It has been a while since we sent out an update, and the fact that this is coming from me instead of Janice indicates that all is not well. But, before I get to that, here is a quick review of what has happen since the last update:

We were eager to get to Boston for Christmas with Elliott and Taylor. Packing, planning, purchasing, we kept putting off the evidence that the pain Janice felt in her back was increasing. We hoped it was the lingering effect of the healing from her pancreatic surgery. But alas, the pain increased rather than diminished so on Monday, December 18th we made that very familiar trip the Vanderbilt to meet with nurse Carey and Dr. J (nurse practitioner and oncologist), hoping for Janice to be given more pain relief for the trip to Boston. It was decided then that when we returned, Janice would go in for a complete MRI to investigate that constant pain in her back and neck.

It could be a result of the hole left in Janice’s vertebrae (T10 to be exact, created by the initial myeloma), Dr. J thought. It might be compacting. We sat listening to yet one more possibility about salvaging this amazing body of my lovely wife. If “a hole” was the problem, well, they could stick a needle into the vertebrae and fill it with a specialized cement to stop the compacting, halt the increasing pain. Occasionally, we make the mistake of thinking we’ve heard it all. On that Monday, we were reminded that we’re always learning; that we’d be wise to avoid the idea of finally, fully understanding anything.

Having said goodbye to Pouncer the cat and with that lovely procedure the center of our conversations, we boarded a flight for Boston. When we left the house we thought we had a direct flight to Logan International Airport in Boston, we hadn’t planned that the direct flight had been canceled, that we would sit for 2 1/2 hours on the runway of NYC’s Kennedy Airport, and we hadn’t meant to arrive (starving) at Elliott’s apartment at midnight. And, we had forgotten how much fun it can be to order piles of Chinese food at 1am, sit around talking about this and that, and listening to rough mixes of Hats and Glasses (Elliott’s band) new material till the cartons were emptied, our stomachs full and the wee hours of morning urged us to bed.

We woke late Thursday morning, ate breakfast then while the boys were off to work, Janice and I drove to the Boston Pier where we met Bob, Janice’s bone marrow donor, and his wife, Beau. After greetings, shaking of hands and hugging the four of us drove to Boston’s North End (the Italian section of town) to eat at one of the city’s oldest and most historic pizza parlors. This is one of those places where the line of patrons wraps around the block waiting for a table. While in line, Beau was so excited that we were all together and so proud of Bob, she told the people in front of us, “This is my husband and he donated his bone marrow to Janice and we are meeting for the first time. Would you take our picture?” They congratulated us and took our picture.

We spent the afternoon with Bob and Beau getting acquainted, laughing, crying and walking around the historic North end of Boston. When we left we hugged, and said good bye knowing that in some very mystical way we are related and that if we lived closer to Bob and Beau we could be great friends. From that point until Christmas day if Janice wasn’t resting, we shopped, cooked, ate, and sat around Elliott’s kitchen table.

Janice did really well when we were with Bob and Beau but that night her pain became very invasive and prevented much activity. So for the next couple of days she was fairly confined to the apartment.

And speaking of that, here’s a visual for you. Elliott lives in a three bedroom, second floor, apartment which might sound large until you hear the rest of the story. The bedrooms are occupied by our family at night. Then, when we rise, we have these two choices: move to the small bathroom or the kitchen. Somewhat cramped quarters for these four very animated, power-personality adults.

One very nice exception to our apartment confinement merits recording. The four of us had an unbelievable Christmas Eve experience. We drove to Beacon Hill to attend a midnight mass at one of Downtown Boston’s oldest churches. After missing a particular Map Quest turn, driving up and down very narrow one-way streets, up and down city hills, we finally found The Church of the Advent. The church, yes. Parking for the church, no. This is one of the oldest cities in America and it wasn’t designed for public buildings with large parking areas.

Elliott got out with Janice and Taylor and I proceeded to once again wander nearby streets looking for a parking place. Finally, a bit late but present, we were seated in the back pew of a very beautiful and renowned sanctuary. Those of you who know us well know the significance of this experience to us. The service was full of pageantry, smells and bells (incense), an exceptional choir and pipe organ, the mass was sung, the clergy and acolytes processed with the cross and scripture held high. Together the four of us ushered in Christmas morning celebrating the arrival of the Christ child. Mystery, beauty, hope…it was all there.

And now from the sublime to the…oh, let’s say the less sublime. On the Friday before Christmas Elliott’s pet rat died, not to take the loss of a pet lightly, but now on a table in his room, the largest room in his home, sat an empty rat cage. Since it was one of the only vacant spots in the apartment it became the location for our gift exchange. On Christmas morning we rose to find all the presents wrapped, festively stacked around the draped, empty rat cage.

Someday the boys will have the task and joy of explaining that picture to their own kids. We opened gifts, ate breakfast (at the kitchen table), then after a light lunch went out intending see the new James Bond movie. When we arrived at the theater we discovered two things: first, how many people go to the movies on Christmas day and second, that the movie we wanted was sold out. So, undaunted, standing in the lobby of the theater we opted for Rocky 6. We left the movie after dark knowing this - the greatest gift Sylvester Stallone could give the world would be to never make another Rocky movie.

We stayed in Boston until the 28th and other than a trip to Ikea to buy Taylor stuff for his apartment (his Christmas wish) we pretty much stayed close to the apartment since Janice’s pain continued to escalate.

Once home, we knew what the trip had required of her. She was clearly exhausted and spent most of the rest of the holiday break in bed. Just as being with the boys brought determination to travel, our traditional Food Club’s New Years Eve cuisine brought Janice to her feet and fed her soul. 2006 made the sixth year we celebrated New Year’s Eve together. Through job’s lost and found, companies started, movies made, books written, paintings sold, car accidents, teen problems, cancer, adoption, children leaving home to go to college and getting married, we were once again together laughing, eating, drinking, and praying in the turn of yet another calendar year with dear, life long friends, giving thanks for our crazy fellowship, our kids and our years together.

The morning of January 2nd, Janice was in such pain that we stepped from the bed, dressed and drove directly to Vanderbilt. When we arrived Dr. J instantly ordered a complete MRI of Janice’s spine and proceeded to admit her to hospital. He feared, he said, that the pain signaled the return of cancer. The only good news of that morning was that Janice was placed on the 11th floor where she had spent a month after her stem cell transplant among friends being treated by some of the greatest hospital staff in the world. She would be cared for by people who very much cared for her.

It was 9pm that night before Janice could get in for her MRI. The procedure, taking detailed pictures of her spine from all angles, lasted almost three hours. I thought of 2 ½ hours on a runway in New York and wished for it rather than these hours with Janice confined, finding the source of pain. We waited all the next day for the news. It wasn’t until about 5:30pm Wednesday, our favorite Doctor brought us the news, they had found two more Myeloma tumors in Janice’s neck (C5) and the other in her mid back (T10). We would begin yet another round of radiation.

That night, before she went to sleep, they started her on a new steroid that did, in fact, helped ease the swelling and pain. At two the next afternoon she was wheeled down to the now much-too-familiar radiation lab for the first of five days of treatment. If there is any upside to what we have been through in the last three years it is that there are few places at Vanderbilt where we haven’t been before and where the technicians, nurses and doctors don’t seem to be old friends. It seems, too, I have acquired an “all access” pass to the back rooms and corridors. I stayed with her when they inserted her third PICC line, I was in the room when they put her on the table to measure for a mesh mask for radiation, and I got to stand in the technician’s room while he administered radiation.

On Wednesday, January 10th Janice radiation was finished. We were packing her things for home when Doctor J popped in and gently shared the news that we never wanted to hear.

You may recall, several updates ago I said as rough as it had gotten, as long as the doctor walked in and said, “Ok, here are our options,” I was ok.

This time there were no options.

In his usual kind way, Doctor J said he was fairly sure the cancer was active since the tumor in her pancreas was quickly followed by the spots in the neck and back. As we sat in the hospital room in January 2007, he said everything known to medical science had been tried.

“Janice” he said, ”I am very sorry to have to say this but this disease is going to take your life. You have fought gallantly but there is nothing left that we can do to beat your myeloma.”

I know he kept talking. I even know what he talked about. Three choices, he said, needed to be considered for the future. I heard these things but I heard them from some dutiful listening place far removed from my heart. 1) We could keep fighting and look for some experimental programs elsewhere in the country, but these programs would not save her life. They might help medical science find answers for others in the future. The other two choices switched the strategy with which we were so familiar. We are no longer fighting the cancer. The task now would be to find treatment that controls her pain, to help her maintain as high a quality of life for as long as she lives. This can be achieved either by continual visits to the clinic or we can avoid the trips to Vanderbilt by having the expert treatment of Hospice administered at home...

The very word “Hospice” struck nearly as much fear in both of us as the first time we heard the word “cancer.” Dr. J explained that it didn’t mean she was going home to immediately die, but rather Hospice can provide relief for Janice from having to spend her days at the hospital and the skilled help will also take some of the pressure off of me, worrying about her being cared for on a day to day basis. Hospice will treat her, under his instruction, as he would at the clinic. After he left we held each other, cried, and with the help of friends Bonnie and Sue who had come to visit, continued to pack. Dr. J must have told the nurses the news because as we prepared to leave they begin to file in one by one to hug Janice, encourage her, and say good-bye, probably for the last time.

Since leaving the hospital, radiation has caused Janice to suffer a terrible sore throat and even though her back and neck don’t hurt like they did, there is still pain from the bone damage caused by the tumors. She spends all but about six hours a day sleeping, trying her best to eat and take meds. Her pain is great, her weight isn’t; she currently weighs about 73 lbs.

Then leave it to Janice to pull every ounce of that famous determination out of some secret reserve and suggest, no demanded, that she fly with me this last weekend to Portland, Oregon for my sister Dainette’s surprise 50th birthday party. Taxing it was. “Holding on by a thread” but holding on, she said to Barb Pine on the phone. To say the least, she was completely fatigued by the time we got home.

So as I write this note we are closing in on the final steps of a very long, ever valiant journey that none of us wants to see end. Keep on, is my heart’s cry. There is too much still ahead of us. On March 1 we will have been married for 27years. March 2nd is the day Janice’s has always looked forward to since the day we married, that will be the day when she will have had her new name longer than her old name. It is impossible in my mind, in her’s I hope, that she should miss these important stops along our journey together.

And me? I mentioned to someone a few weeks ago that I have never envisioned my life script beyond Janice, so for right now I hear the click of keys daring to write a new chapter in the Chaffee story but I refuse to budge from the pages we presently share. This has to make sense to many of you. Janice and I drink every ounce of time we have left together. These last three years, as horrifying as they often have been have also been a great gift to us both. We have had the opportunity to live life as very few do, with a clear view of what is really important, what really matters. When Janice asked, “How long?” Dr. Jagasia said, “I don’t know for sure but I do know it is more than likely months not years.” Last Friday he revised his prediction maybe as short as weeks. So we will take weeks, months or whatever time we have…and we will live our lives as God intended for us to live, this moment, this day. Is this not, in fact, how we all should live?

As always, thank you for taking this journey with us.

Jim