A Safe and Healing Place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWIq09wGwKk&feature=youtu.be
This video was put together by Isaac and was a grand effort to give a visual of how our house came to be and all the memories that we had along the way. Isaac gave it to us for Christmas one year. Thanks  Isaac. You captured the spirit of this place well.                                                                       


 Looking back on it now it was quite an endeavor, this building of the house. I can appreciate what folks do when they undertake a long term project. This was long term and we were committed to doing as much of the construction ourselves as we possibly could. It took 10 years of weekends, evenings and whatever time we could find to get it to where we could move in. Our sons, especially Joshua our carpenter, helped, as well as in-laws and brothers and grandchildren and neighbors and people who worked for us. It really was a combined  effort. It's modest in size, only 1200 sq. ft., and looks somewhat like a chalet. It has many a personal touch added in. My reason for sharing this is to make a huge point. This has been a healing place for us and a safe haven through these turbulent days. We took care of Josh on different occasions here and he and I sat on the couch together while Lynne gave herself up caring for him and I. While we said good-bye to Josh, he is still very present with us, with all the memories in the building, his touch here and there and everywhere. It is as though this  has been prepared for us for this time, a place of green pastures and still waters, a safe passage through stormy waters.

Psalm 23

New International Version (NIV)

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

Anything will help

Up ahead I turn left, and there he would stand
On the esplanade with cardboard sign in hand
And most every time when the light was red
I'd get some money for his sign had said,
"Anything at all will help.".

With his cane in hand and grasping his sign,
He'd come to the window and just in time,
And speak his thanks for the bit I had shared,
For the light had changed and no feelings were bared,
Least of all anything that might help.

I go by that light about 3 times a week,
So my eyes scan over to take a peek.
I reach for my wallet for there he stands,
his cane and his sign grasped in his hands,
Looking to any for anything helps.

Sometimes we chatted and he talked of his life.
No kids and no work and he had no wife .
He  cared for his mother at age eighty four,
In exchange for a room, a roof, and a door,
So anything would help.

The last times I drove by there including today,
He hasn't been standing at his appointed stay.
And my mind goes to wondering if he is alright,
Has he found another corner a more lucrative site,
Because anything does help.

The corner stands empty, none take his place.
It's like most corners, cars, lights and space.
There's an empty spot now that he had once filled.
Strangely enough, it was I that felt chilled.
For anything he was to me really does help.

Cancer Survivor

 

April 18, 2013

concerns

From the web comic xkcd, this kind of honesty can only come from someone who intimately knows cancer.

Point Of Reference

We were talking in the Stem Cell Clinic waiting room. Suddenly I realized I can not imagine my life ever again without cancer. I also realized how it has begun to shape my life morphing so to speak into the new life. I have no idea when that happened. Well I guess I do. It was when I busted my back and also found out I had cancer. Everything changed then. But I still had this notion of denial , that everything would go back to the way things had been. What I suddenly felt in that waiting room that day was this: I, along with all the other patients in this room have CANCER and will have CANCER in some form or another for the rest of our lives.

The above was the beginning of a post that I had worked on in October of last year. I guess I have become accustomed to this new modality. So my condition is that I don't have cancer, that's correct, that's straight from the Doctor's notes and his mouth. So am I a cancer patient  then or not? Lynne said that it's in remission. I thought that Dr. Khouri said all the cancer cells are gone, so maybe I'm a transplant patient. She said that the better word was cancer survivor. That works for me.

Nevertheless I am irreversibly changed forever. It has been the focus of this blog for a year and a half. It is the thought on every body's mind when they ask about me. So what I am challenged to do now is wrestle with what that means to me. That should keep going for a few years and  thankfully, those I do have.

Can I Interest You In A Fireplace Extraordinaire

When we built our house we decided we wanted a fireplace, especially Lynne. She loves a cozy fire. So it was decided. She did not care much about what kind as long as it burned wood and created a warm spot when it was cold outside. My thoughts went more to the idea that it should heat the house as well. Most open fireplaces suck as much heat  out of the house as  they create and then with the open flue when the fire is out they actually create a colder house even though it may be warm in front of the fire. So we shopped around  and we looked and scouted the Internet and even visited fireplace stores up in Mich. We finally settled on a fireplace, called the Extraordinaire, that was EPA certified clean burning and we found it in Conroe. It will heat up to 2,400 sq. ft. and give all the ambiance we need. With the benefit of a ceramic honeycomb catalytic burner, almost all the gases and smoke and particulates are burned and turned to heat. And on top of that we installed it ourselves. So here's the deal. Before my cancer when ever we had folks over they were on the receiving end of my spiel about the stove's magnificent characteristics. It pulls in outside fresh air for the firebox. It pulls in fresh air to be heated and  blows that warmed air into the house, the warm air then creating a positive pressure in the house. There are no cold drafts anywhere. The whole house gets heated except for an upstairs bed room, and that's good. You can open the glass doors for an open fire. You can close them and control the burn rate, and watch the fire through the glass doors while the fan disperses the heat into the room. We have not run the gas furnace this entire winter.We get plenty of wood by scrounging and taking down trees for customers What's not to love? Alas! It's a small disinterested audience. I'm a zealot without an assembly, that's what I am. Maybe a salesman for Travis Industries, the manufacturer would work? Naw I'll just go ahead and continue to bore our guests. Wait, did I just bore you?

Slower Than A Roach

The process of aging is an interesting one. One of the things that has been happening is my ability to keep up. I'm getting slower. Sometimes I don't realize that I am getting slower, but there are reality checks. I had one of those this morning. There was this roach,  (we do grow 'em big here), in the kitchen. There was a time I could catch them, quicker that a flash, like a fly in the air with my hand. This one escaped my swipe with a towel and he went to the floor and he out ran me from there in the open stretch. Chalk up another first. I'm slower than a roach.

Poignant - And To The Point

Prayers go up from the hearts and minds and voices of so many for the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing. There are so many questions, and the highest on the Richter scale of all this insanity would have to be "Why?. Why in the world would anyone do this. A reporter that was doing a live  update summed it up well when he was referring to the incident, said "this shitty- sorry city -------". He was not denigrating Boston but rather what happened there. Slips of the tongue are poignant.

How Does The Clock Work?

I was sitting outside the other day and my gaze goes to that spot about 40 feet up on that dead pine tree and there on the side of the tree is the woodpecker hanging on to the bark about 6 inches below the hole they had made. I went over to the tree to take a closer look and there in the opening I see the red head. It appears there has been a change in the neighborhood, the blue folks have moved out and the redheads have moved in. They must have made an offer  that they could not refuse. So we will watch the redheads instead. I think I've spotted another possible site for the bluebirds in another  pine tree that died from the same drought. It's not easy to see from where I tend to sit. It's always interesting to see how people feel about the change. Some just don't like change and so are saddened when change happens. Others side with the more aggressive birds like woodpeckers and then others with the bluebirds who are more shy and stay out of the limelight. In nature, change just is, and it does seem to favor some and there are "pecking orders" without regard for feelings and fairness. Some of that does translate to the hunan world but we work hard to be equitable and fair. Being moral does not rid us of our natural instincts. Well enough of that. I had not intended to go in that direction. I was just going to update you on the birds. As my brother, Dirk  would say, "If I ask you for the time, you don't need to tell me how the clock works".

Emoting: It's Not A Bird Disease

In response to an intense Interpersonal Group Session, through tears and sniffles, George said, "I don't know why we have to be emoting all the time?". It was hard for George to embrace the intense emotions we all are capable of experiencing, and when he got close to his emotions  he wanted to shut down. Finally he couldn't hold back the tears and he began to "emote" as  he would call it. When I heard the word I chuckled. I was not familiar with it and thought it sounded more like a bird disease. George gave me  a word that has been a good reminder, to  me, that what's inside, especially if it's been bottled up it needs to come out, even though "emoting" sounds like a bird disease.  Consider the following.

Friday, was a big day. Didn't realize how big it was until after Friday night and Saturday. So I will work backwards.  Saturday I am exhausted. Lynne is as well. We functioned as though we were drained of every thing. No gas left in the tank. Well, that's not entirely true. I produce lots of gas. What with all the magnesium I take. I digress.  Both Lynne and I are tired and spent. And looking back I know that I only slept about 3 hours on Friday night. Lynne also slept not well. Maybe a couple of hours of deep sleep between the 2 of us. As I traced our emotions for Friday every thing was right there just under the surface.

 For example as we walk through the lobby at MDACC here comes a kid, no more than 7 years of age, no hair, pushing his little brother or sister in a stroller and they are laughing. Lynne went to tears immediately and I shortly after for the child as well as for Lynne because I know her heart. "The Suffering of the Age of Innocence" should be a title of a book. So that was one clue we were primed for some ups and downs.

 Number  two was, I had received a call from the Stem Cell Donor Search Office. Katherine called to let us know that the donor of my "life saving" stem cells had agreed to get in touch with us. One year after the transplant we are asked if we would like to know the donor. We have to wait a year for many different reasons and it is part of the protocol. We had said "Yes". Katherine would have the envelope at the desk for us with the contact information about the donor in it. The envelope please?  We had it in our hands and there was no good time to open it right there so we opted to wait until we got home. When we got home I opened it and as I did the emotions came to the top again. So we knew that, that going into today, that we would get this name of a person who was a complete stranger to us.

Then of course an obvious third  reason is what I posted yesterday, the results of the CT scan. It even crossed my mind that when I imagined thanking Brian, yes his name is Brian, would I be thanking him for 2  or 3 years or will this go through some  many more birthdays. Either way I am thankful. I, who am a stranger thank him for his gift to me. Now we are no longer strangers. The emotions flowed freely again as I opened the envelope. I said that twice didn't I? Can you see we are bouncing all over the place?

 And fourthly, March 8th is the 1st Birthday of my new life, thanks to Brian and his stem cells, and today, April 14th, is the day I thank, my deceased Mother and Father, for my physical Birthday, number 66. (No you can't do anything with  just 2 sixes.)

And finally, there is another element worth sharing. While Lynne and I were talking I had said to her that it was such a relief to hear those words from Dr. Khouri. And she said something to the affect, that I could not hear that form God, that it took a man to give me that release. I truly do see him as God's gift to transplant patients. He does his job well and shares his gifts to many and especially  to me. The point is that for low these 2 years I have been in a battle, fighting a disease that wants to kill me, emotionally and physically and passing the 2 year mark as a survivor in January and 1 year as a Stem Cell survivor in March and now the spot on my lung is going away and is naught  about which to be concerned? That's big. They are big ones for me and I was seeing some light on the horizon and not a light in a tunnel and that is huge, so very awesome. And to punctuate that, Dr. Khouri said I don't need to come back for  ONE MONTH. That's four weeks. I will miss you, "my friend" for those weeks. ("My friend", was his salutation to me when he entered the room.)

There is much for which to be "thankful" and we are. And again I say, "Alright" with the left arm raised as a salute of praise.

"If you help someone from whom you expect a return, what credit is that to you? That's the kind thing, and a good one, that every one can do. But if you do good things without expectation of any thing in return, then you will children of the Most High and your rewards will  be great." Luke  6:34-36 ( Abe's paraphrase)

And don't forget how I have been given a new life by the blood of another. That's quite a metaphor. Thank you Brian.

DANG! I forgot the Kleenex! Posted by Lynne

 DANG! How could I forget the Kleenex?  First, I dropped Abe off at the patient drop-off, he was feeling nauseous and going up 12 floors of circular parking is horrible for him. So after parking, I head to floor 2 for the blood draw. I stop. I remember. This was where Isaac said to Josh after his blood draw, "Wait here-I'm going to get you a wheelchair", one of the first indications Josh was getting worse. It was so painful for him to just walk.
 I fight back tears.
I sit there waiting for Abe remembering-thankful it's not so often anymore that we have to come here- to MDA-where almost every hallway and floor holds so many memories. " My blessed boy-you fought so hard for so long."
I fight back tears.
Then, Abe is done and we're heading for his CT scan-and coming right at us smiling, and pushing his baby brother in a stroller,Mom following, is this little bald-headed guy,probably 5 or 6. He is laughing, looking so happy with not a care in the world-and did I mention- BALD.
Damn- I can't fight the tears now-they start streaming down my cheeks. I swipe desperately at them, trying to make them stop.
They don't.
I hear Abe sniffle, he turns to me and I say, Dang- I forgot the Kleenex, do you have any? No, he doesn't, as we both continue to cry. No words are necessary-he puts his arm around my shoulders and we continue our journey to Diagnostic Imaging.
    I'm praying the spot on his lung will be gone-AND-I'm also praying for that little guy.
      "God speed, little one."
DAMN-I HATE CANCER.

Sitting at MDACC, March 22, 2013, Posted by Lynne

22 months on the 22nd, and it was on the 22nd of May 2011 we lost Josh. Now we're seeing Dr. K. for Abe - a spot on his lung. Again? Really? As I was walking in, the security guard asked if I needed help finding anything. I practically yelled back, "No are you kidding me? I've been coming here for 3 years! I know this place like the back of my hand!

I was so rude - that's the anger coming out - I don't want to be here - AGAIN - wondering - now what - Is  Abe going to get a different cancer? Now? Really?

"What If Frogs Had Guns"

I found myself playing  the,  "what if"  game. You must know that one, the one where I find myself wondering,  "What if there is something in my lungs, something that lurks in the dark recesses of the trachea, and what if it has spread and needs to be treated with chemo? How will I handle that?".  "What if?" "What if?" "What if?" That started at 4:02, in the -- AM. By 4:03 I'm wide awake. I go to obsessing pretty quick,  you see, from 0 to absurdity in 4 seconds flat, rivaling  that of a Mustang Cobra in the 0 to 60 and with the same venom to the soul as a cobra to life. I know where this is headed. It's not pretty. "You do that?", you ask.  Ohhh yes and I'm no fun to be around when I do such things. Chris, our son had a good line that always pulls me up short. He said one time, "What  if frogs had guns?". I said, "What?". He repeated,  "What if frogs had guns?". "What does that have to do with anything "? His response? "Snakes wouldn't mess with them".  I repeat that story to myself at 4:04 to break that race to absurdity and put a smile on my face. My sleepy time, however, is shattered like the sound barrier and by 4:10 I get up.

So today I am  off to have my follow up CT scan and off to see the wizard, Dr. Khuori, who is no wizard at all, only a doctor whom God has gifted and shares His gifts with us through him.  At 10:45 I have my blood work- right on schedule- and then off to Diagnostic Imaging to be serenaded by the hum of  Computerized Tomography,  while I lie flat in a tube being told when to breath and  when to hold my breath. I get prepped and -right on schedule- I go in for my scan. It takes 10 minutes- right on schedule. The Right on Schedule, is a fantastic anti-obsessing medicine for me and  after taking 3 doses dispensed by the  MD Anderson Cancer Center which has a notorious reputation for being stingy in being timely with any clinic or procedure and doing it on a day that 1 of the 4 scanners on this floor was busted  so that when I get to Dr. Khouri's office I am, believe it or not, - ahead of schedule - and he comes in early,  and for a second I am wondering "what if he already knows". He gets through the pleasantries and we ask, "Have you seen the CT yet?" ignoring the fact it has only been  an hour since the scan. How could he have possibly seen it yet? And he said that it had not yet been posted, so he finished the exam and went over medications and issues and questions and as he left he said, "Let me check the computer one more time and see if there are any results yet". He comes back in a couple of minutes and said the radiologist had not reported yet but the CT scan was posted and his assessment was that the spot they had been looking at was diminished and was likely, as suspected, a left over, from a slight cold infection. My  left arm shot up along with my shout of "All right", which is  my secular  abridged version of "hallelujah ".                                                                                                                                                                     New International     Version (©2011)  Matt. 6:34                                                
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
New American Standard Bible (©1995) Matt. 6:27
"And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

Silly me.                                                                                                                                                                   

The Fruit Ripens In The Garden

Almost every time I see my oncologist I ask if I might put my hand to the hoe and and do some digging in the dirt and the reply to the hoe is always a "no". The good time to plant will soon have passed, so it's time to move before the sun's hot blast. Through various tricks with gloves and rototiller and masks and hoes and rakes and the help of Llew, our grandson, we were able to plant the garden this year. We've eaten some radishes already. Cukes are up as well as the beans. Potatoes are about a foot high. Tomatoes are blooming, Herbs are looking lush, thanks to Denise and Chris, our son and his wife here for my 1 year anniversary. We've had a nice spring with a quite a few cool evenings, excellent for vegetables. Everything is looking good. It's a good metaphor for my transplant bearing fruit. Thanks be to God for ALL his goodness.

Written by Cecil  F Alexander , "All Things Bright and Beautiful"

Refrain All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, All things wise and wonderful: The Lord God made them all. Each little flower that opens, Each little bird that sings, He made their glowing colors, He made their tiny wings. Refrain [Most hymnals omit the following verse] The rich man in his castle, The poor man at his gate, He made them, high or lowly, And ordered their estate. Refrain The purple headed mountains, The river running by, The sunset and the morning That brightens up the sky. Refrain The cold wind in the winter, The pleasant summer sun, The ripe fruits in the garden, He made them every one. Refrain The tall trees in the greenwood, The meadows where we play, The rushes by the water, To gather every day. Refrain He gave us eyes to see them, And lips that we might tell How great is God Almighty, Who has made all things well. Refrain

God’s Creatures, by Eugene de Blaas (1843-1931)

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