Pride Goeth Before the Paperwork

Think not?

Bare your financial soul and odd-ball family dynamics to a non-profit seeking assistance with mega-medical expenses when health-care insurance is beyond your reach and you can’t afford all of the out-of-pocket charges on your own despite the fact that you show up at work every dang day.

Please don’t get me wrong.

IF they choose me (pick me…pick me) I will be grateful beyond words…beyond pride quite bluntly.

Yet…it has taken an emotional toll to gather it all up and put it all out there for non-profit scrutiny.

Is it 5 o’clock yet?

I needa margarita…or…some JD onna rox…or a massage…or…

A hug.

Here's one to Pride...

Another to paperwork...

And, last, but damned not least...

A huge one to Life.

The Dark Path

They sneak in, yanno.

The dark things you stuff behind the sofa when you're awake and keeping yourself busy.

The OMG's...the "what if I waited too long's"...the "I don't wanna do this" thoughts that tickle the mind at night.

Gotta keep a lid onnit...hold it in...stuff it down.

Can't let them be afraid...the family...they worry enough already.

(Crap...didn't I do this once already when Jim died????)

sonofabitch.

It's OK...it'll be OK.

Oncology doc and my research say it's treatable...curable...rip the bastard out and all will be well.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

To life.

A Womb with a View

Ultra-sound tomorrow.

Oncologist needs to see how big the garage door needs to be and whether it will be robots or fingertips deposing the toad king from the throne.

They're also gonna poke me and take a few million blood samples.

Wheeeee...I get to be a pin cushion.

Ain't life a kick inna pants.

That's Life

That's life

I tell ya, I can't deny it,

I thought of quitting baby,

But my heart just ain't gonna buy it.

And if I didn't think it was worth one single try,

I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly

(Frank Sinatra)

 

So, it's done...told my kids...they took it 'bout as I expected...some tears...some hugs...they need time to process this. DD told the GrandMonkey. My Handyman has 2 more of the 3 to tell.

Myself...I'm emotionally wiped...telling people...staying up beat...walking the walk and talking the talk...I'm just plain tired and I've only been at this for 6 days.

How do they do it? Those who have a long forecast before them.

Hell...I'm whinin' 'about the 2 pills I have to take...one big ass vitamin (pre-natal because the oncologist says they're better) and the blood pressure meds (cuz he won't operate until it comes down). There's also the analgesics for "discomfort", but those are PRN at appropriate intervals. What if I had handfuls of them?

Got one of those 7 day pill box thingies as a reward for being a big girl and taking my flue/pneumonia shots like a trooper. (that damned pneumonia shot made my arm sore clear up to my neck...whine...whine...whine...I'll have a little cheez with that please) Open I took them...closed I didn't. Geez.

OK...I'm just tired...I feel like crap...tomorrow will be better with some sleep and the reduced stress of having told those who need to be told.

It's life, yanno?

Day 5 begins with anxiety.

Today I tell my chidren...I seriously don't want to do this...they've been through enough losing their dad...despite my plan to outlive the cancer, they cannot hlep but go there even if its for just the briefest moment...I hate putting them through the stress.

I can only hope that as they see that I am confident as to the path and the outcome, they will also relax and be reassured.

The harder parts of this journey is telling those who care and the financial fallout fromt treatment. Because I have some small means of self-payment, I qualify for no financial assistance.

Survival of this cancer is still likely to leave my offspring saddled with unpaid medicals bills 20 years from now since my plan is is to live a long life beyond the removal of this festering bastard from my body.

Alas, it is yet another of those thing that is what it is.

I can waste my time and energy fretting or I can hitch up my boots, put on my big girl panties and get on with living life.

I choose life.

Hey Now Here We Go

And it's hey now here we go

D-J don't you play nothing slow

Keep those girls out on the floor

Gotta make 'em wanna come back for more.

Been here since the sun went down

Be here when it comes back around

Worked all week it's time to play

Gonna get a little bit sideways...

(Dierks Bently ~ Sideways)

Children's Charities Cancer Research and Treatment Center.

That's what it says on the building.

The waiting room though is filled with adults...I am not in the children's section...I say thank the stars for that for the kids...it's enough THEY have to deal with their own cancer...they don't need to see adults with it.

There's the elderly man in the golf cap with no hair beneath; the woman my mother's age with small tufts of hair here and there; most heart capturing of all...the beautiful young woman/girl with the bright red scarf artfully wrapped around her head...

It was clear to me that I was "different".

My own cancer has, most likely, a prognosis entirely unlike theirs.

Uterine cancer is typcially confined by the boundaries of the uterus. In it's design to protect the baby growing within, it also defines the boundaries for the cancer doing the same.

As I begin my own journey on this path, I get to have a white knight who goes in to forcefully remove the bumpy arsed toad squatting within its cocooning walls..to rip the evil bastard from the castle and save the damsel in distress.

And as relieved as I am for myself, I cannot help but wonder at the long term for each of these other folks passing through the doors of the building marked Children's Charitites Cancer Research and Treatment Center.

It is humbling.

I wish them life.

Flutterby's

Day 4 begins with flutterbys and nothing in the pot or on the pad.

WTH? For week upon week it's like the great flood and now...nothing...nada...zip...zilch...zero.

I'm nervous, but not afraid.

They've already given me the answer.

Today is a matter of stage and degree...along with the ever so popular joy of the feet in the air thingy. Geez...I guess I'm gonna hafta get used to that. UGH.

What I need to know next is what they're going to do to evict the evil squattor taking up residence down south.

Soooo....the Handyman and I will together do the do, spend time by the river and have dinner with friends.

What happens next is what happens next.

To Life.

In Other News

Day 3 and H1N1 has come to Casa del Outlaw.

DD's BF's little girl.

It's official.

What else could I do?

She couldn't go back to mommy's...there's a 6 week old baby there.

He had no where to take her other than his alky dad's place.

I don't think so.

What was I to say...."I'm sorry....I have cancer...I can't take the risk"...that's not exactly the way I planned on letting them know.

Besides...I'm not on chemo...there's been no radiation done to attack my immune system...I haven't even had my first oncology consult yet. (that's tomorrow)

With care it should be fine...other than UC I'm healthy...in fact, I've felt better today than I have in 2 weeks.

On the other hand...I'm having issues with food.

Tastes like dog food or cardboard.

WTF is up with that?

Nerves I reckon.

Maybe after tomorrow.

I can't NOT think about it...eff it all...it's always there skulking about and peering around corners.

Cancer.

Bastard.

My tikki friend says it's all that bitch Eve's fault. (that made me laugh)

She also says she's a praying woman, that she has praying wimmin friends and that her daddy always said praying wimmin get the job done.

Damn you, woman, for making me cry.

Thank you for being my friend...you lift me up when I can't and boot kick me inna arse when I need it. You know where the deepest wells are, you'd beat the bastard that hurt me and you'd sit in jail with me if I get caught.

Can't ask for better than that.

To friends in low places.

The Only Easy Day is Yesterday...

"Life is not complicated and it is not fair, Randy Pausch might have said. It's just hard sometimes." from the Washington Post.

Randy Pausch I am not...

...no last lecture

...no million $ book deal

...no TV interview with a famous journalist...

Only me...no role model for the masses (I'd screw up the job anyway)...just me...

Josie...

Trying to figure out how to do this with some small sense of spirit and grace.

Grace.

Not a word normally associated with me.

Bull inna china shop...yeah...not grace.

Truth is I only know one way to do this.

Stand and deliver.

Highwayman, pistols raised, boots in the mud, standing staunch before the demon that would drag him down.

What the hell do I know?

It's only day 2.

Who knows how I will feel on day 22...222...or 2222.

But, I intend to stand for them all.

Mother took the news quietly, tears in her eyes. What a damn thing to have to tell your 80 year old mother.

Asked a few questions.

Wanted to know what I thought my attitude was going to be.

"I'm sad, Mom, but I'm not afraid and I'm not freaking out."

What good would it do anyway?

Won't change what is.

I can only wait, find out what the facts are and work from there.

This type of cancer...

cancer...

cancer...

(ugly word no matter how many time you type it)

is generally, successfully treatable.

There is always...hope.

And, so it goes...

Things change...the world turns on a dime...as does the flavor of this blog.

I did not expect today to be the day.

8:15 am - The Phone

"Dr. W. is in the office today. He'd like to talk to you about your pathology."

Pathology...

Not Lab Results...

Pathology.

8:40 - On the Road

To work.

I need to work...refocus my energy.

"Que Sera' Sera' "

3:30 pm - The Waiting Room

In a room full of pregnant women I sit...waiting the verdict of last week's biopsies. (A story for another day.)

My mind tries to breach the thinly veneered dam...damn...dam...erected to contain thoughts that threaten to crack it's walls if not held back.

What will he say?

How will I react?

What is...is...and...so...I wait.

4:00 pm - The Anteroom

Blood pressure too high...201 over something...warning, danger, will robinson...up almost 60 points from last week.

4:23 pm (I looked) - Diagnosis

"I'm afraid it's not good news."

Uterine Cancer.

Nope...not good at all.

"No doubt."

I cried a little...I cannot change what is.

Specialist...he's on of the best (aren't they all?)...appointment...Friday.

5:00 - Detour

Picked up dog's meds.

Such a mundane task on a day the world turns sideways.

5:30 - The Handyman

Welcome home hug...sweet.

Coffee...hot.

"Sit down."

Words are hard.

I cry a little...he's been through this before...unsucessfully.

Sigh.

He'll go to the oncologist (I don't want one of those, thank you) with me.

He loves me.

I think he'd go to the ends of the earth for me...

It's humbling...it's...it just is.

The kids will wait until I (we) know what I'm (we're) dealing with.

Mother I will have to tell tomorrow.

Sigh.

11:52 pm - Time for Bed

Thus ends my first day as a cancer survivor.

Love Remembers

December 3, 1950

The youngest of 4 boys, Jim grew up in a time and place where life on cotton mill wages was all he knew. Times were tough, but, he learned that family meant more than money. He was taught that people had value not because of what they had, but how they lived their lives. His father showed rather than told…he lived what he what he preached to his son.

That legacy lived on in the man I came to know as friend, lover, husband and grandfather. He was not perfect, but he never expected more of others than he was willing to give of himself.

From the Chorus of Alan Jackson’s “Small Town Southern Man”:

And he bowed his head to Jesus

And he stood for Uncle Sam

And he only loved one woman

(He) was always proud of what he had

He said his greatest contribution

Is the ones you leave behind

Raised on the ways and gentle kindness

Of a small town Southern man

(Raised on the ways and gentle kindness)

(Of a small town Southern man)
http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9VVVoYXFVSEdlUVU

Happy Birthday to my own small town Southern man…you will always be loved.

Spirals

More challenging than anticipated and aided by external forces, this year’s remembrance time took me to that dark place I do not care to go. While the bottom seems not so far as it once did, the struggle to regain balance has been tiring both to me and the dear man who shares this new life. Bless him for his patience with my mood.

Rather than go on about conjectures, why’s, wherefore’s, etc…this just sort of bubbled up today.

I’ve not written poetry in quite some time. I’m not entirely sure this qualifies now. It has no title, but the graphic comes from a book I’ve read.

spirals within
spirals
within spirals
curling, twisting
one
upon the other

whirlpools
drawing
down into
darkness
To hell
and back

time over time
war weary
battle honed
still they pull
and twist

writhing snakes
coiled within coils
slithering,
twisting
hissing

calling
down
deep
into mysts
of time
and
memory past

sunlit mornings
ebon nights
dreams
unbidden
in unguarded sleep

unsparing
The road
To light
And color

twisted path
rutted stone
tangled vine
trip
and scrape
the wound
open wide

bone and sinew
thread and needle
whip gaping edges
tight
against the flow

fire, ember
ash, flame
lightning flash
sulphured air

tremble
stirring life
where none should grow
phoenix rises
wings widespread

talons flared
grasping sky
past darkness
loosed

Grief
fallen
broken, charred
clay bits
zephyred dust

waiting only
dark spirals of
sorrow’s rain
born again
to battle light.

I Remember

May 24, 2002.

Etched forever.

May 24, 2008.

6 years.

Always loved...Always remembered.

What else is there to say?

Forever 51

I got to spend 32 of those 51 with you.

It wasn't enough, but I'm grateful beyond measure to have had them.

Happy Birthday, darlin'.

I'll always love you and I will always miss you.

You will remain as last I saw you...forever 51.

All Hallow's Eve

Halloween.

His favorite.

Memories of how he'd take the week off the decorate the yard.

I didn't even light a pumpkin this year.

I miss him and how Halloween used to be, feel and taste.

Is there a Bah Humbug for Halloween?

Brick Walls, Gnats and Gratitude.

What does one have to do with the other?


See that picture?

Pretty much my week.

Brick walls…everywhere…pounding my head…turning me sideways…drowning me in their persistent chomping at my nerves.

Nothing earth shattering…just a plethora of irksome annoyances likely to be as costly as they have been nagginly irritating, monotonously sleep robbing and emotionally draining.

Vehicles in need of expensive repairs…yes…vehicles…plural...family member in minor crisis…conundrums to be solved...nerves rattling...stuff…yanno...LIFE. Gnats fractiously swarming my eyes, nose and brain cells.

Then...as I jockeyed traffic for my position on the off-ramp to work late in the week...it hit me...I have a job...one that I wasn’t looking for when the universe brought it to my door. I get paid for doing something I don’t mind doing with people I don’t mind being around. I have a skill they need and the physical ability to show up every day, do my thing and then go home. Though I’ll never get rich from my labors, if I’m diligent in how I pick each tiny pest from my shirt, I can both help who needs helping and take care of my own nettlesome little gnats to boot.

Gratitude...I need to practice gratitude.

Things could be a lot worse.

Unwritten

"Unwritten"
Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in

No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken

Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten.
Flip the page to the next chapter that is the book of my life… empty…nada…nothing…a blank canvas waiting for the next stroke of fate’s pen.

Exciting.

Scary.

Yet…is it fate or the more purposeful plodding forward that will determine the tone of the scribblings placed there by the muses of the future?

What do I want my life to say about me…the woman who inhabits these bits of bone and skin…the being who takes up such an infinitesimal space in this magnificent, boundless universe?

Once upon not so long ago I did not care. It made not one whit of difference to me what the pages of my life might read. Jim’s death robbed me of the willfulness to chart my own map and I became nothing more than a bit of flotsam in the current of life.

Healing took time. Wallowing in pain, sorrow and self pity I buried that willful, outlaw child I once was among my husband’s ashes. Yet…somewhere deep within the scarred shell she clung to the small bit of hope that dimly lit the cavern in which she was entombed.

Without looking back into my journal I cannot say exactly when the shell began to crack. I do recall writing that I had to find a way to make Jim’s life mean more than his death. Jim loved life…I’ve written that many times in the last 5 years. Three heart attacks could not dampen his enthusiasm for this world and the people in it. How could I…out of my own love for him…do any less?

You’ve read my words in this blog…you know how I have struggled with finding balance…serenity…peace…and joy again. I still struggle at times.

The one thing I know for certain is that I do not want to look back on those pages and wish I had written something else.

Having said all that, I find I find myself still searching for the key to living a more creative life. Call it inertia…lack of motivation…plain old laziness…I have not taken one creative step forward in weeks. So many things pique my curiosity…photography…wire jewelry…simple mosaics…all of which I have some rudimentary knowledge but would like to learn more…perhaps even enough to make a humble, part-time living.

What is it that holds me back? How is it that I don’t seem to push myself beyond the basic research into classes that will teach me what I want to learn? Where is the stumbling block?

You will be surprised…maybe…that in the examination I admitted the answer lies within myself.

Fear…yes…fear…as much of succeeding as failing.

Now how whacked is that?

Time for one of those boot kicks I’m so famous for giving to others.

No more excuses.

No more “one day when I have time”….

I am now financially committed to 12 weeks of classes on jewelry making through the art school at our little Podunk art museum here in town.

Stay tuned for Chapter 2.

Keeper of the Memories

36 years

37 ½ if you start from the day we met.

Keeper of the Memories. The family historian.

It’s my job now to remember all the special days and keep them in my heart. No one reminds me...no one shares their own memories of those days special to the two of us unless I ask. It’s not so much they don’t remember or that they think it will hurt ME to remember them…it hurts them.

Don’t mistake that I am upset about that. I knew when he died it would come to me to remember and think upon them. Mine to look at the memories as if opening a treasured photo album and pour over the pages of our life together.

36 years. A lifetime as the clock ticks. An instant in the mind.

Two opposite and vivid memories stick in my mind from that day.

My father had started a fight with the Best Man, who in the end, only stuck around for the wedding and then left. I was furious with my dad as the processional started….right up until I looked at Jim’s face.

He stood smiling at the head of the aisle I was about to walk. Waiting for me at the other end, just as I imagine him doing now.

I clearly recall thinking…”this is it…this is the day I begin my life as me and our lives as us.” (along with “I can’t wait to get this man”…meaning my dad…”off my arm.”)

No nerves.

No fear.

Only joyous anticipation of the years we would spend together.

I regret not one day of it.

Through the good, the bad, the magical and the mundane I have not a single regret save the one that involves not having had enough time with him.

This is my 6th anniversary without him. While there is a sadness for what is lost, there is a fuller measure of great joy for the time we were gifted to have together.

He was a good man.

I would not have missed this dance for anything in this world.

Happy Anniversary, Jim.

Unexpected Anniversary

When Jim died I never expected nor dreamed I would want to be in a relationship again at my age.

Sometimes the universe has other ideas.

Today marks 3 years for the Handyman and I.

When first we met I had no idea love would come rushing in the door while I was busy looking elsewhere. At that point I had come to a place where being ME was beginning to feel very OK. I thought my life was headed in a different direction. (not the first time I have been deluded by that though, BTW) Then you casually took my hand to help me from that van and I realized I was headed somewhere else. I neither expected nor anticipated finding love again along this path.

Throughout these 3 years we have laughed, danced, dared to love, argued, adventured and worked our way together into a very comfortable space...like a favorite well worn sweater or comfy quilt. You are my friend as well as lover and partner and I am grateful for the gift.

I have learned a lot from you in processing my own thoughts about how we got here, looking at the world through a different lens and keeping my life in the here and now.

We have been through some interesting times between your children and mine. Blending them into a family is still a work in progress, but not one fraught with the angst that so many others of our kind have and still face. I am grateful that their wishes for our combined happiness have come to outweigh any concerns they may have had about it not being their respective parent who got to spend this fall and winter of our lives together.

I look forward with gladness in my heart to whatever future is meant to be between us on the rest of this journey.

 

I wrote these words not long before we made our relationship permanent 3 years ago. They are as true today as they were then.

I will be a rock for you to lean on

When times are hard and your heart is sad.

I will be a refuge from the storms

That life and past sorrows bring

In the course of the day.

My arms will hold you without reservation

And keep you safe and warm

When nights are cold and deep.

I give you my love without strings or walls

To keep within your heart

For the length of our days together.

I give you all freely and without doubt

To treasure and keep as you will.

I will regret nothing, for the choice is mine

To keep my heart or give it away

I choose to give it to you.

Thank you for the gifts you bring to my life. I will savour the love and companionship we share for what ever time the universe graces to give us.

Happy Anniversary.

Echos of the Past

4th of July

Independence Day

Families, food and fireworks

Nostalgia

A scrapbook collage piecing the present with the past.

Vignettes highlighting my Handyman playing ping-pong with my nephew’s young children…too young to remember Jim…side by side with memories of Jim laughing with my nephew and his friends 4th of July’s long past.

Scenes set with Himself chatting with Grandmonkey’s first real boyfriend introduced to the family in the time honored tradition of a holiday get together superimposed over Jim and our daughter’s first.

Images of the Handyman and my brother-in-law, heads bent towards each other across the patio table, deep in conversation etched beside the recall of Jim and Bruce on the deck smoking and talking.

Driving home through the night was as if entering a tunnel of time slicing through sights, sounds and smells of July evenings long ago. Children’s laughter as they scamper through the darkness lit by sparklers stinging their hands. Sulphur from the last of the fireworks sending bursts of starlight into the night sky commingled with scent of hot dogs, hamburgers and watermelon hanging gently on the summer air. Barbeque grills dimly glowing from the lingering embers of the day’s cooking…a flip book turned backwards to be viewed in reverse.

I’d be lying if I said there was not a mist to my eyes in the remembrance… a gentle, aching tug at my heart for all that is gone. Yet, there is a comforting gratitude for the love surrounding that past life that also hugs this present life…a solace in the replay and digesting of the truth that life continues a well worn path even through the tragedies of our hearts.

Remembering a time not so long past when it was not so, I am thankful for the memories of a love stored among the treasured relics within my heart and grateful for that which remains to be written.

“My cup runneth over.” (Gena Rowlands…Hope Floats)