A Spring of Joy

Drum roll, please… six down, two to go (well, only two more chemo treatments. I still have a year of IV-herceptin, radiation, drug therapies, etc. But the most toxic portion will soon be out of the way.) Yesterday was a mixture of emotions when I saw my oncologist. On the bright side, my blood counts look great, he determined course of treatment to replace the Taxol, I had my port so there was no IV, and I only have two chemo treatments left even with all the setbacks. On the not so bright side, not knowing what actually caused my recent hospitalization, there are no guarantees that this treatment won’t send me to the hospital also, the new drug is less severe overall but much more prone to nausea, and the port access did not go so well. It was an exhausting, emotional day, and now it is an exhausting, sleepless night.

Four months ago today I underwent surgery for cancer. Not long after my surgery, my husband looked me in the eyes, fear etched on his face like I’ve never seen before. “It was in 8 of your lymph nodes.” I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear to see his. Heavy sigh, then, “But there’s more.” How could I open my eyes again and witness the pain in his? The look on his face was one that scared me, because Brian is not one to wear his heart on his sleeve. “It’s stage 3, and the most aggressive cancer as far as how quickly it spreads.” All I could do was cling to him and utter, “Oh, dear God.”

Mickey Mouse chocolate chip pancakes (blue and pink at that!), homemade biscuits with sausage gravy, bacon, scrambled eggs, coffee, orange juice, white grape peach juice… what more could you want? Yesterday morning our dear Tiff fixed us breakfast. Having just had minor surgery Thursday to get a port-a-catheter put in (no more icky IV’s!), I sat on my great recliner throne and watched the commotion in my kitchen through my percocet induced stupor. It was the highlight of my week to watch all the goings on. The boys were thrilled with every drop of batter poured onto the griddle and had to be monitored closely to keep from covering every inch of pancake with chocolate chips. Audrey, who has been clingy since my hospital stay, attached herself to Brian, sucking her thumb (something else she started up again while I was in the hospital) and enjoyed the chaos from the safety of Daddy’s arms. Christmas music was playing, the lights were twinkling, and there was a cheerful busyness in the kitchen. Our home was warm and full of life. Watching my children yesterday brought a sparkle into a difficult few weeks. There is nothing like the life and delight a child brings.

St. Augustine in his Confessions says “You arouse [man] to take joy in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” John of the Cross says in his work The Living Flame Of Love how the soul is meant to “cross over from its own empty silence into an expectant quiet that is alive with His presence.” But what does rest look like? What does God’s presence look like?

There is something about these pictures that just about breaks my heart in two. Perhaps it’s just the simple beauty of my children and their precious love.

Wednesday morning while at the hospital, I was lying in my bed, praying for peace. There was a knock a the door, and an older gentleman was standing there. He was dressed in his volunteer vest and was grinning from ear to ear. “May I come in?”, he asked. I invited him in and got a closer look, “I know you.” I said. “And I have seen your face before.” he replied. And he had. It was Grandaddy Smith, my best friend, Beth’s great-uncle. Having spent time with Beth’s extended family, Brian and I have had our share of Grandaddy Smith, and it’s a fun share to have. We’ve been to Christmas parties, Thanksgiving dinner, meals with him at First Pres., summer get-togethers, and just plain ol’ dinner with him at Uncle Craig’s. “I’m Beth’s best friend.” I told him. His face lit up even more, “And so you are!” he exclaimed, hands raised.

Should have seen this coming; as soon as I posted that we were still stuck in the hospital the doctor came and sent us home. So here we are! Angie is sleeping in her big chair, the boys are supposed to be quietly playing for their ‘rest time’ and failing miserably at it… all is well again. The word today is that her counts aren’t all of the way back, but they are headed in the right direction. Now that they have started moving she should recover quickly. We haven’t seen a fever in several days either, so he decided there wasn’t really any reason to keep her in any longer.

When last we checked in with our heroine, the cancer center had revoked her parole and she was back in the hospital. That was mid-day on Monday; as I write this Saturday morning we’re still in the hospital. On a good day the hospital is a very boring place. On a bad day… let’s just say you really want boring days. Angie’s fever has been down for a few days now, so that is good. She’s on a variety of anti-biotic, anti-fungal, anti-whatever-else drugs in addition to her usual cocktail, and they seem to be keeping her nice and healthy. (keep in mind this is all relative!) Now we are just waiting for her blood counts to recover; the white cell count that had dropped to 2800 or so on Monday feel even further during the week. I think 2300 was the lowest I heard. As of yesterday they had started coming back up, (2700) so there is hope we might be nearing the end of this visit.

Angie was fighting with her fever all weekend after being sent home Friday morning from the hospital. She was a wreck this morning when I left to drive up to Leesburg, unfortunately for good reason. The cancer center brought her back to check blood counts early this afternoon and they were very low; so they have decided to keep her for a while. She’s been admitted to the hospital again, this time it will probably be for more than one night. Apparently her white blood cell counts were around 10,000 when she was released Friday, today they are about 2800. Not so good.

Life stinks sometimes. That’s brutal honesty. I had been battling a low grade fever for a day and a half, and finally my body succumbed and the fever hit the point where it was above 100.5, so at 5:00 in the morning I was shaking Brian awake. We bundled ourselves up, slid through the ice and made our way to the emergency room. There I was assaulted by the ER nurse, a.k.a. Dracula, who took more blood out of my body than I even thought possible. My blood counts were off, so I was admitted and got to spend the day and night in my new cell, I mean home.