Month: May 2006 (Page 2 of 3)

My dad used to call me “Fogbanks” when I was a teenager; I was always preoccupied with what was going on in my head more than the world around me. These days, I have quite a few fogbank days, sometimes it helps me manage to get through the whole day without crying, because I feel like just a small part of me isn’t paying attention to everything going on.

It comes with a price tag, and it usually means I crack at night, lying in bed, so tired and yet still unable to sleep. I went to bed unusually early last night, but was still awake when James came in. He commented on how I was in bed so early, and I weepily replied in the dark that I was tired & sad. He climbed in next to me & put his best bear hug on me.

“You know, I think this whole thing really has brought us closer together. Just when I thought I couldn’t love you any more than I already do, a giant dump truck of love put another big load in my heart.”

My tears became a mixture of sadness and gratitude. Then he started making country music songs out of “dump truck of loooooove”. And the fog was gone and I wasn’t standing on the edge any longer, and even though I was still crying, I was also incredibly calmed inside. I will get through this because we will get through it. Together.

I admit, I get tenacious about shit. Sometimes it’s stupid shit that makes James flip out and think I’m going to get into a fistfight at a concert because I’ve finally had it with the drunk-ass woman who just whacked me upside the head and is jumping around shout-singing, and yes, while I had no interest in a fist-fight, I did want her TO STOP SHOUTING and JUMPING and WHACKING ME IN THE HEAD. I have a great sense of entitlement that is closely linked to “right and wrong” and the standards I have for myself. Another example of this? I was extremely annoyed at the clerk at Target this morning who DID NOT RESPOND when I said “Good Morning, how are you?” I made a mental note of her name & considered calling the store later. Yes! I am a bitch! I demand to be greeted before I hand over money!

I know this, and I try to keep some of the indignation & daily warring for Truth, Justice & The Jennifer Way in check. But there are things that I find absolutely unacceptable, and my father’s battle with cancer and the doctors and the information, or lack thereof, have all conspired to send me spinning into an outer-space orbit of rage and tenacity. For instance, they didn’t tell him that radiation would make him weak. IT DOES. He needs to KNOW this, because otherwise he feels like he’s simply DYING, not experiencing side effects. Now, he has horrible sores inside his mouth, so painful, he has been dropping weight, can’t eat, can’t drink, is in unbearable pain. Well. I just don’t stand for that. I could hardly hear him on the phone yesterday, his mouth was so dry. He faintly said he’d call the doctor, as I kept prodding & pushing & saying that there had to be things they could do, and then I just said, “Save your voice, save your strength, I’m calling them right now.” Which didn’t solve everything, because the nurse started asking me things like “does he have white spots?” Shit, lady, I don’t know. The point is, he’s probably dehydrated, he isn’t eating, all of that’s making him weaker, and I don’t care if you don’t think the sores were caused by the radiation, don’t argue that with me, the point is YOU NEED TO FIX THIS. I checked back at the end of the day & they had called him, talked about his symptoms & he’s going in to their office today so they can see him & get him something – my fear was that he’d be more susceptible to infection with the sores, along with his general health & lack of nourishment. I will give the doctor’s office this, they take my calls, call me back, and allow me to push issues and questions on to them like the steamroller I can be.

I know I cannot singlehandedly cure his cancer, nor can I make everything better. But I just don’t understand accepting things the way they are, when there have to be SOME solutions that can make life easier. My friend’s mother-in-law told me she was prescribed a solution that she used on the sores in her mouth, to numb the pain. I wanted to scream at the sky, SEE! THERE’S STUFF HERE! There are solutions. It’s hard, because I know he doesn’t have a lot of strength in all this, and he’s very, very sad. I’m just grateful that he taught me to question everything, to never assume everyone else just knows the answer and to trust my own intelligence. Yeah, it might get me dangerously close to a fistfight sometimes, but I’m willing to hang on to this piece of myself, if it lets me help my dad, even helps just a small bit in all of this.

So, I decided to head over to a ‘bitty soccer game’ last night; my friend Beth’s daughter Amy has been practicing & playing in the YMCA league the past few weeks, and their games are just south of our house.

Let me just say that watching 4 & 5 year olds play soccer, and I use the word “play” quite loosely here, is one of the funniest things you could ever ask to see. They’re all different sizes & heights, but the jerseys are all the same size. So some of them are dwarfed in their uniform, others look like it fits just right. Direction is a big thing most of the players still need to work on. Understanding the concept of making a goal is also optional. One little girl just idly lay in the grass, watching from a distance. Three kids lined up at the goal, even though the ball was at the other end. One child got control of the soccer ball, and kicked it right on out of the boundaries, and headed to the next field with the ball, with about 5 of his teammates all running behind him. There were a couple of boys, almost ringers by comparison, who really got into the game, and you know that they’ll continue to play the game as they get older. The rest, well, they were just plain cute. Funny to watch, funnier to see them struggling to figure out which way to kick the ball, and there were almost as many parents on the field as kids. For those just taking pictures, that was fine, but one guy held his kid’s hand the entire time & actually stopped the ball repeatedly so his son could kick the ball. Dude. Cut the cord!

My favorite player, besides Miss Amy, who was splendiferous with her pigtails, pink cleats & gold shinguards (she is a fashion maven at the ripe age of 4), was the little red-cheeked boy on the other team, who, every time the ball arrived at his feet, would bend down, pick it up & then scream bloody murder when the refs came to rescue the ball. Miss Amy just shook her head. She knows you don’t ever touch the ball with your hands!

I tried to take pictures with my cameraphone, but they didn’t come out so well. This is a cute one of Miss Amy from Beth’s site – note those shinguards!!!

I was asked by a friend the other day, “Are you going to be ok?” And I replied, “I don’t have a choice.”

That’s probably my biggest frustration in going through all of this, is that there is little action or solution I personally can do. Sure, I have some choices, I could stay bed-ridden and weepy all the time; I could be snappish and irritable ALL the time, instead of just some of the time. My boss said something today about how you can choose to be happy, and really, I just thought about throwing him into traffic, and that made me a little happy (just kidding). And I do believe it’s true, happiness is a choice. But I have an undertow in my heart, and it pulls, pulls, pulls. I am simply doing the best I can.

I feel the shoring-up within, as I scrape and muster, bolster myself inside, like wrapping a blanket around me as tightly as possible in the cool night air. I feel the adult-ness in me taking over, solemn & serious, like I am going off to war and if there’s no crying in baseball, there sure as hell is no crying in war. It feels like shutting down. Of course there are still tears, sometimes at extremely inopportune moments, but each day I feel the pull and struggle between hope & positivity and the undertow.

When our foreign exchange student lived with us, I grew miserable. She dated the boy I had a crush on, she seemed perfect in every way and I felt eclipsed by her. When she left, everyone was crying at the airport, except for me. Not because I wouldn’t miss her, not because I didn’t love her, too, but because the Shutdown Gnome was in control. Stoicism, reservedness – all took over, and those adjectives simply aren’t who I am most of the time. It’s a strange, strange feeling, but grows more familiar each week.

Later that day, after she was on a plane going home to Sweden, I went down to our creek, and sat on a big rock in the middle of the water. I was facing one side of the bank, and the sun was hot while the cool water sluiced over my toes. I was deep, deep in thought – no tears, just processing everything at my own pace. There was a loud, squawking behind me that didn’t stop, and the noise finally broke through my ruminations; I turned around to see what bird was causing the commotion – and was face to face with a badger. Yes. A badger. In the filo-fax of my brain, I heard everything my father had taught me about badgers: dangerous. We always worried our fearless black lab, Ghost, would try to tangle with a badger, and they can kill a dog. It was probably two feet from me, sniffing me, curious as to what this thing on the rock was. I don’t actually recall my feet hitting the water or rocks, but that in the next moment, I was standing on the other side of the bank, looking at this badger, who looked back at me, and then turned & trundled off in the opposite direction. My dad grilled me, unsure I had identified this animal correctly – they are pretty reclusive & avoid people; when I said he looked like a coffee table with fur, he was finally convinced. (They have flattish, square bodies.)

I guess the reason this memory has pushed forward in my mind is not only because I recall the Shutdown-edness I have felt at other times in my life, but that there are times to choose flight, and times to choose to fight. I am shoring up all my reserves, all my support, all my energy to fight, fight, fight. I flee things that sap that energy & strength, and I conservatively believe I can’t put a lot of energy into being raucously happy, either. Because I don’t see flight as a choice here. I have to stand and face my own fears, my own sadness, my own pain, my own life, as much as I hate it. I feel the fierceness, my own badger, within me, and it is a little frightening; I fear it will fly out uncontrollably, or I will do something utterly stupid, like pick a fight with my mother after two & a half years of not speaking. (I know, it’s a terrible idea – yet the explosion is so appealling, so tempting, to get rid of some of this stored anger.)

And then my Shutdown Gnome reminds me that there is a difference between Fierceness and Foolishness. The choice is there, just like it was that day in the creek. And when I turned to face that badger, mostly to make sure it wasn’t about to bite my ass, still prepared to run – the badger walked away from me.

Three years today! I love you, James. Your love & patience, your support & understanding, your connectedness to me are just a few of the things I treasure, and I cannot imagine my life without you in it.

When I got home from work on Friday, frayed & sad, this greeted me on the dining table:

I did a big “awwwww” and then turned to hang my keys up on one of the hooks. Then I screamed a little:

They’re Fisher Price doggies, from the aforementioned yacht fame. Just so sweet, so unexpected.

For better and for worse, and it has not been an easy spring for me; you have carried me emotionally, held my hand in the dark, wiped tears from my eyes and made me laugh when I thought only sorrow remained. May our journey together always keep dear the love and the humor that make us who we are, both as individuals and to each other. I love you to the moon and back.

Alone
In the dark
Before sleep steals my consciousness
I hear it, the voice
Whispering its mantra
Words slicing deep.

Yours is a life wasted
So much potential
What you could have been
All that you’ve lost.

Poor decisions you’ve made
Bad roads you’ve taken
What were you thinking –
It’s clear that you weren’t.

What you should have become
The failures abound
Death will come soon
Why won’t you change?

I’d love you if you were different
We’d be fine if you’d change
Why won’t you undo
All your mistakes?

I pray for sleep
Relief from the sound
Of your voice, of your words,
The responsibility and burden
Of being your daughter.

I wrote this back in February. Given everything else going on, I don’t hear her voice nearly as often in the dark now; I struggled with even publishing this on a day meant to celebrate all the great relationships out there. In the end, this is for everyone who doesn’t have one, and the reminder that despite all those Hallmark cards trumpeting what we should have, you’re not alone.

So, my dad recounted a story from Tuesday, when he went in for radiation, but they stopped off at Betty Jane’s for some candy first, and he was picking out some assorted creams, and then he moved on to the nuts. (And despite the stupidity I’m about to document, they DO have excellent chocolate. Outta sight stuff, in fact. Just a small local chocolatier, and I’ve waxed rhapsodic before about the chocolate covered orange peel….mmmmmm…..)

The salesperson then informed him that they’d raised the prices on the nuts, and therefore his entire order would be charged at the higher per-pound rate.

(Yes. How wack is that? He asked her to repeat it, it was that goofy. She did, same conclusion.)

He said, “So, you’re telling me, if I go to the grocery store & buy broccoli for a dollar a pound, but then I add cauliflower to my cart, and cauliflower’s two dollars a pound, you’d charge me two dollars a pound for the broccoli, too?”

“Uh. Yes. I guess. That’s how they do it.”

“Well.”
(pause)
“That’s not how we’re gonna do it today.”

…and they didn’t.

Parking at Starlight: $5
Outrageous “handling fees” to Ticketmaster: $32.10
Dinner with my husband before the show: $35
Two tickets to Depeche Mode: $150
Having the lead singer become mysteriously ill after 6-7 songs & have the concert get cancelled? YEAH. TOTALLY PRICELESS.

There are a LOT of pissed-off people today – it was a pretty packed show, and as you can see, the tickets weren’t cheap. I feel sorry for the folks at Ticketmaster today, because everyone (including me) wants their money back. I’m just glad I paid for them with American Express – if there’s not a rescheduled concert, you bet your bippity I’m calling AmEx and asking them to take on Ticketmaster on my behalf.

Hell, I’m even reasonable, I’ll let them keep their outrageous fees. I just want my $75/ticket back. And if there’s a rescheduled concert, I want new seats, because the woman behind me shouted all they lyrics. Yes, I’m getting cranky and old. When the concert ended before 10 p.m., I said, “Well! At least my ass won’t be draggin’ tomorrow! We’ll be in bed at a reasonable hour!” And then we all did shots of geritol and talked about our stock portfolios and waited for the crowd to clear out.

Good news, even though I struggle right now finding good news anywhere, because good news and hope of late have been tissue-paper kites, unable to support me more than a day or two. But anyway, I can’t succumb, every day is new, every piece of positive news is still positive. Dad was able to get in for radiation yesterday, which happened because his pathologist/friend went in to the offices and demanded they do it that day. I am heartened that despite my absence, other people are being demanding and angry on my dad’s behalf. Because the radiation was near his esophagus & stomach, he was horribly sick last night, and I just ached with my own sadness at hearing his pain. He continues with the radiation the rest of the week, and they’re coming in on Saturday as well to finish the final treatment. Really, I am very glad that people’s “office hours” and “already scheduled stuff” are all falling by the wayside, given the urgency of the situation. Otherwise? Those 2×4’s that were hitting me in the face? I’d be grabbing one of them and pulling a scene from “Walking Tall” & dispensing some of my own displaced pain & anger. OK, not really, because isn’t The Rock like, 7 feet tall? And my 5’3″-ness really isn’t as formidable. And I can’t do that thing with my eyebrow the way he does. Sigh. I still like to believe I’m ferocious. Maybe I am, just not in a physical-harming sort of ferociousness. More of a ferociousness of the heart.

(and all the rest, of course, but most pointedly at the crap multiplying inside my father.)

So yes, back to you, Mr. Rare C:

Fuck you. I hate you. I hate you more than I ever thought I could hate something. I hate this up-down-spin-me-round crap you have imposed on my family, our lives, our hearts, and our strength. I wish a fiery death upon you, and elimination from the face of the earth.

Thought you’d like to know,
Jen

I knew, last Friday, that the good news came with caveats. This was not a first-class, Lear Jet champagne-service ride out of the darkness and unanswered questions to a private island with a chef and a beach all to yourself. I had hoped for an over-packed, sardine-esque flight with long layovers and trying times, but the news that came today, this is more like flying with some drug runner who uses a forty-year old plane and angry motherfuckers are shooting at you while you try to grab on to anything to keep you from hurtling around the tin-can interior. And when you think you’ve reached cruising altitude, a wing falls off.

Don’t get me wrong, because I’m grateful he went to Mayo. We wouldn’t have known, we wouldn’t have known what they knew, what they saw. The lesion on his spine, the one he’s been wanting to radiate, that his oncologist in Dubuque didn’t feel necessary to order radiated? That lesion’s grown. And it’s close to connecting with his spinal cord, and when that happens, it’s paralysis followed by death. In a matter of days. Right now, if he did nothing, and had proceeded with the chemo in Madison, he’d probably have died within a week. So, as the doctors at Mayo have recommended, there’s an urgent rush to get 5 consecutive radiation sessions, starting NOW, to pinpoint this lesion and stop it in time. I told James tonight, after my meltdown, that this is like helplessly watching some surreal movie, where someone’s told me the ending already, but I have no idea how long it’s going to run, and I keep hoping for a reprieve, and there’s still a chance for one, because he will start chemo once this radiation happens, and we have to fervently pray that all the pieces click together and it gets us more time, but you never know when another two-by-four is going to swing out unexpectedly and lay you out flat. I keep hoping that this all isn’t real, that it’s a giant mistake. I know – it’s all stages: grief, anger, denial, bargaining….. and they don’t have a particular pattern, and I have to just keep sucking it up and coping.

So many ifs. So many hopes. So so so many tears.