December 20, 2006

 

 

To all of you, who love and indulge me, please stop sending candy!  If I eat one or two Baby Ruth or Big Hunk bars a day, I should be ready for shipments of dark Dove chocolate eggs for Easter!

I apologize to have left you in limbo for so long. So much has happened since my Halloween update.  On Nov. 2, surgeons removed my spleen, gall bladder, and 60% of my pancreas.  The biopsy confirmed that the pancreatic tumors were a morphed version of multiple myeloma so out they came.  Recovery went well for a week but then I was readmitted to the hospital where a drain was inserted in my back to empty a cyst of fluid.  “Not unusual” I learn.  Well, “unusual” was the clear blue and plastic siphon, accordion pump and bag secured at my waist that dangled like a waffle iron down to my knee; not small or dainty, but huge, heavy, and conspicuous.  Thank goodness for cold weather and long sweater coats!

My weight is again an issue.  I haven’t weight 85 pounds since grade school but I do now, so Jim is back on a one-man-crusade to insure I eat often and “take one more bite.”  Then, recovery from major surgery has taken longer than I expected.  Even though I heard the surgeon say “allow eight to ten weeks to heal,” I expected to bound out of bed after the second week.  I was wrong.  I didn’t.  The weeks between then and now have been exhausting and frustrating and painful.  But I’ve kept my goal in sight: be strong enough to board a plane to Boston on Dec. 20^th!

Traveling is part and parcel of my revered oncologist prescription.  At our last visit, he again urged me to live in quality, not quantity.  He reminded me that the cancer seems to pop up every six months; the “things” in between are side effects.  Here’s his proof:  I came home from Seattle, after the bone marrow transplant, in late July 2005.  The next cancer trauma was in February 2006 when the tumor on my shoulder was removed and the tumor in my left hip was radiated.  “In between” radiation burns caused damage to the colon and its subsequent removal.  Six months later, in August, the pancreatic tumors showed up.  Since those (and a few other little organs) have been removed, I should have another good six-month run.  As long as the doctors have the equivalent of bailing wire and duct tape and I have organs to spare, cut away.  Here’s hoping and praying for a long remission run.

However, a slight case of graft vs. host disease is causing some sores on my legs and blisters in my mouth.  The prescribed prednisone (steroid), while beneficial, causes as much pain as the disease it fights: swollen feet, sleeplessness, and night sweats to rival lather rolling off a brick layer’s back in Arizona’s summer heat.  But, I am alive and at least well enough to gripe about my state.

“Joy” is the Christmas word that lifts my spirit and it is mine this morning as I write.  In a few hours, Jim and I fly to Boston for a glorious week with the boys.  The only Christmas shopping I’ve done is via Internet. . . both items.  My presence  is their gift this year. . . until they drag me and Jim to Costco to buy new sheets and towels and food to fill their pantries.

We will be home in time to celebrate the third anniversary of my diagnosis:  December 29, 2003.  I will never forget the doctor’s words, “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.  You have multiple myeloma.”  How life has changed during the past 36 months.  I’ve endured more than I thought possible, laughed until I cried and cried until no tears were left.  Some things are drastically different: my body, my perspective, my sense of what’s important.  Some things have not changed: my love for Jim and Elliott and Taylor; my faith that God is present, my belief that we are all sufferers on a journey toward perfection of character and soul.  I’m paying close attention to the journey.

Annie Dillard once wrote something like this, “The way we live this day, how we lived this hour, is how we live our lives.”  “To the fullest” is my daily, hourly goal and that is my wish for you. . . that “to the fullest” you will enjoy the merriest of Christmases and the Happiest of New Years.

 

Janice

 

P.S. Still no air date for the A&E documentary.  It is finished but not yet scheduled.  I’ll let you know when I know!