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Archive for the ‘family’ Category

Shifting prayers

Posted in family, prayer, recovery, tagged , , , , on May 14, 2012| 1 Comment »

Sunday, May 13, 2012

I know, and am incredibly thankful for, the unbelievable amount of prayers being said for me daily around the world. I would appreciate it if you could add to those a bit: we spent today at the hospital with my grandfather, who had a stroke early this morning and fell down the stairs. My instinct, of course, is to pray for him to live, for us all to have more days with him. While he has lived a good, long life – tomorrow is his 82nd birthday! – none of us are ready to say goodbye to him. Who ever is?

But that may be selfish. He is an active, energetic man, in both body and mind, and would hate to be confined to a bed and to not have control over his body – he’s a bad patient, as one of my family members said today. So I am praying for God to do what is best for Grampa – whether that is to take him home to heaven, or to grant us some more precious time with him – and that he hopefully will be well enough to be at his Cape house with all of us this summer, as we’ve planned.

What’s interesting is that through last night’s insomnia, I prayed quite a bit – more than I have in a very long time. It occurred to me that one of the things I have not done enough of lately is pray (yes, you can say ‘duh’). And to not necessarily pray for what I want. I think there’s a lot of truth in Garth Brooks’ song Unanswered Prayers: Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs, That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care, Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers. So I usually leave it to Him to determine what is best. Even though I don’t always know why some things happen, I do believe they usually happen for a reason. And praying, and putting my concerns in God’s hands, simply makes me feel better.

Interestingly, I prayed last night for today to be different since I’m starting to go stir crazy in my house, but I didn’t expect the hospital to be my change of scenery – although it was nice to be with many family members I haven’t seen in so long. (Why is it that it often takes tragedy to bring people together?) It was very tiring; many encouraged me to go home and rest, but I had a make-shift bed in the waiting room and could rest there as well as I could at home. (And thank you, Nick, for going home to get my pills – couldn’t have made it through the day without them…) It really was an exhausting day. Another thing I prayed for last night was to no longer have insomnia but I didn’t expect a long day at the hospital to be what would tire me out – I do believe I will be asleep before 2 a.m. for the first time since I was being drugged to sleep each night.

With my grandfather, we do have hope. I left him just a couple of hours ago. Throughout the day he went from completely unresponsive to now moving quite a bit in bed, squeezing our hands, opening one eye off and on, and nodding in response to some questions. He can hear, understand and acknowledge us. But he still has a very, very long way to go, should God chose to let him stay with us for a while more. There may be another blood clot, and he is having heart issues on top of the stroke. So thank you for adding him to your powerful prayers and positive thoughts. I know he and my entire family will appreciate them as much as I do…

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Time to exhale

Posted in Cancer, Discovery, family, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 4, 2012| 7 Comments »

I feel like I’m jumping into the middle of the story, without sharing the beginning (the whole last week or so since surgery), but this is the first time I feel up to being on the computer and I feel I need to jump to the punchline: Dr. G just called and told me I’m cancer free! Ever since I woke up from surgery and was told that they had to take all of the lymph nodes in my right arm because they detected some cancer in one of them, I (and all around me) have been holding my breath, waiting to hear if it has spread and if … well, you know. But it turns out that it was only in two of the lymph nodes and so they caught it before it spread and there are clear margins around where the two lumps in my right breast were. Hence, the giant exhale!

So now everyone (including me) is asking: what does this mean for treatment? Dr. G said he is not sure, as he leaves that to my oncologists, who I will see on May 15. They may want to be extra cautious, since I’m ‘so young’ and still do wither chemo or radiation and/or tamoxofin. Oh well – better any of those than more cancer.

I am going to sign off for now – just this bit has made me tired and I need to stay awake for the fabulous celebration meal Nick and Alivia are making me. But I have to say everyone has been beyond incredible to me. Mike has been by my side practically every second, taking care of me (and thus, my mother, too) and constantly reassuring me that no matter what everything will be fine. And he’s been right so far! And mom and Mark and Nick and Alivia have joined him in alternating between keeping me sane and calm, and laughing and crazy. And Tara and Tina helped keep everyone informed, as well as kept us company in the hospital. And I can’t believe all the gorgeous flowers, cards, texts, e-mails etc. Thank you to everyone for all the prayers, love and support. I know it was all of the positive thinking and prayers that scared the damn cancer away! So I couldn’t have done it without you! xoxoxoxo (And I am sorry I haven’t really been up for talking or texting or anything – I’m so achy and the meds make me a bit loopy and tired, but I hope to be back to myself soon and also promise to fill in more of the backstory on here soon…)

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You’re never too young or too old

Posted in Cancer, family, work, tagged , , , on April 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I had a wonderfully relaxing three days in Florida. I got some rest, some sun and a whole lot of love.

I also realized it will be incredibly difficult to detach from work. This may be a surprise to some, but I really thought it was going to be easy to turn the laptop and blackberry off. Yet I worked some of every day I was in Florida and felt bad not being at work for all the events happening, both planned and unplanned. Then when Vanessa said she’s cutting off the work talk from here on out, I felt like she was putting me out in the cold (for my own good, of course). I take comfort in the fact that I will be able to coax stuff out of her along the way (maybe bribe) – and that I do have other sources! David was right, though: this ain’t gonna to be easy.

But it was so nice to have a few days with this part of my family and somewhat away from all the cancer stuff. I spent as much time as I could with my crazy fun nephews, who I hate living so far away from but who are always so excited to see me, even when I’m not with their cool cousin Nick. And it’s amazing how their minds work. You wouldn’t think they would really get what is going on with me, but when they played the lottery Friday (with the fortune cookie numbers that eight-year-old Hudson instantly memorized), Holden said was that if they win he is going to donate all the money to cancer research.  Not what I’d expect from a six-year-old. I didn’t even know he knew cancer needed research!  I guess you can’t underestimate what young ones absorb and take to heart…

I also found that you’re never too old for your dad to teach you something new. We spent a leisurely morning at the beach treasure hunting. I have always been great at finding beach treasures – at least they are treasures to me: shells, rocks, sand dollars, starfish, hermit crabs. But I’ve never found a shark tooth, although I’ve tried. This time, dad taught me how – what to look for (the shape, the gum line), how to tell how old they are (black are the oldest – billions of years, brown – millions of years and white – most recent) and that they are lighter than rocks and shells so you have to grab them before the water sweeps them away. He started finding a bunch (including a big brown one that’s about an inch wide.) Then I started to catch on and finally found my first shark tooth! I soon found a few more and went home with my pink Red Sox baseball cap full of beach treasures. Dad made me take all the shark teeth – except I gave the first one I found to him.

 

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