hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii, i'M BACK

I am so glad to be back on line! As some of you know I have been in the hospital for a week now and today Sydney bought me a new lap top and the hospital has wi-fi! Yeah!
So, first for the dirty story. Most of my "old" friends, with loose bowels, or with constipation have experienced the evacuation explosion! So, now I have two chest tubes, because when they did the biopsy they made a hole in the balloon that we call a lung. At first it looked like a blood clot would close the leak, but as the day went on, and that was last Friday, the leak got bigger so the pulmonogist said we need to put a tube into your chest cavity to extract the air in there that is stopping the lung from inflating.
So, down to the CT room so they could insert a tube through my skin, chest, etc. A little versed and phentynal to make me cooperative and a few take a deep breaths and hold it and we were back in the hall heading up stairs. At the other end of the tube is box that is hooked to suction on the wall and it is supposed to pull the air and any blood type stuff out of the chest wall. Usually takes a day or two. Doesn't really hurt. Just a bother moving around, like to the toilet on time. LATER.
On Sunday, Doc says we want to put another tube into the chest. OK more drugs and more boxes and tubing to move around. Today is day seven, a little improvement on the daily xray. MAYBE tommorrow will be the day they clamp the tubes and do a trial run and if all goes good. I go home. OR, if no improvement, they have a much BIGGER chest tube that might work faster.
When one is in the hospital, they measure everything that goes in or comes out.And just in case one is slacking on the out-go they give you stool softeners.
When I need to go to the bathroom, across the room, I have to gather up the drain tubes attached to the two suction boxes and carry the boxes across my bed and set them strategically in front of the bathroom door and I have just enough tether to back up over the measuring pot and squat without dumping over the suction boxes. The softened stool was impatient with my progress and so the lovely pink sweats are in a sack with a knot tied to keep the odor at bay and I had to do laundry in the toilet.
I am telling you all this more than you need to know information because in the big picture of the week, that really is they only thing that made me cuss!
The biospy is still no definte, but the oncologist is sure it is a primary lung cancer and not the old breast cancer. I have had no radiation for a week but I am told they will just tack on the corrected number at the end. I hope to resume that next week and I think probably the chemo might start on a once a week basis. My hair is coming out. Friend Kathy brought me earrings from Walmart and I found a cute white hat for Easter at Herbergers. She's going to get it for me. We are planning an Easter egg hunt and dinner as some of our kids will be here. Molly, Sydney's sister is on the train as I type this and she will arrrive with utter chaos around noon tomorrow which will keep Sydney occupied. PS I have daffodils and carnations in my room and I have love all around me. Thanks guys.

On the Road

Traveled to Bozeman Montana yesterday where my wild granddaughter received an award for the volunteer work that she does in a nursing home in Libby, Montana. This is a child who has worn down her family, friends, and the school system with inappropriate behaviors. She has reached out to the folks in a nursing home with the true spirit of someone who cares. No phoniness about this kid. I love her. She is my decendent.

I noticed the pine needles on the hills in my beloved Montana are going to rape the trees. Soon the hills will be bald, and apparently I will too. Those pine needles are not unlike a cancer that cannot be killed. They will kill their host and then die.

I'm good, at work today even, but I sure am getting round faced from the steroids. I think I look like an little old appalachian grandma, but my boss says I look like a sturdy Russian.

I appreciate the words of encouragement and affirmative cards and positive thinking I get from folks, but my philosophy is more like I am the rider in the vehicle and God is driving. He knows the route and I trust that he will take me where I am supposed to go. I don't want to be responsible for the success or failure of this trip. Now, thats not to say I will not go through the treatments and fight to stay well and take care of myself etc., etc. But I am not going to try to outwit God with my own agenda.

You know where I lay under that radiation machine I have a notion to wave my arms and bring in the rays like the Indians do with their Sweet Grass treatments. Just waft that stuff right over here!

I forgot to thank God for the morning yesterday. I think I have lived with the intensity of this situation for about three weeks now and it is fading. At first my mind constantly went to the words, the feelings, the fears etc. Now I forget sometimes that I am ill. So that is probably where I am now. Back to life. Biopsy tomorrow may bring it all back with a bang.

God is a black walnut

First of all, let me clarify something. A friend asked me yesterday if the radiologist put a little metal cap on my head to give me the treatments. Kinda sounded like a Green Mile story! No, I don't sit in a wooden chair, with a metal cap with electrical wires and I don't have a group of individuals staring at me and waiting for me to get what I got coming.
Here is how it works....With my head screwed onto the table so I don't move, and with a huge wedge under my knees so my back doesn't spasm, I lay there for 4 minutes while a big white wand type passes over my head from one side to the other and some green and red pin point lights go off and on. No noise, no sensation, no nothing, except hope....Itsn't weird how much damage radiation did to the Japanese folks? What God has made is in our hands, thats for sure.
I have been experiencing some slight numbness around my mouth and that is a concern that I will bring up with technitions today.

I have been asking God for communication. Something to let me know we know each other. Some proof that he cares. Some proof of a connection.

While I listened in the night for a still small voice, or searched the scriptures for a coded message, I was puzzled.

God came to me this weekend in a big pot of chicken cachitori, bananna bread with black walnuts, chocolate chip cookies, bread and wine at church, emails and photos of sunrises....God's creatures, with physical, touchable, huggable, intelligence and compassion.
God in all of us, connecting us to each other and to him.

So, how did I use the second weekend of the rest of my life?

I made a huge decadent dessert for friends who came to eat dinner Friday night. I won $300 at the corner casino and lost $40 at the other casino where friends and I went out on Sat. night. I had a red beer.. I walked the parimeter of my yard and saw, hollyhocks, bleeding hearts, tulips, daffodils and raspberries peeping through the soft soil, I washed lots of clothes, worked on Sienna's scrap book, sent thank you cards, sorted through photos, shopped for Easter, cleaned the linen closet and the med chest. Pinned a quilt, read three chapters of a dull book, shaved the hair from my lip and bought pink, pink nail polish. Probably some of the same things that all of you did this weekend.

I am leaving town tommorrow on a secret mission....later this week I will tell you about it.. It's a grandma story.

Am I, are you, Significant?

Well, we like to think we are. We like to think we have a personal God, a personal relationship with God. Mankind has sought that connection since the beginning. There is, as C.S. Lewis said, something in us that is missing, and we know it and we look for it. Sure we give it many forms and names but all mankind is trying to connect. Our connections with each other are driven by that missing link.
BUT...I look at the heaps and piles of brown skinned, ash covered, crumbled bodies in Haiti, bodies that are bulldozed away into mass graves and I wonder about their significance.
I have been given this chance to ponder and to seek out that connection to the unknown, unsure, and because I am significant?, I go to the place were million dollar equipment is waiting to zap me another month or two. Nice food, warm house, loving friends, comfort at church, fun nights out etc. Why am I more significant than the broken brown person? Not I am sure.
This God thing is hard to believe. I mean, if he is all powerful, etc., what does he need with our worship. Of course, that is church stuff, stuff that keeps us in societal roles and pays the bills for the cathedrals etc., but really what does God care about my worshiping him. That's a lot like having Bill Clinton give a damn if I like him or not.
Now, don't get me wrong, there is no doubt in my educated mind that there is a creator. One cannot look under a microscope, or into a telescope, or anywhere in this world and find chaos. It is planned. But what the hell for? Do you suppose we are just a group of a few million that were dropped down here in the beginning and provide entertainment for the maker. Kinda like a video game? I don't like that I idea. God loves us, so they say. I have felt that love during my time here and I have known others who have absolutely no doubt about God's plan. I have doubts, but I also have hope and trust. And what else can you do anyway. Those who think they can orchestrate their significance to the maker are sadly mistaken, I think. It is all a gift. I thank God for creating me. That part I am sure of. I wasn't and he made me for some purpose and I hope I haven't disappointed him too much. What if I never was? Well I guess I wouldn't know that, but there are others who would have a different life if that were so...Anyway I really have loved living. Even in the very depth of sorrow and pain or trouble, there has been a wonderment that I have been blessed with. Even this new journey is an experience that is unique for some and I think it is a strange blessing too. Got to finish the laundry~!

The winner!

What in the hell do you people who don't work do all day? I have way too much time on my hands. I cleaned my closet, my med chest, making a few scrap book entries, bought something to quilt, reading one of Dan Brown's missile's, etc., etc. The TV is a waste land and hell one can only sleep so much. I woke up a 4 am and was thankful there were only two more hours before the newspaper arrives. I do enjoy the paper and the puzzles each morning. 10 AM to the radiation, takes about 4 minutes. No point shopping, don't need anything, so come on home and fiddle around until the 5 pm NeWS. I think I'll get used to this life and maybe the puking will take up some of my time later.
Now....thoughts of having different cancers. I have an acquaintance who has had a lot of skin cancer, non dangerous type, and she wears that title like a badge. Counts her trips to the doc. Won't go out without sunshade, which she says doesn't help, and wears a hat etc. It is like she is proud of the status.
There is a bit of pride, or maybe way too much in all of us. My latest snob attack is about brain cancer. Now I would not want to have anal cancer, or mouth cancer, or uterine cancer, etc. The elite of the cancer crowd must be brain! And I am told my tumor is in the highest functioning part, math and engineering! Well of course!
So while I am in the waiting room scanning all the cancer magazines, I sneer at the barrage of breast cancer stories. That's nothing, I've been there and done that. No prestige in breast cancer.
That my friends are the crazies that come upon people walking down roads they would rather not. I wish you all NO cancer, NO prestige, NO sympathy, NO importance.

De Nile

Well, I been thinking of how I would have orchestrated this whole story. The last time I had cancer I was home alone when the doctor called and she said I'd like you to come in to talk with me. I told her I just wanted the news then. Sydney was not home. When someone says to you. You have cancer, what you hear is "your going to die."
I savored my time alone that day and wondered how or if I would tell anyone. Of course, I did.
I have made several trips to the hospital without Sydney because I hate exposing any weakness or neediness, but also because then I have to become the care taker of the worried well. One time I went to the ER for a pain in my gut. I called him and told him I was there and then the night went on and I called him the next morning. I said "what the hell you doing?" "Eating breakfast" "aren't you worried about me?" "No, I know where you are." I had my gall bladder removed that afternoon.

Now, this trip.
Well I had to ask him to take me to the ER this time, but I tried to get him to drop me off and he stayed too long, but he had gone home when I learned the seriousness of the situation. They wanted me to call him before they talked to me and I said, no, I'll handle that.
I didn't handle it well enough and by the time the sun went down people on the west coast had the news and the town crier was out about to the banks and walmart spreading the news. How can one be in any kind of denial when the phone is ringing off the hook etc.
I had a husband, number three, who got liver cancer. He called up everyone and told them he had the big C. Then a couple of days later he called to say it was a mistake and then a couple of months later he went into cave in the mountains and died privately.
It just doesn't seem to real at times because I feel good, look good, lots of energy and my mind set is stable and what the hell. I don't think I want to do this.

On the other hand, the messages, love, prayers, support, kindness, concern, laughter and connections from all of my people which are priceless.

Sydney is coping as he copes, being nice, being bossy, being nosey, being angry, being confused and hoping.

Pascha's first wish is that I can see him graduate...three years....I think I can.

Connections!

Wow, what an audience. I think I am going to like have a readership. I had a friend who choose to die a couple of years ago because they wanted to cut off both of her hands, and she was an artist. So she designed her funeral and had a one-man art show! If they fry my brain, as my not so delicate husband says, I won't be able to continue this, so I hope they don't.
Don't worry about Sydney's crudeness. It is only on the surface. When my son died in Portland, after the autopsy Sydney brought the cremains home in a box. He walked in and said, "That is absolutely the last time I am going to haul your kid back and forth to Portland."
This is how you get radiation. You go into a nice, painted blue, calm room with a long metal table which has what looks like a huge white spearmint candy up by the head of the table. The helpers, all friendly and nice, put a huge wedge under my knee so my back wouldn't give out. Then a gal put a wet, fishnet looking piece of plastic on my face and dried it to conform to me. They marked a couple of spots, left the room and took pictures through a window, etc. The next time I came the mask was dry. They put it on, screw it to the table so you can't more and leave the room. The spearmint thing rolls around and little red and green lights dance for about 4 minutes and then your done. Every day for 3-4 weeks. I'm told my hair will go after about 3 weeks, Maybe for Easter. Anyone know how to paint Ukrainian eggs?
The other night I went to the casino, by myself, to zone out. I was playing a game with three fish, if all three fish light up with your chosen numbers, you get six times pay. I would lose all but about two nickles and then win enough to play for a while more. This went on and on and I begin to think about life and death and how we get a little extra time to play some more and then it begins fading away again, and then the fish light up and hope is restored, and then down again. As I began to realise I was eventually going to lose I rationalized I could put more money in the machine, but then I knew that I would eventually run out of money, and life.
While I was in the bathtub the other day, shaving my legs, I looked at my lovely leg and thought "I hate to lose my vehicle" My grandmother made remarks about my huge legs when I was 14 and I have hated them ever since. I apologized to them the other night.
I won't write everyday, well I might, but you have other things to do, so catch up when you can. CAROL