I was rambling along at my appointment this morning talking to Ellen, who drove me, about my trip to Atlanta. How nice. A trip away, without the kids (who I love) to be just alone with some girlfriends.... I waited for my turn at the zapper, shared some small talk about my scarf (they didn't realize it was me as I usually wear a ball cap, it was cold and fashion that drove me to wear the scarf) and the weekend. On the way back out, I thought 'maybe I should mention to the nurse to make sure that flying will be OK'. I caught a nurse in the hallway and asked the question; Will it be OK for me to fly next weekend? And I knew, when she went to call a doctor and ask that the answer was going to be "No". Well, it's sort of 'don't risk it right now if you don't have to go' which I don't. I mean, you could argue that I need a getaway weekend, but when it comes right down to it, once they showed some doubt about my arm, I knew I couldn't do it. If I got off the plane in ATL with an arm as big as a tree trunk I'd be devastated and angry with myself. And as disappointed as I am, I can fly after. After I go to the PT, after the radiation, after.
Of course I told many of you Atlantans just days ago that I'd be there and we'd make some plans. I'm sorry to undo that. I wish things were different, easier, but they are what they are. Right now, I have to keep a single focus on healing. On winning.
1 comment:
jenn --
of course i am disappointed and conversely, it is heartening to read that you are listening and acting upon that inner voice.
perhaps you will be in atlanta for the resplendent spring and your own approaching spring after having cast away the remnants of the "winter" of your lifetime since last april.
as for what "it" is at the moment, please know that we are all cheering you on to heal, in toto.
since your blog is a living entity and in a constant state of change, i want to contribute to you and it with an experience i had this week with mrs. elizabeth edwards, one of the "sisters" of your club.
by coincidence, i ran into her at LAX and was on the same flight with her to Boston.
sadly, she had the look of weariness derived not from the gruel of the campaign trail but due to her being terminally afflicted with breast cancer. i could see such a difference in her physical appearance.
it nearly tore my heart out.
and, of course, delta supported all throughout october breast cancer awareness with pink being visible everywhere from attire to drinks. one flight attendant, another survivor and club member, shamed the passengers into ponying up more than $74 to aid breast cancer research. she then collected over $1200.00.
while i am not a member/sister of your sorority, i am profoundly affected by your induction, jenn. you have changed my life.
mrs. edwards asked about you for she remembered my requesting she sign a menu for you at the spouse's luncheon at the YouTube.com debate in july in charleston. CLICK HERE
she not only signed the menu, she wrote you a paragraph, didn't like the first version and took her time to rewrite it.
an amazing woman.
and here is a snippet and a link to the full article from the story i want to "cher" with you about her battle with the squatter to think about when you drive to be zapped every day:
********************************************
[snip] Elizabeth Edwards
Another cause Edwards has taken up is the importance of volunteering for medical research, something she's done from the time she received the first news in 2004. "I was the beneficiary of women who put their own health at risk," Edwards says. So far she has participated in two clinical studies: In the current one, her blood is drawn regularly so scientists can look for certain biochemical markers as she reacts to the drugs. It's not a treatment, but she hopes in the long run it will help others.
Even with this latest diagnosis, that the cancer has spread to her bones, Edwards has managed to cast her thoughts outward. Terminal disease is a great clarifier, she says: "It takes you in the direction away from the mirror and toward the window." First she focused on her children. Then she considered the upcoming presidential race, which she refers to as "our work as a couple." In particular she recalled those voters she met in 2004 who lacked health insurance. "As bad as the news was, it was impossible not to feel at some level blessed, because I knew whatever care was possible, I was likely to get it," she says. "You have to be completely self-absorbed not to think about the people who don't have that. I want to make certain that the remainder of my life, however long it is, is not spent concentrating on making me yet more comfortable."
The day she received the results "was very emotional," says John. "I said to Elizabeth, 'Tell me what you want. Tell me, 'cause I'll do anything, including stopping the campaign.' And her answer was basically, 'This is what our lives are about. We need to keep going.'"
None of this fortitude means Elizabeth is fearless. "I don't want people to think that I'm not scared," she says. "I'm really scared." The thought of overlooking a potential treatment or drug that could add years to her life, she says, "terrifies me. Though I have great doctors, is there some technology that they pooh-pooh that actually turns out to be the answer? I worry, too, about how aggressively I want to fight this." Still, when the doctors talk about side effects she might want to avoid, like hair loss, tingling hands, aching bones, she says they don't bother her. "I've got one side effect I want to avoid," she tells them: "death."
How long she can do that is unknown. Some metastatic breast cancer patients survive a decade or longer. Most die within five years. Edwards has certain advantages: Cancers that spread to bone are generally less aggressive than others, and her malignant cells contain estrogen and progesterone receptors, offering promising treatment options. (She takes Femara, which blocks the production of estrogen, along with the bone-strengthening drug Zometa.) Yet there is no cure. "Her prognosis is very good," says Thomas Samuel, MD, an oncologist at the Medical College of Georgia who is familiar with her type of cancer. "But at some point in time, the cancer will be able to outfox the therapies."
Today, without a clear prognosis, even the most casual moments are loaded. Coming home from baseball practice last spring, 6-year-old Jack blurted out, "Who will be my children's grandmother?" As John finessed an answer, Elizabeth hoped the boy wouldn't notice her tears. "Even with the brightest prognosis," she says, "I'm unlikely to ever see his children"
It's raining so hard at Raleigh's Meredith College that the orchestra has cut short "Pomp and Circumstance" and workers are scrambling to lay vinyl tarps over the diplomas. Parading into a waterfront amphitheater, each member of the class of 2007 sports a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon. The gesture isn't lost on Edwards, today's keynote speaker. Shoulders draped with a purple commencement stole, she stands on the faculty receiving line, smiling serenely, applauding the 373 graduates of the former Baptist women's seminary.
Her hair, grown out long, blows wildly as she approaches the podium. Two months earlier, she says, "If you'd asked me that day whether I had confronted my mortality, I would have confidently — and erroneously — said yes. The death of a son, conversations across the country with people who are on the edge, embracing mothers of children who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan: I had a lot of reasons to think that I had confronted mortality. But in truth I had not." Now she urges the women here to understand what it took her 57 years to learn, and even then only under duress, that "what we do, how we do it, does define us.
"You're young," she continues. "Maybe there will be time for a do-over if you don't get it right the first time. But…there will come a time, as it might have come for me, when there isn't.… Every opportunity to reach out, to speak, to touch someone is precious to me, for I don't know how long I have to complete my story."
There is not a person here who can miss the catch in her voice. Edwards is a millionaire, but that won't buy the important things: "Only in America," she says, "could there be a T-shirt that says ‘He who dies with the most toys wins.'" What matters, she goes on, are all the people in her life who form a tapestry. She looks up at the graduates. "I need to ask you now to envision the tapestry that you have woven so far," she says. "There are wide ribbons, and there are sturdy cords. But it's a line drawing, isn't it, really? What's missing? What's missing are the tiny threads that give detail to our tapestry, that give the life to our story. Who are these threads? They are Jen, the guard at the gate who waves at you as you come in. Call the guard by her name. Ask about her life." Take notice, too, she counsels, of the child you tutored or the neighbor whose lawn you mowed. "It takes even less than that: the waiter who will serve you lunch later, who spends eight hours a day serving strangers, someone to whom a kind word is a gift of decency that acknowledges his worth."
It seems too corny to be true, but the rain has stopped falling. The tiniest shard of sunlight finds its way down to the campus. Edwards's voice, suffused with conviction, has grown clear and strong. "The toys won't do you any good when you die," she repeats. "A tapestry well woven will mean for all of eternity that you mattered."
************************************************
jenn, i have written and spoken these words to you before and after reading about elizabeth edwards, each vowel and consonant holds even more meaning to me:
thank you for the vibrantly colored threads you have tenderly and with infinite laughter/giggling woven into the tapestry of my soul.
never, ever doubt that you matter.
please be "jenn"tle with yourself the next few weeks and focus not only on healing but particularly reflect on the possibility of discarding the er-er-er thinking, please, for thoughts are things.
you are going to be one of the lucky members of your sorority for you will be able to see jacqueline's and bailey's children!
absit iniuria verbis [let injury by (my) words be absent]
love always,
cherie
Post a Comment