By this time many doctors understood that if left untreated the disease would spread, so for many surgeons treatment was the removal of the effected breast and the surrounding glands.
By the late 1800's most surgeons were doing mastectomies. Unfortunately because the doctors didn't have the ability to detect the disease in it early stages, only woman who were in advance stages of the disease were being treated. This meant by the time women sought help their tumors that were very big, some as large as half the size of the breast it self. It was considered a success if a woman lived for three years after her surgery, only 12% of those treated survived for ten years.
It is impossible to write about the history of breast cancer without talking about Dr. William Halstead (1852-1922), a man known as the 'Father of the radical mastectomy'. History portrays Dr. Halstead as either a hero, whose medical discovers were great for woman and saved many lives. Or as a man whose medical discoveries destroyed the lives of the women he saved. It depends on whose point of view I read.
First lets acknowledge his important contributions and influence in medicine. He pioneered treatments not only in breast cancer, but also in thyroid and parathyroid, GI track and bile ducts, blood vessels and treatment for hernias. He was involved in the development of local anesthetics, he introduced surgical gloves in the operating room, and he was the founder of the system of residency that brought structure to surgical training programs in the United States.
I was shocked when I learned that in the 1870's while European medical schools required rigorous scientific training, medical schools in America required its students to attend two, four month terms of lectures (the students didn't even need to pass all of them). Which meant that a person could graduate from an American medical school with out ever looking through a microscope, performing an autopsy or seeing a patient.
Halsted got his undergraduate degree from Yale and received his MD from Columbia University, then he quickly went to Europe so he could actually learn something about medicine. Dr. Halsted developed the radical mastectomy, which entailed the removal of the cancerous breast, the nearby lymph nodes and the two chest wall muscles on the effected side of the chest. 'The Halstead mastectomy' was more than how much tissue was removed, it was also how he removed it. Dr. Halstead believed that all the tissue had to be removed in one piece. He did this because he felt that cutting through cancerous tissue might lead to the spread of any remaining cancer cells. He then taught this method to all of the surgeons in his training programs. Before long these trainees were performing the 'Halsted radical mastectomy' around the world.
Next we move to the 1920's. Some surgeons were 'improving' 'the Halstead mastectomy' by cutting deeper and removing more tissue, while others (mostly Europeans) were questioning the procedure. After all the operation was very disfiguring, painful, and sometime lead to arm swelling known as lymphedema.
Remember this was about the time doctors first started using X-rays to look for tumors, so the cancer was being found earlier which improved the survival rate. Doctors now spoke of a woman living for 'five-years' instead of 'three-years' after her surgery. Also the ten-year survival rate had jumped to 50% (getting better).
It was also in the late twenties that doctors' starting debating about the use of radiation. Some thought that used by itself or in conjunction with a less invasive mastectomy, the new treatment was as or more effective as a radical mastectomy.
Treatment slowly improved as medical knowledge improved. Early radiation was kind-of a guessing game, with doctors still refining the equipment and learning what voltage to use. The thirties saw a gradual improvement with the equipment, which could now direct a higher voltage of radiation into the cancer yet do less damage to healthy tissue. It was also in the thirties that women's clubs and magazines started to encourage woman to look for early signs of cancer and seek treatment as soon as possible.
Even though European doctors were promoting breast self-exam (BSE) to their female patients as early as the nineteen twenties, it wasn't until the fifties that American doctors started promoting BSE to their female patients. Making up for lost time the fifties also saw American doctors declare their own war on cancer. For many, the objective was to get every last cancer cell in the patient. For women this lead to the super-radical mastectomy, which encompassed the splitting of a patients clavicle, ribs and sternum.
The fifties was an interesting time, while some surgeons were hacking off body parts, other surgeons were experimenting with the less invasive modified radical mastectomy (removing the breast only). Meanwhile improved statistical analyses was questioning claims that the radical and/or super radical mastectomies were really increasing longevity of women with breast cancer.
It was in the fifties that other ideas for treatment started also, one those ideas was chemotherapy. During World War II it was discovered that nitrogen mustered gas inhibited cell growth. It was this discovery that lead to chemotherapy, I'll talk more about that later. At first chemotherapy was only used on patients with move advanced cancer, but in 1958 the National Cancer Institute started researching using chemotherapy on a wider range of cancer patients. Another change was a small group of medical people who wanted to do statically studies comparing the radical mastectomy vs. a modified radical mastectomy vs. lumpectomies (removing only the tumor). But American doctors refused to participate in these studies
Each decade or so doctors' were able to detect breast cancer earlier and earlier. In Hastead's era by the time a woman came into a doctor's office the tumor was usually around egg size. As women became more aware of what to look for they went to their doctors with smaller and smaller tumors. BSE really help, by the fifties the tumors were usually no bigger than two centimeters in diameter when the average woman sought treatment. In the sixties with the improved mammogram doctors were able to detect tumors at about one centimeter, which as too small to be felt.
Researchers at the University of California made the next big discovery, they found that certain genes in normal body cells somehow become abnormal (what?). I don't understand why, but this discovery helped unlock the mystery of cancer. Something about being able to identify some genes that can spur cancerous growth.
By the late sixties surgeons in other countries had gradually abandoned radical mastectomies, replacing it with surgery that was less invasive, yet in America 70% women were still being treated using the radical mastectomy.
The seventies changed everything. America was going through some major changes. One of which was talking out loud about subjects that people use to whisper about, like cancer. Prominent women such as First Lady Betty Ford and Actress Shirley Temple went public their breast cancer, which gave American women permission to talk about their own bouts with the disease.
It was also the height of the American woman's movement female writers started to fill the media with questions about the necessity of a radical mastectomy and the lack of quality of life that the surgery gave it survivors. The most famous of these writers was a woman named Rose Kushner (1929-1990).
Ms. Kushner was a journalist from Baltimore who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1974 and was horrified with how she was treated by the medical profession. First she wrote an article about everything she went through during her treatment for the Washington Post, and the story was reprinted in hundreds of newspapers across the country.
Then in 1975 she published a book titled Why me? What Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer to Save her Life. In those days the biopsy and mastectomy were done in the same surgery. I can't imagine what it must have been like to go into surgery with a small lump on your breast and waking up with a huge scar where the breast once was. Ms. Kushner had to call eighteen different surgeons before she found one who would do the procedure in two steps. Rose Kushner and other female writers helped women learn how to stand up the doctors and become involved in their treatment.
It was in 1977 that the drug tamoxifen was first approved. Its antiestiestrongenic actions (whatever that is) were shown to help reduce the chanced of the cancer coming back.
The eighties to the present have seen many improvements in cancer treatment. Earlier diagnose, better mammogram machines, improved chemotherapy, more lumpectomies, better reconstruction surgery, sentinel node biopsies, better communication between doctors and their patients, more female doctors, bone marrow transplants, stem cell research, a wider use of tamoxifen for cancer patients, and I am sure other stuff that I never heard of.

The Biopsy Cont...

2006-12-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

-
Back at the waiting room a little time had passed and some of the people had been called, and there are now some empty seats available. We didn't leave our post. The woman gagging on the barium finishes drinking the stuff and was quiet. The TV droned on…
“Traci,” I heard a voice say.
“Here” I answer. She told me to follow her and I did. Mark was planning to stay in the waiting room, but I ask him to come in to the ultra-sound room with me.
“Am I allowed to come in there?” he asked. I didn’t know, but I was so frightened that I didn't care about the rules.
“Please stay, until they kick you out.” I whispered to him. So we both follow the technician in to the next room.
We entered the ultra-sound room and were greeted by a beautiful young woman. I think that she was somewhere in her early thirties but I am not sure. She has long brown curly hair, twinkling brown eyes and a welcoming smile;
“Hi, I’m Angela…bla bla bla.” Angela started explaining to us what the procedure for a stereotactic biopsy will be. I had a vague idea because I read up on this type of biopsy, but I was glad that she explained the procedure to me again.
The doctor would use a long (very long) needle which he would insert into my right breast. Using the ultra-sound machine Angela would guide the doctor to each tumor where he would take a sample of the tumor for testing. The doctor would use four needles in all, two for each tumor because he liked to take two samples from different parts of each tumor. Then a team of experts would examine the tissue samples. I liked the fact that more than one person would be looking at the tissue samples. I was not real convertible with the idea of one person (who maybe was having an off day) deciding if I had cancer or not.
Angela then told me to take off every bit of clothing from the waist up, and put on a hospital gown with the opening in the front. She left the room. First I changed in to the hospital gown, then I sat on the examination table Mark sat in a chair next to me, Angela did not ask Mark to leave.
A few minutes later Angela came bouncing back into the room, she asked me if I brought back the x-rays (mammogram-rays?) that I had checked out of the hospital? I tell her no. I checked the x-rays out in May and bought them to Dr. Sullivan’s office. I told her that I left them with the doctor at his request because he wanted to study them. He told me that he would return them to the hospital. As we were discussing the x-rays, Dr. Martin, the doctor who was doing the biopsy walked in. When I went to Dr. Sullivan I thought that he would be doing the biopsy, but he told me that he was sending me to a doctor who was an expert in biopsies. If I need surgery after that, then Dr. Sullivan would take over my case.
Like Angela, Dr. Martin looked like he was from central casting. He was tall and handsome, somewhere in his late thirties, and he had a very charming bedside manor. I was starting to feel like I walked into a soap-opera hospital scene, in more ways than one.
The doctor introduced himself to Mark and I then turned to talk to Angela. The smile was no longer on her face. I felt an immediate chill between the two of them. The tension in the room grew so thick that the sharpest scalpel in Memorial Hospital would have been useless. Mark and I look at each other our eyes are saying ‘Are these the people who will determine my future?’ Angela tells him that the x-rays are missing, he tells her to check again, because if they were not found that I will have to have x-rays taken again, and that would throw off their schedule. She leaves the room.
Once Angela was gone Dr. Martin turned on the charm, he explained the whole procedure (again). He would use a local anesthetic on my chest, so I would be awake for the procedure. Then he left the room.
“Can I stay, or should I wait outside?” My husband whispered to me.
"You're not going anywhere." I tell him. "These people are scary." He stays, and we wait. It felt like as a patient I spent most of my time just waiting around.
Soon Angela came bouncing back in to the room, all smiles holding the x-rays. Mark and I speculated that someone from the hospital placed a call to Dr. Sullivan’s office and had the x-rays sent over. All I cared about was not having to have a new mammogram done. Moments later Dr. Martin came in, and the frosty atmosphere returned to the room.
I lied down on the table face up, my hospital gown off. They cover my body with what seemed to be some kind of cloth, only a small part of my right breast exposed. That was nice because I didn't feel embarrassed. Dr. Martin gave me a local anesthetic. My torso went numb, but I was alert. The doctor walked to the counter and took a needle out of its packaging. It looked like a foot long stick with tweezers on the end.
The needle looked scary,
“Don’t be frighten by the length." The doctor said. "It’s designed for many different kinds of biopsies.” The doctor tested the needle by opening and closing the tweezers part. He rejected any needle that did not meet his standard. He then made a small incision in my breast and slowly pushed the needle in. Angela worked the ultra-sound guiding Dr. Martin. Mark and I found ourselves becoming fascinated by the process, watching the needle move through my body on the screen. I have to say the doctor and technician became all business. They worked well as a team. Barley a word was spoken, yet, they were able to anticipate each other’s moves. But I still felt coldness between them.
After a while my mind started wandering and I found myself making up scenarios about Dr. Martin and Angela. When Mark and I started dating we both only had part-time jobs so there wasn't much money. One of the cheep ways we found to entertain ourselves involved watching a TV show that was not in English. We would watch the action and make up our own story lines and dialog. We thought that this was very funny.
As the biopsy continued my mental stories about the doctor and the technician became stranger and stranger. They were twins separated at birth, one was raised rich, the other poor. That’s why they hate each other… No, lets see. Angela always wanted to be a doctor, and resented all doctors…No, that’s not right either.
On, and on, my imagination goes, until I decided that this was a love story gone bad. Very, very, bad. This game kept my mind occupied while the biopsy continued. Dr. Martin would open a new package test the new needle, finds one that he likes, and started the process all over again. The biopsy seemed to take forever and for some reason that I don’t understand I started to feel sleepy. I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness. Mark watched the procedure spell bound by the technology.
Dr. Martin tells me that I have very dense breast tissue which made the process more complicated. Trust me, it is very strange to be lying on an examination table, looking up at a man that I had never seen before, pushing a needle into my breast. Not only that, he was using his hip to help push the needle farther in to my body. I watched sweat beading up on his forehead, weird. Dr. Martin gave a running commentary of each aspect of the biopsy. He warned me right before he took a tissue sample. The mechanisms made a clamping sound and I felt a jolt in my body, I don’t know how to describe it, but it was strange.
I was starting to think that the biopsy was never going to end when Dr. Martin told me that he was done. Then he leaves. Angela stayed for a few minutes cheerfully chatting as she told me not to call the hospital for the results, but that someone from Dr. Sullivan's office will call me in a few days, then she leaves. I got dressed and we were about to leave the room when Dr. Martin stopped by again and wished me luck.
It was so strange, whenever one of them was in the room, that person was charming and cheerful. But, when both of them were in the room, neither of them smiled, and all the chit-chat stopped. It's funny, when you think about it. Mark and I had stood outside the waiting room so we would not be subjected to the Soap Opera blaring in the TV only to become part of a real life hospital drama that was every bit as bazaar.
Mark and I left the room and headed out to the parking lot, I was feeling physically sore and mentally drained. I started thinking that maybe my perception of Angela and Dr. Martin is just my imagination gone wild when Mark said to me.
“What was their problem? I looked at him surprised.
“You noticed it too?” I asked. “I thought it was my imagination.”
“ There was something going on between those two, during the whole procedure she kept looking at him and he would never make eye contacted with her.” Well, I know my husband is more observant than most men, but if he noticed also, then there was some bad history between the doctor and the technician. Like I said, the whole event was so strange that between their good looks and their behavior I felt like I was in a soap-opera.

The Biopsy Cont...

2006-12-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

chapter six.The Bisopsy

2006-11-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

Finally the day for the biopsy arrived. I was so scared that even the check-in people could not make me laugh. Mark and I made our way through the maze of corridors until we found the radiology waiting room.
This was the same room where I had to wait for the ultra-sound just a few weeks earlier. But today, the room looked very different. This time it was standing room only. All but two of the seats were occupied, and they were not together. Both of the empty seats had people’s belonging on them, we stood in the room for a few minutes, yet no one made a move to clear a seat off for us.
While waiting to check-in I looked around at the people in the room. There was a mother trying to keep her small child entertained by reading to him. Some people looked frightened, others were lost in thought, but most were watching a soap opera that was blaring on the television.
There was some comic relief in the tension fill room, in the form of a young woman who was drinking a bottle of barium, which is a chalky substance that some patients have to drink before having certain types of scans done. Barium is nasty tasting stuff, the smartest way to drink it, is fast. Not this woman, she was gagging on every mouthful. Okay, that doesn’t sound funny, but the faces that she was making were funny. She would take a sip, make a face, stand up then run out of the waiting room. Then she would take another sip, then run back into the room and sit down again. This continued for sometime.
To get away from the tense mood of the waiting room and the barium woman, Mark and I stepped out into the hall, to ensure that I would hear my name called we stood just outside of the waiting room door. Eventually we got tired of standing, so we leaned against the wall on either side of the door of the waiting room; we looked like lazy soldiers guarding their post. Again I found myself waiting. Waiting for my name to be called…waiting for my biopsy to begin…waiting to see if either of the two tumors in my breast had cancer. Waiting.
As I stood playing door guard, I looked across the doorway at my husband. "What a great guy" I thought, "What were the odds that a chance meeting and a shot conversation all those years ago would lead to a husband. Not just any husband, but to one that would be with me while I was experiencing the most terrifying event in my life?"
-
The year was 1988 and the month was June. In the last two weeks there had been two major changes in my life. One: I had sworn off men. I had had it. I was 32 years old and in the last year or so I had dealt with lies, infidelity and more lies. I had not had a date in six months (by choice) and I told all of my friends that I NEVER was going out on a date again. Two: The company that I had been employed at for the last twelve year fired me (unjustly of course).
I was working as a ticket agent for Eastern Airlines. For the last few years the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, so the working atmosphere there had been very tense and unpleasant. At that time the company was working on a two-tier pay system, A-scale and B-scale.
The A-scale workers were employees who had been hired before 1986. The B-scale were the employees who were those hired after that date (obviously were we non-union). The B-scale employees made about half of what the A-scale people made for doing the same job. I remember reading an article in one of those news magazines that in 1987 out of approximately 40,000 employees, Eastern had fired around 40 people. Yet, in 1988 the company had fired over 4000. I am guessing that like me, most of them were A-scale. Anyway on a Thursday night, June 09, 1988 one other A-scale employee and I were informed that our services were no longer needed, and I was out of a job.
Loosing my job did not surprise me, in fact I had excepted it. Working at Eastern in the late eighties was like being some scary novel, where everyday at work-people around me were disappearing. Unlike most of my co-workers I prepared for the loss of my job, three years earlier I had gone to a trade school called The Center of Media Arts, and took a six month course on Television production, editing and how to be a cameraman (person?).
I had hoped to work in television as an editor but soon after I graduated I discovered that I would have to start as an intern or at a low paying job. This meant that I would have to move back in with my parents. No way, at 29 I was going give up my independence. I had some new skills and I needed extra income, so I found a part time job working as a videographer, taping weddings, bar mitzvah and other parties. Although the work was hard, I found the job fun. I worked $10.00 an hour, tips and all I could eat at the cocktail hour (I love to eat).
I shot about two parties a week, mostly weddings. My normal routine for a wedding was to show up at the suite (church, temple, hotel, etc.) an hour before the event, find my contact person and bring all of my equipment inside (to hinder theft). My equipment consisted of two cameras, two large heavy boxes of lights and other stuff. Then I would shoot the wedding, the receiving line, the rice/bird seed toss and the happy couple leaving in their car, then rush to lug all of my equipment back to my car, speed over to the reception location and set up to shoot the reception.
When I videotaped a church wedding, my contact person was usually the sexton (who is a janitor, maintenance man and sometimes gardener). Most of these men were old. Sometimes these men would reek of alcohol. So you can imagine my surprise when after three years of being a videographer and two days after loosing my airline job, I walked in to a Presbyterian Church to see this bald, but hansom 28 years old who introduced himself as the church sexton.
I arrived at the church earlier than normal, which was the first miracle of the day. After we discussed the church rules he kept talking to me as I was setting up the camera equipment.
The Sexton introduced himself as Mark, but he didn't have to tell me that because he was wearing a blue work shirt with his name embroidered on the pocket. He was also wearing old blue jeans, grease stained sneakers, and one of his hands was wrapped with a blood stained piece of cloth. I was wearing my videographer uniform, black pants, a tuxedo shirt, red bow tie (I hated that tie), black jacket and black shoes. My long blond (I was still a natural blond then) was tied up in a ponytail held up with a red ribbon that matched my bow tie. Talk about first impressions!!!
It seemed like we talked about a lot of stuff, our jobs, education and so on. But we only talked for about five or ten minutes. Mark told me that being a sexton was the perfect job for a college student, because the hours were very flexible which was good for studying. He had just graduated from the Manhattan School of Music, with bachelors in music which meant that he was a classically trained clarinetist. It didn't take long for me to realize that in spite of his job and dress, this was one intelligent and interesting man.
Soon people started entering the church for the wedding and I had to go to work. I hate to admit it but I wasn't fully concentrating on the bride and groom.
After the wedding both Mark and the minister helped me bring all of my equipment back to my car (the second miracle). No one ever helped me with my camera equipment before or since that day. The photographer called the minister back in to the church for some pictures and Mark asked for my phone number! (The third miracle) I gave it to him (miracle number 4). To hear Mark tell his version of our meeting; never in his life had he ask a woman for her phone number. But something told him that if he didn't talk to me and ask for my phone number he would regret it the rest of his life.
Mark called me the next day and asked if I would go out with him. As we were talking I reminded myself that I had sworn off men. Yet, later that day one of my former co-workers (obviously I was invited before I got fired) was giving a picnic and I knew that the person that had to fire me (on someone else's orders) would be there. I wanted it to look as if I didn't care that I lost my job. Since I planed to go anyway, I thought it would look better if I showed up with a date. I said to Mark,
"How would you like to go to a picnic with me today?" Two hours later we were at the picnic.
The day was very awkward, my unexpected appearance made everyone uneasy, but I stayed. I even sat away from the main table, forcing people to come over to where I was sitting to chat. Mark didn't know what was going on, but he picked up on my need to be there, he learned on our first date just how stubborn I was. And I learned that I was unable to use a guy and the dump him.
I realized very quickly that this was not going to be our only date. At first I thought it was because being mean just wasn't not in my nature, then I knew that this guy was different, better than any man that I had ever met before. Amazingly Mark asked if he could see me on Monday, then Tuesday and so on. Four months later he asked me to marry him, a year later we got married.

Growing Children Cont...

2006-11-28T10:32:00.000-08:00

Let me take a few minutes and tell you about my children, Ronni is my first born. And what a birth it was. She was what medical people call a sunny side up baby, which means that Ronni was positioned wrong when my labor started. The birth was very hard on both of us. Ronni was born with the cord wrapped around her neck and she was barley breathing. Once they go her breathing I was told that see was tongue-tied, which meant that her tongue was attached to the bottom of her mouth and she needed minor surgery. My baby recouped (faster than I did) and forty-eight hours later Mark, Ronni and I went home, right in the middle of a blizzard.
One of the fun things about having a baby is seeing the family traits that the child exhibits. Both of my daughters are very intelligent and Mark and I like to take equal credit for that. From Mark, she inherited a serious and shy nature, and an ability to focus on something for a long time. She also has his goofy sense of humor and his great laugh, along with slight dimples, a beautiful bounce in her hair (which for him is long gone), and big feet. Best of all she inherited his musical talent.
From me she was given her sarcastic out look on life, her love for books and scary movies. She also has my curiosity and my tenacity. She also got my green eyes, and mine and my father's smile. Then from nowhere she has an interest and love for animals and science that amaze Mark and I. I mean, this kid memorized the Latin names of whales for fun.

I think that it was Bill Cosby who said something like "The miracle of birth is that any woman is willing to do it more than once." So that introduces my little one named Leah. Everything was normal about Leah’s birth except the date. You see, I went in to labor on a Thursday the 12th of May, My doctor, Dr. Harrison was attending two other women in labor when I got to the hospital. The first woman gave birth around 11:00 p.m., and it was heading toward midnight, Dr. Harrison enters my room asking angrily,
"ARE YOU ALSO GOING TO DEMAND THAT I GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO SPEED UP THE BIRTH SO THE BABY IS BORN BEFORE MIDNIGHT?"
"Why would I do that?" I asked. In a calmer voice she told me that her other patient didn't want her baby born on a Friday the 13th, so she was demanding some kind of drug to speed along the birth. Dr. Harrison refused.
"I would like the baby born as soon as possible, but not because of the date, but because I wanted to get the labor over with." As it turned out, the other mother gave birth at 11:59 p.m. That was one determined woman. Leah wasn't born until 2:30am Friday the 13th. The date didn't matter to me because Mark was also born on a Friday the 13th, and Ronni was born on a Wednesday the 13th, and both of then turned out all right.
Leahis like a ray of sunshine. She brightens up any room just by walking in to it. I am constantly amazed at her ability to appear at ease in any social situation (no matter how nervous she is), a trait that runs in my family, that some how skipped me. Like me, she loves ballet, art, and musicals. Also like me she looks delicate on the outside, but is a tough cookie on the inside. She also is tenacious.
From Mark she inherited his humor, his great laugh, his drawing ability and his gentleness, the wave in his hair, his dimples, and his blue eyes. Leah is also musically talented; she has a great singing voice. She has a sense of style that is all her own, we have no idea where it came from. Most of Leah’s clothes are hand-me-downs, yet she is able to take a shirt from Ronni and that skirt from a friend and shoes from one of her cousins and turn it in to a "Leah original". Between the ages of 5 and 9 it was Leah’s dream to be a fashion designer. This was an ambition that I found odd considering that my wardrobe is black, gray and white-with a little brown thrown in for color.
-
Back at the pediatrician's office: The girls have a wonderful doctor, her name is Dr. Chin. The woman is Asian and I have no idea how old she is. She is thin, pretty, and very kind. She stands a little over five feet tall. Ronni will catch up to her soon. Both girls like her very much. The visit goes fine; all their shots are up to date. Mark is in the room for the first few minutes, then leaves the room when the exam starts. When he leaves Dr. Chin says to me,
“Now that it is just us girls, I think it is time that we talked about a bra for Ronni.” I was thinking, "She is only ten, not yet". But I knew the doctor was right. Well, if I was looking for something to take my mind off my up-coming biopsy buying my daughter her first bra was going to work very well.
-
We live in a small charming suburban town that I will call Beaville. Beaville is more of a small town surrounded by suburbia. It is only 12 square miles in landmass, with a population of just over 7,000. The town was a minor player in the Revolutionary War; it has historical buildings, a lovely Down Town and a 200 year old ghost.
One of the best events in town is the annual Memorial Day Parade. The people who march in the parade all gather early in the morning, in the parking lot of Beaville High School (which is next-door to my house). The excitement and noise build as more and more of the marchers arrive. At around 10:00 a.m. the town’s people start to line up along the parade route, and at 10:15 the police start blocking off Main St. Which is also very busy two lane high way. The parade starts at the High-School and ends a mile later at the Town Hall.
At 10:30 a.m. the Parade starts. In the parade are the high school band, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, both base ball leagues teams (Why two? Can we say "ego," and "does not play well with others?") The women’s business association, some Civil War re-enactors, fire trucks from our town and some of our neighboring town, and anyone who owns an old car. It has become tradition for each organization to toss candy and soft toys to the kids watching the parade.
Mark, Leah and I walked over to the front of the old Library building (that’s what a business center housed in the old Library building is called) to secure a place. We like that location because there is a little wall that’s nice to sit on. Ronni was not with us because her Girl Scout troop is marching in the parade. We were very proud, not only did she march, but she was the flag carrier for her troop. For a few hours that day I was actually able to relax and have a little fun.

Chapter Five...Growing Children

2006-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

June 1st seemed so far away, I couldn't understand why they were making me wait so long. Mark and I decided not to tell the girls anything about the tumors until we knew whether or not there was anything really wrong with me. Meanwhile we had to conduct ourselves as if everything was normal which was pretty hard considering that one of sisters or my father was calling me about every five minutes.

Waiting;
On May 11 we had Leah’s birthday party, another sleepover (am I crazy?). This party was less stressful because it was the first sleepover for most of the six and seven year-olds, so they were a little nervous, which made them behave better.
Because it was a beautiful spring night I was able to let the kids play outside. I let them play for a long time, which tired them-out. That made the rest of the night easier.
And waiting; My sisters and my father keep calling me asking why I had to wait so long for my biopsy! I didn't know. I tried to keep busy so that the time would go by faster.
The next event up was Mother’s Day, on other Mother's Days all I asked for were home made Cards and a day that I didn't have to cook. But this year Mother's Day was different. On other Mother's Days I would look at my beautiful girls and I wouldn’t wonder if there were going to be any more Mother's Days and I felt sad.
"Stop it." I told me self "Stop thinking like that." The day was hard to get through.
Next there was the annual Spring Concert where Ronni was singing in the choirs and playing clarinet in the school band. The concert was standing room only, it was hot and the acoustics were not very good, but there wasn't a parent there who wasn't beaming with pride. I got misty-eyed wondering about the concerts I might not be around to see.
"Stop thinking like that, You will be alright." I talked to myself a lot that month.

And waiting:
On the twenty-fourth I took the girls for their annual check-up, normally this is a non-event, but today I was scared, what if the doctor finds something wrong with them? I could not do this alone us because I was so on edge, so I asked Mark to come with us.
My girls are the most important people in the world to me. It was their image that flashed in my mind when I was being told that I had a tumor. After all like most people I hear the word tumor and think: tumor=cancer=death. "I can not have cancer. I can not die because I have two wonderful little girls that need a mother." I said this to myself and over again, trying to keep calm.
I have a great husband who is quite capable of taking care of our daughters. But, no mater how fantastic he is, he is not their mother. I realize that my daughters are only 7 and 10 but the reality is they are going to be teenagers before you know it.
Next fall Ronni will be entering Middle School (personally I think that 10 is too young for Middle School), and with that comes all the gossip and back stabbing that happens when girls make the transition from child to teenager. I don't like to think about it, but all too soon my girls will be experiencing their first boyfriend, first kiss and (sob, sob) their first heartbreak. I can not be sick - I have to be here for them.

Chapter 4: MEETING DR. SULLIVAN...cont.

2006-11-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

A few minutes later Dr. Sullivan came in to the exam room. He had a pleasant face and smiling eyes, I liked him immediately. We talked a little then he took out my x-rays from the folder and the fun began.
Who even designed the exam room should have their diploma taken away. The x-ray light was next to the exam table so the patient and doctor could look at them together, so far, so good. The problem was there was not any place for the doctor to put down the x-rays that were no being looked at. So, Dr. Sullivan placed one x-ray in the light thing and set the others on a chair that was too small. As we started to discus my tumors and why they were cause for concern, the x-rays started to slide off the chair. He picked them up.
Then he tried to put them on a table where there was some exam equipment, but there was not enough room. We continued to view the hanging x-ray, when the other x-rays slid off the table. He picked them up. This went on like a bad comedy routine. I started to think that I was putting my life in he hands of a Keystone doctor. Somehow we got through the examination and I kept a straight face. He told me that he needed to examine me and I needed to take off my shirt and bra, he left while I changed in to a hospital gown.
He came back and examined me. I never could find any lumps in my breast; I had wondered if I just wasn't looking the right way or that they were still too small to be felt yet. Dr. Sullivan did not find any lumps either, even with the aid of the x-ray he did not find any lumps. He told me how lucky I was that the mammogram found them. He then told me to get dressed and meet him in his office.
I think that his office was designed by the same guy who designed the exam rooms. Storage space was not considered when the room was set up and it was 10 degrees hotter in this room than the rest of the office so the Dr. Sullivan had to keep the door ajar to keep the temperature down. As I sat across the desk from him I notice some pictures of his children, proud Papa showing off.
He told me that he believed that tumors needed further investigation, so he would set up a biopsy for me. A few days later a woman from his office called to tell me the date of my biopsy at 1.30 p.m. on June 1st.

Chapter 4: MEETING DR. SULLIVAN

2006-11-16T19:37:00.000-08:00

May 2001
In the mist of my research and doctor’s appointments I also had a life (barley). Mark was schedule to preside over a wedding on May 5th for couple who were relatively new members of our church. Timothy and Veronica joined less than a year ago. Veronica was in her early thirties and Timothy was about eight years older, Mark and I really liked them. We were invited to their wedding, which was not usual. Most of the time when Mark performs a wedding he and I get invited to the reception out of courtesy, the couple hoping (at $50 a plate) that we decline, and we usually do. This time we knew that the couple really wanted us there, they even invited our kids. We told them that we would come, but that we would get a sitter.
It was a beautiful wedding. They hire wonderful singers and musicians from New York. The party was fun and we were glad that we went. It was a nice distraction.
-
I scheduled an appointment to meet Dr. Sullivan for May 10th. I was surprised when I got his address because most of the doctors that I have gone to have had their offices near the hospital, his was not. The office was located in an area away from the hospital that I had never been to before. The building was a stand-a-lone type in a residential area, and all the tenants were involved in medicine in one way or another. It was an attractive building, and there was plenty of parking which was great compared to the medical buildings by the hospital where there is almost none.
I walked in to the building and gasped as I look around the lobby. It was beautiful. What was so unusual was that the lobby was a three-story atrium, with a glass ceiling. There were benches, plants, flowers, and trees. I mean really tall trees. The problem was that I couldn't find the stair case. I did locate the elevator but I like to use stairs whenever I can. So I was forced to use the evaluator (the stairwells were well marked on the upper floors, just not in the lobby) I found his office and checked in.
The waiting room was a medium size, painted in soft blue and purple (+) there was a coat rack (+) a water cooler (+) and a fish tank (+) an open attractive reception desk (+) and best of all NO TV (++) I gave it an A. I filled out more forms, and then waited. It was a very busy office.
Finally I was brought in to an exam room where I was given instructions to wait; the nurse left the room leaving the door open. I sat on the exam table reading my book. The book that I was reading was called: A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. This book caught my attention when I was working in a book store because it sold so many copies. I wondered who would want to read a book about some guy walking the Appalachian Trail. Curiosity got the best of me and I borrowed the book from the Library. So, as I sat on the exam table laughing to myself, from the corner of my eye I caught the image of a man in a white doctor's coat dashing by, the man was tall and African American. For some reason that I will never know, I knew that he was Dr. Sullivan, I have always thought of myself as not being prejudice, yet that fact that he was black caught me off guard for a few seconds. Then I remembered reading that he had been educated in the West Indies. That fact should have told me that he wouldn't be blond haired and blue eyed.
It was not like I only go to doctors who were white males, I don't. Dr. Munn is a woman, my daughter's pediatrician is an Asian Woman, and Sam’s neurologist is Indian, not to mention a slew of other ethnic doctors that I have been to. Yet, isn't it strange that at 45 years of age I was about to be treated by an African American doctor for the first time. I didn’t give his color a second thought; I went back to my book and waited to see the highly recommended doctor that my research brought me to.

Chapter 3: cont...finding a surgeon

2006-11-13T16:04:00.000-08:00

I wanted get a lot of information before choosing a surgeon. I had seen first hand from the example of both my parent’s fight with cancer and from Ronni’s health problems how important a doctor's choice could be. Also I was a snob and I wanted a doctor who was educated in America, I didn’t want a doctor that went to college in Mexico, or the Caribbean. So I look up Dr. Sullivan in the Official ABMS Directory of Board Certified Medical Specialist and low and behold he went to college in the West Indies, but he did his residency in Columbia University in New York. Ok, I thought…maybe.
Meanwhile I continue my search through another avenue. I was not going to choose a surgeon based on a strangers' friend's opinion. I decide to ask one of the Library volunteers for help. The people who volunteer in a library are an interesting mix, some are volunteers and some are there to do community service.
In my town all the students from kindergarten through twelfth grade are required to do a specific number of community service hours per year. In the Elementary School there are class or school projects the students can do. But by the time the kids reach the Middle School they need to find a project on their own. The school system is strict about this requirement, no community service-no report card. So, we have many students volunteer to get their community service hours, some even stay because they find it fun.
The other people doing community service are there as guest of the court. The Library is very particular about who can they will take. They will not take anyone who has been arrested for assault, or theft, that usually leaves getting caught doing something stupid like digging up a neighbors flowers or DUI . This group of people are usually not very social, they come in, do their time and leave. I could write a whole other book on this group.
Then there are the volunteers who just like hanging around libraries, some are retired, some have full or part-time jobs. These people come from various backgrounds, most are college educated. Two of our volunteers have PhD’s, I remember the first time that I went to a party at the home of one of the working volunteers, and found myself in a sort-of-mansion.
So, it seemed logical for me to ask for help from a volunteer who was a chemist by profession. I am not sure exactly what kind of job Susan had but I did know that she did some kind of medical research. So I asked if she could recommend a surgeon. Susan had work for many years in one way or another in the medical field unfortunately she didn't not know anyone at Memorial Hospital, but she told me that she would look in to it. A week went by; I didn’t see or hear from Susan. Then another week went by. I started to think that she forgot all about me. My sisters and father were putting pressure on me to get the biopsy done. Then Susan called me.
“Traci” she said, “I have been asking all the top doctors I know-who they think is the best surgeon at Memorial Hospital, they all gave me the same name." I knew that I had asked the right person for information when Susan added. "Then I interviewed three women who had surgery done by him, and they all thought that he was great. So the doctor comes highly recommended. His name is …Dr. Sullivan." I couldn't believe it, this was the same Dr. Sullivan who that the receptionist told me about. My search was done-I had found my surgeon.

Something is still Wrong

2006-11-10T21:16:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile my sister Sheryl and I called each other constantly and talked about my tumors and my search for a surgeon, and she told me that she and my siblings thought that I was taking too long to get the biopsy. She also wanted to calm me down by reminding me that she had found a lump on her breast when she was just eighteen, and the lump had turned out to be a cyst. She told me about the lump that she had found last year.
“What are you talking about?” I asked her, very surprised by her statement.
“There I was, right in the middle of my divorce, when I discovered a lump.” I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Sheryl was mad at me last year, she felt that I wasn’t sympathetic about her failing marriage (hey, it was her third marriage). Instead of calling me so we could talk, she wrote me a curt letter detailing her separation (she is known for her letters). Then ending the letter by stating that she was sorry that our relationship was such that she could not confide in me. Unlike her and her ex-husband, she and I were able to patch things up.
"…I stopped the divorce proceedings until the results of the biopsy were in." she continued.
“Its not that I wanted him around if it turned out that I had cancer the marriage was over, but I needed his health insurance.” I have to give him credit; he stayed until the results were in. I felt bad that she couldn’t tell me these things before.
The point to her story was not to make me feel bad, well… not much. The point was that twice she had lumps in her breast and both times they had been benign. My research had taught me that for every malignant lump there would be twelve benign ones. Funny thing was I didn’t have a lump. I felt nothing to indicate that there was anything wrong, it was only the mammogram that showed the doctors that there was something in my breast that was not suppose to be there. According to Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book:
“What we see on a mammogram or feel on physical exam isn’t the cancer cells themselves, but the reaction the body forms to the cancer cells.” So I guess depending on how your body reacts to the cancer cells is important to early diagnoses.

Chapter 3: cont...again.

2006-11-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

I was surprisingly calm when I told Mark about the tumors, and we decided to start the search for a surgeon. The first place I called was my gynecologist’s office, not Dr. Munn's office but Dr. Sicilano. Even thought Dr. Munn's office was such a long drive, I wanted to continue to be her patient, after all it was her insistence that I get a mammogram that set all this into motion in the first place (I would later write her a thank you letter). But that was not to be, she had moved her office and it was now almost a two hour drive, I realized that I had to find a closer doctor.
I decided to go back to Dr. Sicilano, a gynecologist that I went to two moves and six years ago. The office was located in Booton, a town that was about a thirty minute drive. I wanted to go to a doctor closer to my home, but I needed to go to a doctor/s that I felt comfortable with, so I returned to the office of Sicilano and Harrison. Not only were these good doctors they were the only gynecologist team where I fell convertible with both doctors. It was while I was a patient of Dr.'s Sicilano and Harrison that both of my children were born. Dr. Harrison delivered Leah and another (former) partner delivered Ronni.
I reestablish contact with the doctor's office and had my records switched over. I call the office to see if they could help me find a surgeon. I told the woman who answered the phone who I was and why I was calling. Now, let me step back for a second and tell you about how I feel about the women who work in a doctor’s office.
I never know what exactly what their job is, or what their education level is; are they receptionist? Nurses? File clerks? Insurance experts? All of the above? What ever they are, as a patient I spend more time with them than the actual doctor. So, I rely on them to make my medical visits run as smoothly as possible. Most of the time when I decide to leave a specific doctor, it is because I didn't like the staff.
I have always liked the staff at Drs Sicilano/Harrison, but it had been over six years since I was a patient there and I didn’t recognize some of the women that worked there any more.
So, when I called asking for help, I was disappointed when an unfamiliar voice told me that it was the policy of the office not to recommend other doctors.
“We have a few names on file of surgeons that work in the area, but we are not recommending them, do you understand? “
“Yes” I sighed, as I wrote down the names down. She must have heard the disappointment in my voice, because then she added.
“I could get in to trouble for this, but I have some friends in radiology at MH and there is a group of Surgeons that my friends just love.” She read off four names quietly. I wrote them down. Then she added.
“Their favorite doctor is Dr. Sullivan; they say he has the best bedside manor.” I thanked her and hang up.

Chapter 3: cont...again.

2006-11-09T20:38:00.000-08:00

A few minutes later Sheila came back into the exam room with a doctor. He introduced himself as Dr. Martin and he told me that it looked like I had not one, but two masses, possibly tumors, in my right breast that should be looked at right away.
“We could wait.” He told me. “But I don’t think that we should. Sheila was making a phone call as Dr. Martin was talking to me. I didn't hear what else he said because my head was spinning. The next thing I knew, I was following Sheila down more corridors (Still in my hospital gown). Dr. Martin wanted me to get an ultra-sound right a way, and Sheila was taking me to the ultra-sound waiting room. This was the first time that I was in this waiting room. This same room that Mark and I would find ourselves in a few weeks later, while waiting for my biopsy to start.
The room was rectangular and small, it could hold ten people max, the walls were white (-) and the pictures boring (-) worst of all there was a TV blaring which was too loud for the room (--) I give the room a D. There were only a few people in the room, some look at me funny, maybe because I was sitting there in my hospital gown, I tried to read, but I couldn’t concentrate. A new technician took over my case. "Hi my name is…"
I went in to the ultra-sound room and the technician went to work. The objective of the test is to see if the mass that showed up on the mammogram was solid or liquid. Ultra-sound works like the radar a ship uses. Sound waves are sent out, if there is nothing there the sound waves keep going, but if there is a sub (or a tumor) then the sound waves hit the mass and bounce back to the sender. So if the mass is liquid the sound waves keep going and the mass is most likely a cyst. But if it is a solid mass than the sound waves bounce back and it is most likely a tumor. The technician told me that the masses were solid…so I need to find a surgeon and set up a biopsy as soon as possible. I drove home in shock, desperately needing a hug from my husband.

Chapter 3: cont...

2006-11-07T19:17:00.000-08:00

I went into one of the cubicles right next to the room with the mammogram machine to change into a hospital gown.
“Because this is a re-exam, I only have to check one breast.” Sheila told me. The “left one” I said, hopefully because my right breast has been sensitive for years. One of the reasons that I didn’t nurse my girls was that I found nursing too painful. The thought of having my right breast flattened between two glass plates was very unpleasant. Sheila looked at my chart, “No, she said, I have to get pictures of your right breast.”
“Damn” I thought, as I walked up to the machine.
Sheila flatted my breast in to position, then took some pictures, then took some more.
“I have to have a doctor look at these so wait right here because we might need more pictures.” Sheila said, and then left. I retrieved my book from the cubicle and started to read. I carry a book with me wherever I go. I do this for many reasons. First, I get board easily. Second if there are people around I find that they are less likely to talk to me if I am reading. And third if I find myself in a situation where I have to wait for awhile, I am able to loose myself in the world of my book and the waiting becomes easier.
So I waited… and waited. I was reading a book called “The Path between the Seas” by John McCullough, it was about the history of the building of the Panama Canal. I read a lot of histories of…type books. So there I was half-naked, sitting in a cold colorless hospital exam room (this room wasn't a real waiting room so I thought that it would be unfair to grade it) lost in the world of canal building. It was hot and steamy for the workers who were cutting a path thought the thick jungles of Panama. They were dying from malaria, and the men in charge of the project would not listen to Dr. William Gorgas who believed that controlling the mosquito population would reduce to number of men dying. Politics, not science were deciding how to handle the health care in Panama and men were dying because of it….Beep…Beep…"Paging Dr. Martin to radiology…Dr. Martin to Radiology". There had been many pages coming from the intercom which I had tuned out. I don’t know why this page jolted me out of Panama and back to New Jersey, but it did.

Chapter 3: SOMETHING IS WRONG

2006-11-07T14:00:00.000-08:00

APRIL 2001
I had been in denial long enough; it was time to get my follow-up mammogram. I had a morning appointment, so off to MH I went. My first stop was the out-patient check-in, the supervisor and staff was playing some kind of fantasy vacation game while checking-in the patients. It was funny when they yelled out their vacation fantasies.
“I want a beach!” said the young pretty girl with a short skirt.
“No!” replied a young man who was trying to grow a mustache. “Snow, I need snow, so I can go skiing.” The supervisor’s desk was covered with Travel brochures and she started reading from one of them: “Aruba had miles and miles of beaches…” The young woman checking me in added her own comments to the fun…"must have drinks with umbrellas…" I could relate-drinks with umbrellas, beaches, mountains, I would rather be someplace/anyplace else, other than in the hospital. I left the out-patient check-in department laughing; little did I know it would be the last time that I would laugh for a long time.
I checked-in at the radiation department then sat down in the waiting room. There was a soap opera on the TV, which I found very annoying because I was trying to read a serious non-fiction book and I kept finding myself peaking guiltily at the silly drama unfolding on the television. A few minutes later a woman came into the waiting room and called my name, or a close proximity to my name. The spelling of my last name and the pronunciation have little to do with each other.
“Hi, my name is Sheila, and I will be you technician today.” Said the woman leading me through the maze like halls. Sheila gave me warnings before she turned. “Right” she said before she turned right, “left” she said next before she turned left, all the while keeping up banter of conversation. I liked this because I was able to walk beside her instead of following her, and I never crashed in to her once.

Chapter 2 SIX MONTHS LATER…Cont...

2006-11-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

On top of all that Ronni had an appointment with her orthopedic surgeon. Ronni has been a toe walker all of her young life, and we had been on a merry-go-round of doctors both orthopedic and neurology until we found the right medical people who could correct her feet.
Just when I was about to catch my breath, I get a phone call from Anna, our insurance agent. She reminded me that the last time that Mark and I were in her office that we expressed interest in buying life insurance. She told me that the price would increase if I bought the insurance after I turn forty-five, and since my forty-fifth birthday was just a week away Mark and I might want to buy the insurance now. So, there we were, the couple whose normal speed for making any decision was slow and stop, we had to make the decision whether or not to buy life insurance and we had to make it now.
I wanted Mark and me to get more life insurance. Unlike many people we know who take a job because of salary and benefits, we do the jobs that we do because we love them. As long as we stay alive and healthy, we can make enough money to meet our needs.
We live differently than most people. You see I worked part-time at the local library and my husband is a forth generation Methodist Minister. We don't own the house we live in, heck, we don't even rent it. The house or parsonage is owned by the church that Mark is assigned to serve. So we don't really have a house to call our own which is ok, because the church takes good care of its minister and their families. But, if something were to happen to Mark, I would have to move out of the parsonage to make room for the new minister. To do that I would need enough money to be able to buy a small home for the girls and me.
So our lives were perfect, we had each other, two great kids and jobs that we loved that paid us just enough to live middle-class lives, but what it something happened…I felt we needed more insurance.
Although Mark wouldn’t need to move if I died, he would loose my income (small as it was). He would also have many added expenses, such as baby sitting, house keeping, and so on. We also realized that we needed two full-time incomes (I plan to start working full-time in a few years) to get these girls through college.
So, we decided to buy each of us a twenty-year, $100,000 term life insurance policy. All we had to do was pass a physical. We weren’t worried about me because I was in good shape; my only health flaw was that I had mult-valved prolapsed a minor heart valve thing that the cardiologist told me not even to worry about. I just had to take antibiotics before I had work done by my dentist or any other surgery.
Mark on the other hand had high blood pressure so we were worried that he might not pass. A nurse came to our house, we filled out many forms, and she took some blood. Then we waited. A few weeks later Anna called to tell us that the insurance agency was willing to insure Mark for the $100,000 but not me because of the mult-valved prolapsed. They would however offer me a very expensive five-year police.
I was very angry and wanted to take all of our business to a difference insurance company. But, Mark calmed me down, saying that we didn’t need me to be covered, because my job does pay about $10,000 if I died. That would be enough bury me, and anyway, he didn’t plan on me dying any time soon. I was still mad, after all I was healthy and I plan to live to be 100 years old. I decided that I was going to send the insurance company a card on my birthday each year saying “I’M STILL ALIVE, AND YOUR COULD HAVE COLLECTED A YEARS WORTH OF PREMIUMS, HA-HA. Mark didn’t think that the card was a very good idea.
After Ronni’s birthday, my niece’s birthday, valentines days, the visit to Ronni’s doctor and dealing with the insurance company I ran out of excuses..

Chapter 2 SIX MONTHS LATER…Cont...

2006-11-03T19:47:00.000-08:00

I promised Mark that I would make an appointment…as soon as things slowed down. You see, Ronni was turning ten, and she wanted a sleepover birthday party. There is a lot of work in planning a sleepover party. You have to make the guest list, buy the innovations, matching cups, napkins and plates. Then you have to plan a craft, organize games and put together loot bags. The trick is to plan enough activities to keep six ten-year-olds occupied from 6:00pm to 10:00am the next morning since sleeping itself rarely occurs at these parties.
The day came for the party and the guest arrived with the expatiation of a fun evening, but the sleepover quickly turned into a disaster. Two of the girls tried to take control of the party. They disrupted all the games that I planed; they pick fights and made some of the girls' cry including Ronni,
"Sob, sob, Hanna and Heidi are teasing me, they say my horse looks funny." I looked at the craft that Ronni had made and I had to admit that it didn't look much like a horse. My daughter is a very talented child, but arts and crafts are not her strong point.
"Your horse looks…original." I told her. And the party went on. At midnight I
told the girls to go to sleep. Every one complied, except Hanna and Heidi, and it took
a threat of calling their mothers to get them to settle down. The next morning things didn't improve; there were a few more fights before the girls left 10:00am.
-
Next there was our family birthday party for Ronni, not to mention, buying her birthday gifts. Oh, yea, I had to help her write all those thank you cards too. I also had to get a card and gift to mail to my nice. Then we had to pick out and write Valentine cards for Ronni and Lea to give to all their classmates.

Chapter 2 SIX MONTHS LATER…

2006-10-31T19:12:00.000-08:00

FEBRUARY 2001
I love February because it has my daughter Ronni’s birthday, my niece’s birthday, my birthday and Valentine’s Day. I hate February because it hasRonni’s birthday, my niece’s birthday, my birthday, and Valentine’s Day. February is the shortest month of the year, yet next to December it is my busiest month.
-
"TRACI!" My husband Mark shouted as he walked down the stairs.
"KITCHEN." I replayed.
"What are you doing?"
"Frosting cup cakes."
"I can see that's what you are doing, my question is why? Didn't you make cup
cakes last night?"
"Those were for Ronni's class in honor of her birthday, these are for Lea's
class Valentine's party.
"Gotch ya"
"Why were you looking for me?"
"It's February."
"So!"
"Aren’t you supposed to back to the hospital some time this month?"
"Yea"
"Have you made an appointment?"
"No"
"Why Not!"
"Too Busy." Mark gave me that look of his that said 'liar'.
"I'm scared." I said with tears welling up in my eyes. Mark walked over
to me and hugged me.
"You have to go." He whispered.
"I know." I whispered back

WHAT, ME GET A MAMMOGRAM? cont...

2006-10-29T12:05:00.000-08:00

As I was being led to the changing area next to the monogram room, the technician turned to me and said: “Hi, I’m Sandy, and I will be taking care of you today.” This caught me off guard and I had to stifle a laugh because it sounded so much like what you hear in restaurants. “Hi, my name is Sandy, and I will be your server today. “ At first I thought that having the nurse/technician introducing themselves was stupid, later I found that I like the idea of knowing the name of person who is about to do some horrible medical procedure to me. It made the procedures seem…less intimidating.
I was warned over the phone a few days earlier not to wear power or deodorant before the test. I asked why. They said there might be metallic in those products that could be picked up on the test and give a false positive. Sandy showed me to the changing room. I took off my shirt and bra and put on a hospital gown. Sandy brought me to the mammogram machine and squished my breast into a very uncomfortable position.
If you have never had a monogram (shame on you) it works something like this: You stand up against a weird looking machine, the technician, usually a female, tells you to take off the gown to expose one breast. Then she then places that breast between two glass plates and the machine squeezes it as flat as possible. This is very uncomfortable.
Then the technician takes an x-ray picture. She does this with each breast getting two or three different angles. Then you wait while a doctor looks at the X-rays and tells you the results. I had come to the conclusion that the monogram machine was designed by a man who hates women.
Actually I was curious; I wanted to know who came up with the idea that to get a decent image of a woman's breast you have to squish it. So being an assistant librarian I did some research. According to www.gemedicalsystems.com and www.members.ozmail.com. Doctors had been using standard chest X-rays to check women for breast cancer since the 1920's. Around 1966/7 a new machine was in development: a machine that could focus on breast tissue. This machine consisted of a tube and a lens on a three-legged stand that produced images of better quality than the standard x-ray.
Major studies were done in 1963-1967 using 60,000 women. Then in 1973 270,000 women were studied to see if annual screening would make a difference in reducing the mortality rate of women over 50. It did. It was after these two studies that interest in mammography grew.
The new machine was in limited commercial use in 1967, and it was called the "Senographe," which is French for "picture of the breast" (just why the French have a word for picture of the breast is another question). Anyway, the machine was changing and improving through out the late sixties and the seventies, at about the same time that more women were entering the medical field. Coincidence? I think not!
By the 1980's, the second generation of mammogram: (by this time it was being called a mammogram) was being used. This machine looked a lot like machines do today (scary), the new machine reduced the exposure time a lot, it also had increased the accuracy, and better film was available. It was around this time that the first motorized compression device was invented (that is what they call the glass plates that squishe your breast), it reduced the tissue thickness so the doctors could read the x-ray better (so they say). I say the compression device is used to torture women, but that is just my opinion.
Anyway it was with this second-generation machine that doctors were able to start mass screening, so that more than just rich women and those with really good health insurance could get accesses to mammograms and the benefits of early detection.
In the 1990's more changes and improvements happened to the machine. They became more 'user friendly' for the technicians (what every that means), which made the exams faster and produced fewer false readings.
In 1999 the Mammogram Standard Quality Act (MQSA) was passed, which required that all mammography equipment must pass the MQSA test in order to legally operate in the United States (nice to know).
I didn't know any of this when I was sitting in the mammogram room waiting for my results, all I knew was that I had better things to do than sit around and wait.
After a while Sandy came back, she explained that there was "something" on my right breast and they were not sure just what it was. I shouldn't worry, it was probably nothing, but they wanted me to return in six months and have another mammogram.
"Great" I thought, "all I wanted was to do was have my prescription renewed so I gave up half a day, and now they want me to do this all over again in six months." I wasn't scared, I was angry.

WHAT!!! ME GET A MAMMOGRAM?

2006-10-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1, pages5-7

Yea, I showed her all right, truth be told, it was easier to get the stupid mammogram than to find a new gynecologist. I wanted someone I trusted to give me a recommendation. This was not the kind of doctor you pick out of a phone book. Even though I have lived in this town for over two years I still didn't have a close
enough friendship with any woman in order to ask her if she could recommend a gynecologist. So, that is why on a hot summer afternoon that I found myself driving
on 287 north toward Memorial Hospital angry that I had to give up an afternoon that could have been spent at the community pool with my kids.
This was my third monogram, and my second one at Memorial. I chose the hospital instead of a clinic for the test simply because I knew were the hospital was.
I have no sense of direction and get lost easily, hospitals are easy to find because they are big and they have those blue hospital signs that show the way. What I
didn’t count on was getting lost once I got inside of the building.
Memorial Hospital is built in a hill, so the main entrance seems to be on the ground level and the Radiation department four levels underground. Yet, if you go to
a different entrance, you have to go up a few flights to get to the main lobby. Too confusing for me, so I make it a point to park in the same area and use the same
entrance each visit.
Once I found the right floor, I wandered around the halls for fifteen minutes before I found the radiation department. This department was large. People go there
for all kinds of X-rays and many different types of scanning tests. There was a main waiting room where you check-in and wait to be called. This waiting room was
big and can accommodate somewhere around thirty people. The room was a nice green color (+) the walls were lined with comfortable chairs (+) that were too close together (-). There were two receptionists who knew what they were doing (+) and there were nice pictures on the wall (+). There were also two couches in the center
of the room facing a TV (---). I hate TV's in waiting rooms they make it hard to for me to concentrate on my book. As TV's go this one isn't very loud, but I still
found it annoying. I give the room a C+ (it would have been a B+ but it loses a whole grade point for having a TV).
I proceed to the reception desk to check in. I was told that I had to go to the out-patient department FIRST to check-in, then come back to the reception desk. Luckily the out-patient department was on the same floor as the radiation department was so my chances of finding it quickly were good.
Let me stop for a moment to tell you about the out-patient check-in procedure, and the people who work there. This department is the place where every, I Mean every patient who is having any kind-of same-day procedure (excluding surgery) must check-in. It is always busy. You stand in line until one of the clerks yells 'NEXT',
then you go to a window where you present a valid ID card, a prescription for what is being done and your insurance card. The clerk working at the window puts all
the information into the hospital's computer so you can be billed, then they give you a paper and send you on your way. The clerks have a very repetitive job that
could become boring fast, and the people doing this job could become bored and surly. But they are not. In the next year I will spend a lot of time there and I never
once encountered an unpleasant person.
The check-in clerks are a cohesive group of people with their own brand of humor. There is frequently some kind of in-side joke going on, and if they liked you, they will let you in on it. These wonderful people consistently put me in a good mood for the start of whatever torture my doctors planned for me that day.
Back to my mammogram; I did all the out-patient paper work then went back to the radiation waiting room. I tried to read my book, but found it hard to concentrate because of the TV. Luckily I was called quickly.

Breast Cancer, My Story

2006-10-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

I started this blog earlier this year as a class assignment, an assignment that I didn’t want to do. Unlike those people on reality shows who will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame, I am a very shy and private person. But to pass the class I had to write this blog. Well, it turned out that graduated school was not for me, so I quit both the class and the blog and haven’t thought about either for some time. But now it is October and everywhere you look someone is doing a story about breast cancer, a disease that I am very familiar with.
While I was in treatment some of my friends told me that because I have such an odd way of looking at things, I should write a book about my cancer experience, so I did. Then I read up on how to get a book published. It was more work trying to find an agent and/or a publisher than to write the book. I was too shy to send out my manuscript to strangers. What if they hated it—or worst, what if they liked it-then what would I do? So, the manuscript sat in a drawer.
But with all the press and pink everywhere, I keep thinking about my story and that I really want to tell it. My blog seemed like the perfect way to tell my story. My working title is Jersey Girl-without her tomatoes. So here it goes-----chapter one-page one.

CHAPTER 1: ME GET A MAMMOGRAM?

AUGUST 2000
I pulled the car screeching in to the parking lot, late again. I started to think that maybe when I moved two years ago I should have changed to a new
Gynecologist, because this hour long drive every six months was getting tired. I found a parking spot and ran into the building then up a flight of stairs.
Half out of breath, I entered the office and approach the receptionist,
"Hi, I'm Traci and I have a 1:00 o'clock appointment with Dr. Munn." The receptionist glanced over her shoulder to the wall clock, which read 1:10
Then she looked back at me and said:
"Have a seat." I had just sat down when a nurse called me into an exam room. The nurse took the standard test: weight, blood, blood pressure etc…
"Hmmm, you're blood pressure is high, which is very unusual for you, have you participated in any strenuous activity recently?"
"You mean besides the-I'm late run through the parking lot/up the stair sprint?"
"Great." She said laughing "I want you to sit in the waiting room and calm down for ten minutes, so I can get an actuate read."
"Won't I mess up the doctor’s schedule?"
"Not really, she is running behind." I went back to the waiting room. The room was small for a two-doctor office. The furniture was standard, and the
walls were white and there were a few out dated magazines lying on a table. I have never liked this waiting room, the doors seemed to be in the wrong place
which made the room disorienting. Decorator I am not, my own house is decorated in early second hand, but I am sensitive to the feel a room projects and
I have made a game out of grading business offices and doctor's waiting rooms.
This one was small (-) the door placement is wrong (-) and the walls were white (--) but the furniture is nice (+) and practicable (+) and I liked the pictures
on the wall (+) so I gave it a C-.
There were two very pregnant women in the room chatting and laughing. They smiled at me when I entered the room and invited me to join them. I declined
And sat and as far away from them as I could, I opened my book and started to read. Within a few seconds I was transported to the 1950's Irish countryside
of a Mave Binchy novel. I could smell the open fields and hear the giggles of teenage girls running home from school not knowing that some of their innocence
was about to be shattered. The nurse opened the door and called the name of one of the women. She exited the room. I continued to read ignoring the remaining
woman. A few minutes later I got called.
I was at the doctors to have my bi-annual pelvic exam and pap smear. When the exam was done Dr. Munn told me get dressed and meet her in her office.
When I got there she was looking through my chart.
"I don't see a mammogram this year, when did you get it done?"
"Welllll, I didn't."
"Why not?" She asked.
"Because I've been busy." I answered, curtly. I hate mammograms, the thought of the whole process gave me the creeps.
"It is important that you get one, and soon." She said.
"Yea, yea, I'll get one…soon." She changed the subject and we talked about other health related issues.
"That's it, I'll see you in six months." She said, getting up from behind her desk.
"You haven't given me my prescription for my birth control pills yet." I reminded her.
"And I am not going to, either." She stated.
"WHAT!!! Why not?"
"You didn't get the mammogram that I asked you to get, that's why!" She explained that if I wanted to be her patient and I wanted birth control pills then I had
to have a exam twice a year and a mammogram once a year…no monogram-no birth control pills-no exceptions.
I really needed a new prescription (did I mention that I'm a procrastinator?). I told her that I had less than a week's worth of pills left. The funny thing was,
she thought that I wanted the pills to regulate my periods while in the pre-menopausal stage. I told her that I took the pill so I would not get pregnant. She started laughing, I mean really, really laughing. When she gained control of herself she said that she was sorry for laughing at me, but she found it funny that as a forty-four year old, I was worried about getting pregnant. She was treating women ten years younger than me for infertility. I reminded her that I had a six-year-old and it took me less than two months of trying to get pregnant.
We struck a deal, she gave me a month's supply of pills (they always have some demos lying around). If I have the mammogram in the next 30 days she will call a prescription to my pharmacy, if I don't, I am out of luck. I took the pills and stormed out of her office. I though to myself, how dare she be so mean to me. After all, I just drove over an hour to get here. I'm not going to get my breast squished. I'll just find a new gynecologist, I'll show her.
-

Happy Father's Day

2006-06-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

To day is father’s day and according to my favorite TV show “Sunday Morning” there are 66 million fathers in America, but only 26 million are married. 39% read or look at books with their children at least once a week and 68% play sports with their kids once a week. There are 2 million single fathers and 143,000 stay at home dad’s compared to the 5 million stay-at-home mom’s. And the number one gift for a father is still a tie.

Today is Father’s Day and we will celebrate the old fashion way with homemade and silly #1 DAD gifts. My 12-year-old spent all day yesterday making and wrapping his presents. We went out shopping and bought him some chocolate (his favorite) and a video he had express an interest in owing lately.

I think that homemade and silly gifts are the best gifts for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I remember an ad that came out last June for a camera cell phone (I think). In the ad the guy who got the cell phone for Father’s Day took pictures of all of the silly gifts that other men in his office received, he sent the photos to wife and they laughed at his co-workers. I think the ad was trying to say ‘this expensive gift is sooooo much better than homemade of silly #1 DAD stuff.’ All that ad did for me was put off my purchase of a cell phone for a year.

When did we get so consumer driven? When did a #1 DAD cup or tie become a joke? Today my husband got a #1 DAD certificate that my 12-year-old lovingly made for her father, along with other homemade items. And he will eat some chocolate and we will all watch Hook Winked (for the 4th time) together, and have a family celebration of Father’s Day. We don’t need to spend a lot of money to say that we love him; a little imagination, scissors, paper, glue and chocolate are all that we need in this house to say I LOVE YOU DAD!!!

Work-out? Me?

2006-06-16T13:12:00.000-07:00

I don’t like to workout, my idea of exercise is bending my elbow getting the cookies from the table to my mouth. This year in a moment of insanity I joined gym, ok, a semi-gym-I joined Curves. A few of my friends were members and talked about how much they liked it, so I joined. It is not bad (for an exercise place). Curves is a “women only” gym, how they can do that legally I don’t know. This is not the gym for the serious athlete, most of the woman there are over thirty and could stand to loose a few pounds. The equipment is set up in a circle so we can chat with each other as we exercise. What do we talk about? Food of course, I’ve gotten more calorie filled recipes while exercising than from the food channel.

Anyway, I have been very busy lately, with two jobs, two kids, two cats, one husband and graduate school, so I haven’t worked-out lately. But this morning I went to the semi-gym in spite of my schedule, I came back feeling great and ready to do more homework. Plus, I got a great new recipe.

Last Days of School

2006-06-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

Well it is the end of the school year and things are winding down. Not much learning is going on at this point because it is time for the end-of-the-year parties. This entry is just to note some observations.
The teachers are taking everything off the walls, both in the classroom and in the halls. The walls look very empty now and thee institutional look is back. I miss the color. One of my favorite things about schools is the student art work that covers the hall and classrooms. Some is cleaver, some strange and some quite good. In one of my schools (5th and 6th grade) The walls were filled with life size caricatures of a book the whole 6th grade was reading called The Watson’s go to Birmingham, The art work was very good. Another school had a medieval theme, with pictures knights and castles made from milk cartons lining the halls. And the High School-WOW, their halls were filled with self-portrait’s. Almost everything is taken down now, but once and a while you can still see something interesting. Today I was in a science 5th grade science room, I notice on one walls 5 posters; the two on the left were of a hurricane and a tornado. The two on the right were of an earthquake and a volcano. The one in the middle was a picture of the Whitehouse.

School Assembly

2006-06-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

I subbed today in a school that has only 3rd and 4th graders. There was an assembly and I had to bring my class to it. I have mixed feeling about assemblies. On the one hand, if I bring a class to an assembly that means that I don’t have to teach anything while trying to control the class. On the other hand I still am responsible for my students and I have to keep them quiet and under control. The problem with that is-- I usually am not that familiar with the students so in a setting with lots of children it is easy to loose track of just what kids I am suppose to keep watch off. So what I do is as the program starts I just look mean and shush any child with in a twenty foot range. That makes all of the kids a little nervous so they all behave. I look like I am in control but the truth is I have no Idea which students I am supposed to watch.

If the assembly is good and the kids are engage it does not matter if I know who I am supposed to watch because they all are behaving. That is what happened today. The assembly was a student performance. It was a history of dance. One group of kids were the minstrels and narrated the story, which followed a family from medieval times to the present, who like to throw balls. Each generation gave their story (in rhyme) as to whom there are and what the latest dance craze is. I saw; a Minuet, a Waltz, Charleston, a Lindy Hop and a surprisingly good Break Dance, to name a few. The sound system wasn’t that good, and ten-year-olds aren’t the best at waltzing, but I give the show an A+ because the kids really put their hearts into it. The audience was dazzled, and a good time was had by all. I wish all assemblies were this much fun.

TV-Free Weekend

2006-06-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

On Friday one of my children told me that the TV wasn't working. Unfortunately the TV or electricity going out for a while around here is not all that uncommon. You see, I live is a tourist area, and on the weekends the parting starts-which means all too often a car will knock-out a telephone pole (kind-of sad, don't you think?) Hence, no electricity or cable. So, when the TV and DSL computers went out on a Friday night I didn't call the cable company, figuring that everything will be fine in a few hours.

By Saturday morning the cable was still out, but we had a parade and Founders Day celebration to go to, so I didn't call the cable company. By Saturday night my kids were mad at me--for a while. Then we got creative. Instead of everyone going off to there own room to watch their favorite shows we ended up hanging-out together playing cards and talking- it was a fun night.

So, when will I call the cable company for repairs? Whenever- I am not in any hurry.

I Love a Parade?

2006-06-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

I just came back from watching my little town's Founder's Day parade, which is a big event in these part. It was lots of fun. I went there to see my high school daughter who is in the school's marching band, and I stayed to watch the whole parade because it was so interesting. In the parade there was the local fire and police department, the ROTC, various amateur bands and even some Mummers. I think that every small business with-in 20 miles around was represented. We had a queen and her court, even a Little Miss. I was surprized to see a local military school represented, I didn't even know that there was a military school in the area. What I loved about the parade was that it was so local, no cameras, no celebraties.

I remember growing up as a kid that I could't wait for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, watching it on TV with my family was more important to me that the big meal. Once I went to New York the night before the parade to watch the balloons being blown-up, I thought that it would be lots of fun, in reality it was very cold and very borning. That night was the begining of the end of my love affair with big profesional parades. The Macy's Parade has changed over the years, nowaday the camera focus mainly on the celerbarties and Broadway Shows and not on the High School Bands and the balloons. I don't watch big professional parades anymore, but give me a small town parade- and I will be there.

The Tale of two webs sights.

2006-06-03T07:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I participated in a Relay-for Life overnight walk-a-than ( I only have had 4 hours sleep in the last 24 hours). This year they did something different. Instead of each walker registering by filling out a paper form and giving the form to their teem leader, who in turn sent it to the local office, each walker had to register online.

For people whom computers are not scary, this was no big deal. But for many participants, the new system either stopped them from registering or required that the get help for someone. I think that that switching the registers on paper strickly to the a web site stopped many people from signing-up. I don't think that the switch over was such a great idea, what they should have done is, for the next few years give participants a choice on how they sigh-up.

On the otherhand, this weekend I had an encounter with a web site that I was thrilled to see. The web site from our governed social security administration (ssa).

Seventeen years ago when I got married I needed to switch my social security card from my maiden name to my married one. The only information I had on how to contact the ssa was from the local phonebook, which had a 1-800 number and nothing else. The phonebook did not give the address of the local office. I called the number twice a day everyday, only to get a busy signal. Eight month later-I got to a real person, only to discover that the closest office was five minutes from my house.

Well, because of fincial-aid stuff I need to visit my local office again. This time I have a choice on how to fine the closest locatio, a 1-800 number or a web site. I chose the web sight and found that address right away (this time they are 30 minutes away).

My point is that as America moves into the techinal age we need to remember that not everyone feels comfortable with the changes. So we must give people a choice on whether they want embrace the new ways or stick to the old.

What is a textbook?

2006-06-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

Today I was substitute teaching for a third grade class that had two teachers, and today was treat day.

"The kids have worked hard all year and today is just for fun." the other teacher said. We played games, then watched the movie "Chicken Little" then after lunch we had a "bubble festival." Six stations were set up by four mother volunteers and each station had different experiments for the kids. They love it. Then the kids went to their "special" which was a computer class.

This is when if got interesting. While cleaning-up the teacher and the mothers were talking about a meeting the parents had with the school board the other day. Starting next year the 4th, 5th and 6th grade social study teachers are only getting one set of textbooks for each classroom. Not each class-each classroom. The books are never to be taken home. It seem that they want the student to do all their homework research on the internet, the in-class books will be used only as sublimated information.

The question is: Is this generation going to loose its ability to learn from books? Will the computer be their only way of learning? And is this a good Idea?

Turning Fifty

2006-05-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

Today I got a letter from AARP, congratulation me on turning fifty and telling me that am eligible to become a member and get to enjoy all of the benefits that life after fifty has to offer.
FIFTY!!! When did that happen? Wasn't it yesterday that I was still being carded?

Okay, so I have gained a few pounds, and my knees hurt, but fifty? Thinking back, each decade had something interesting to offer me.

My Teens offered a future and freedom, access to a car, my first plane ride, the right to vote and in my day turning 18 meant that it was legal to drink.

My Twenties gave me by first college degree: an associates, my first real job, my first apartment and my a cat named Snowball who was my first pet. And my first trip overseas (to Ireland).

My Thirties was a time of major changes. This time at work, I was the boss. It was in my thirties that I got married and had a baby, quite my job, had another baby, got a part-time brainless job (to get out of the house) and settled in to a life and a wife and mother

The the dreaded Forties came. I went back to college got a bachelor's degree. Then I lost my mother, had a health crises of my own,saw my oldest child become a teenager, then I lost my father. My Forties were tough.

So now I am Fifty, I look at this as a time of new beginnings. I am really not sad about turning Fifty, each decade has some wonder adventures and some sad events. I can't wait to see what happens next!

The Tourist Are Coming!!!

2006-05-29T05:12:00.000-07:00

I live in a unique town. One one hand it is a typical working class neighborhood , a boy his dog and his truck. The majority of the High School students who graduate this year won't go to college, they will be going into trade or the military (three brancehes of the military have recruiting offices here). This is pick-up truck territory, you won't see a BMW in these parts...that is until Memorial Day.

You see I live 15 minutes for the Atlantic Ocean, and if you want to get from the New Jersey Parkway to the barrier Island where all the beach rentals and manisons are you have to drive thu my town. Come Memorial Day the population of the island increases 10 fold. The traffic lights go from blinking lights to normal green, yellow, red. Once the unoffical summer starts the traffic around here gets really bad, the tourist seem to spend as much time on the main land shopping as they do on the beach. Don't get me wrong the money that they bring in keeps the place going, we need the tourist for our ecconomical existence.

So, I have to learn to be more patient for the next few months everytime I leave my house.
Hey, the sun is shinning-see you at the beach.

A New Out Look

2006-05-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

I was never a great student, but I was always a good one. I Have always liked school, so I thought that everyone did. I have been subbing for a little over a year and I found that I loved working with the AP kids. The come in and do their work with a minimum of fuss. But lately I seem to be getting the low level classes a lot. Here the kids act-up all of the time, trying to keep them focused is a lot of work. School for them is a waste of time, they don't want to be there and don't understand why they should. These kids annoyed me. Didn't they understand how important an education is? Why do they hate school so much?

I didn't understand until now. I just started graduate school an on-line course. I have never been so lost and confused. I feel that for every step I take forward I am pushed five steps back. I keep missing important information, assignments, so on. For the first time in my life I feel stupid, I don't think I can do this. I want out. But I paid for the semester already, I have put my family in dept. I feel trapped.

Now I think I understand how my non academic students feel, like they can't win, so why even try. I don't know what my future holds, but I do know that this experience will make me a better teacher.

Second Post

2006-05-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

I finally figured how to register with Connotea. Yea!