This is my Colorado-from-Ohio friend, Trina. She and her husband Mark live out west in a beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountain home. We knew each other from long ago - church and one of Scott's best school-buddies was Mark's brother, so we have a lot of threads woven in and out connecting us.
They were back in Ohio two weeks ago for a wedding and stopped in to drop off a gift for me that they had picked up while in RUSSIA of all places. It was a Russian book of fairy tales. The illustrations are incredibly colorful and old.
My not-so-great brain sensors jump at the colors. I am loving it.
I would post a picture, but nay, not with me at the controls. Trina took this picture and she is obviously very talented at doing something I cannot do myself - stretch out your arm with the camera, aim blindly and get a good picture.
I was amazed. She didn't even hardly look at the finished picture - she knew her talent well. I can copy and paste pictures that I get in emails or on facebook, but trying to get my phone or scanner or camera to upload one of my say, 8,863 pictures, seems to be a feat reserved only for greater mortals.
My phone has had two voice mails that I have tried to retrieve for going on two weeks now. It told me I had the wrong access code. After a couple of days of fighting it, I finally pushed a button that then said "someone is trying to access your voice-mail account". It then proceeded to tell me the phone number of the "hacker" -- and it was my own phone number.
Heavy sigh.
I have been wicked-mean to some Verizon people in my past work lives, and now I am paying the fee maybe. It could almost make me believe in Karma.
But I digress, it was so good to see Mark and Trina.
I could have used the time with them a bit more wisely - like having her show me where my glitch is with our computer. And my phone. She's obviously a techie wizard.
But instead of techie-talk, we talked about Mark's tumor that is now just a memory to them; we talked about health; we talked about Russia and all the awesome things you see in a different culture; we talked about how Facebook had made us such good friends these last years and allowed us to share some common pain and encourage each other and uphold each other while lots of miles apart.
There is that one other common thread we share with them - Mark had/has the same type of brain tumor that our daughter Heidi had. They were so gracious and open and supportive when we were going through this with her just a short time after they had gone through it - openly telling us their travail and journey with it all - all that can only be called a help and a blessing.
When people share their pain, and hurts and deep valleys and high mountains, it helps those that are walking that path at a later date. It's like putting up a sign post pointing direction where there wasn't one before.
Ah, community again.
***
Last night we went to a cookout and ended up spending the whole time in a wonderful air conditioned, newly renovated home.
We stopped there on the way home from Columbus after my last oncologist appointment before my surgery. Next week I go down again for tests, and an appointment with my surgeon - so we are still making the weekly treks - it's just not so strenuous since the last chemo treatment.
Heidi had made me up two cake boxes full of "Cake Pops!" to take as a thank-you to my chemo-nurse-ladies that I had missed so much all of a sudden this past week. We have seen each other quite often for over six months.
I got to see almost half of them and there were lots of hugs, lots of talk, lots of "miss yous" - and they promised if I needed anything that I could call them and talk. They have walked me through some of the deepest valleys of my life, and I do not know how to thank them for what they have done for me.
They watch almost your every move before, during and after chemo. If it seems that you are slow getting up to walk, they want to know why - is it your back? Or neuropathy? Are you dizzy?
They might know my body movements better than my own family by now.
So I took them some awesome gluten-free cake pops to say thank you. It's not even the beginning of thank you, but they were so happy to get them and happy to see us, that we all just laughed and teared up and Scott and I said thank you again like 56 times, then we went to lunch.
Then I had my blood draw.
It didn't look as good as I wanted it to. My white blood cell count has finally jumped into the "low normal" range - YAY - but my red blood cell, hemoglobin and platelet counts are still low.
Which explains my lingering exhaustion, my inability to climb steps without having to rest my heaving lungs and heart, etc, but it also showed a bit of a warning sign that I might be cutting it close for surgery. And I got an additional week for recovery - I was five weeks out instead of four like they wanted. With only two weeks to go, blood repair has become priority number one in my life.
Good levels of platelets and hemoglobin are pretty important when cutting into flesh.
The nurse doing my intake asked me how I was feeling in 39 different ways, and the last time she asked me, my eyes betrayed me, I almost started to cry - again. Something about the letters OSU now seem to give my eyes license to let tears pop out anytime they want to - but she asked me one last time how I was doing, and I told her, "I just thought I would be feeling better by now".
On Friday, I was officially three weeks out from my last chemo.
And I thought I would be feeling better. Admitting it was one tear. Hearing her response, was a stream. She said "you have had a lot of chemo, take it easy on yourself".
Just having someone say that, after I have been trying so hard to get back to normal, and not being able to attain it, just broke that little dam of emotion that had built up some.
She said I should be celebrating "three weeks out", and letting the rest "happen".
Dr. Mrozik said mostly the same thing. And she added "you won't be 100% when you go in for surgery".
I hadn't realized that. I thought I would be done with chemo, recovered, go into surgery fighting mad, and come out with my feet hitting the ground. Instead, I can't lift a three pound weight over my head ten times and not have my left arm hate me for the rest of the week.
My promise to Dr. Provosky that I would have some lean muscle for him to sew back together looks a little grim at this point.
My oncologist said the kindest words, and they were the harshest words: "it's going to take you three to six months to get back on your feet, sweet Karen".
I don't remember reading that in the program before the whole show started.
Scott and I left there late, hot, tired - and I was grumpily thinking this all over.
***
We landed in the next best thing to cool, relaxing and fun this side of Cedar Point Water Park - with friends who opened their home and were 75 degrees cool contrasting with what our car said was a humid 104 degrees (I swear the parking lot had registered at 156 degrees when we first left the building). They fed us juicy, platelet-inspiring steaks and pampered us a bit. It was just good to be around other people and laugh. And talk. And hear other people's problems for awhile.
It was like looking at a beautiful book of fairy tales from a faraway land with colorful pictures and stories I had not heard, filling my senses.
God has been so good to us throughout all of this. There have been a lot of deep valleys, but then friends like Mark and Trina stop in from far away and tell us their "valley-story" and leave a book that makes me look and think of places I've not been to.
And good folks make me a 'well-done' steak, and watch me pour lots of salt on it because for months that was all I could taste, and we laugh and talk and eat well.
It was my first grilled steak in a long, long time.
***
I keep thinking about community, and all that it is supposed to mean in the the eyes of God, and I cannot help but think that He has put me in this place at this time to be so isolated and alone, but at the same time full of people helping and listening and caring.
I don't know when I can start walking my mile loop again and not have my nerve endings in my feet feel like someone took a sledge hammer to them and just beat them out. I don't know when I will be able to climb two flights of stairs to put away laundry. I don't know when my left arm will ever feel normal again and allow me normal garden activity. I don't know when my gut will shape up and be able to work properly again.
I don't know any of that, and my doctor doesn't have any good guesses either.
I do know, that I get blessings that I never knew were that important.
I've seen folks from Colorado that had to reluctantly cut down the trees surrounding their home because of fire risk. Trees that took years to grow and groom and provide shade and winter protection - they lost those.
And I rather keenly feel that loss - maybe because I know what the "trees" about me have done for me - shade from overbearing heat and protection from winter winds.
***
I posted the picture with Trina after waiting a bit. Sometimes when people see me now they don't quite recognize me. I used to have a lot of thick hair that would be ever so contrary in this heat and humidity.
I have been sitting outside without a hat some days, experimenting. Last weekend I took it off in front of family. They are so stinking hot - my body temperature can immediately increase ten degrees when I put on a hat or any type of head covering.
I am now wearing a hat in the sun, but taking it off in the shade or in the car.
So last night, I experimented again, and walked in their house without a hat. They responded ever so nicely, and I was so relieved. Because if my body increases ten degrees stepping into this heat, I know I would pass out.
I told Scott the other day that I cannot believe how easy guys have it -- each day I am saving myself at least two one-half-hour periods of time not fighting my hair this summer in this heat and humidity. It's not hot on my neck. It's not going to get colored for a while. It's kind of "take me as I am because there's nothing else I can do".
It's pretty breezy-easy.
Guys - I know I will grow my hair back in, but I will never look at you the same way again. Your hair is too disgustingly easy.
Being hatless and of little hair makes me look closely at people when they look at me. My family has been pretty awesome about it. But then again, they have seen me in a big fuzzy robe with my eyes barely open, seeking coffee. That's not such a big leap in look some days.
But the rest of this was made all the easier because of the community around me. Trina didn't care and wanted a picture. Friends look twice, but give me a big hug. To Scott, it looks "long" because he saw me without any at all.
***
hmmm.......
This is how RVL says it so much better than me.....
http://followtherabbi.com/world/article/our-first-love
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