Gratitude: Life Without Cancer

Claire has been sick this week. It’s some virus that includes a low fever, a runny nose, and a nasty cough. She’s miserable, and frankly, so am I. This is the first illness she’s had since finishing treatment in September. This is the first time I haven’t had to run to the hospital for her fever in more than two years. That part is really nice, but kind of scary, too. I’ve grown accustomed to having nurses and doctors hover over Claire when she is sick. They are so concerned and attentive that I have often played the part of, ‘she’ll be fine.’

This time, however, I am the only one to hover, and apparently, Claire now expects to have her needs met quickly when she feels so awful. It has made for a very difficult week with a very whiny, needy child.

Caring for sick children is one of life’s challenges that few of us avoid. In fact, Avery was sick right before Claire and still has lingering symptoms. Even so, I’ve handled Avery’s excessive crying, violent coughing fits, and snotty face with relative ease. With Claire’s sickness came powerful, even crushing, memories of our chemotherapy and cancer days. These memories are so ingrained into my short years as a mother that my actions, and Claire’s actions, match the extremity of what we went through then. I suddenly feel like I’m on the front lines again.

Those days must not be distant enough.

It turns out that I am a terrible mother when I am on the front lines. My system goes into overload mode, and I only recognize VERY serious concerns. I downplay everything else – any discomfort Claire may be feeling is nothing unless it includes leg and head pain or a fever. The coughing that causes her to throw up is just an annoyance. The constant sniffling is too loud. The whining for something, anything, to relieve her suffering is inexcusable. I am back on the front lines that quickly. Unable to cope, my nerves paper thin.

I am ashamed of myself. And, yet, I am in awe of myself. Of Claire. Of Dustin and Avery. How did we do this for two and a half years? Claire and Avery have been fighting constantly since Claire’s first symptoms arose 6 days ago. They used to do that for two weeks out of every four throughout treatment. Claire went two days without eating one single thing. She used to do that for several days after clinic chemo each month. She is easily annoyed and incredibly rude to all of us. Again, this was expected for two weeks out of every month back in those days.

Home life is wretched when Claire doesn’t feel well.

I have now enjoyed 4 months of Claire cancer, chemo, and steroid free. This sickness of hers is a strong reminder to be more appreciative and grateful for her health than I have been. These past four months have been a dream (aside from the morning sickness, which I am happy to report is gone! Yay!). Claire and Avery play like the best of friends. Arguments have been rare. They both treat me nicely. Claire has had a healthy appetite and energy enough to play all day. She is growing. So is her hair! J We have done without violent mood swings. We have done without increased sensitivity to light and sound – specifically Avery. We have done all this without missing a beat. We have done this without expressing enough gratitude.

Because, do you know what? Life isn’t easy without cancer and chemo.

It’s not easy, and I forgot to remember that just because it’s not easy, doesn’t mean it’s not WAY, WAY better. We only need to get through another few days of this dreadful cough and icky feeling, not months or years, so even now, I vow to remember that I am extremely grateful for Claire. More than that, there are not words to express how happy I am that chemo is over and that Claire is healthy.

Waiting for Better

    
About eight weeks ago, we discovered that we are pregnant. I had been feeling weird all week – moody and annoyed. The Saturday morning of General Conference, I finally took a pregnancy test. You already know that it was positive, but after taking fertility meds for two-and-a-half years to get pregnant with Claire, I am much more familiar with the negative results on that little piece of plastic than I am with the positive two lines. In fact, I’m so familiar with only one line that when it was positive for Avery, and again for this third child, I didn’t believe it. Dustin didn’t either. We expect my body to behave abnormally, so when it performs the way it should, we are stunned to put it mildly. We are stunned and thrilled. Then, the ‘morning’ sickness kicks in, and I have a pretty dang hard time being happy about anything.

I am such a baby when I don’t feel well.

Even now the morning sickness continues, and I am sitting on the couch waiting. Waiting for it to be over. Waiting to feel good again. Waiting to enjoy food again. Waiting for the baby to get bigger. And, I’m driving myself nuts because one of the things I learned most acutely throughout Claire’s cancer treatment was to never wait for anything to get better. Better is relative, and better just might be what you have right now.

So, here I am trying to give myself a pep talk. My talk to myself for eight weeks of morning sickness and fatigue has been something like this, “But you didn’t even have to do fertility! Isn’t that great?! And, you’ve always hoped there was another little one meant for your family. Now you know that there is! And, you better not miss out on this time with your beautiful girls, Claire and Avery. They’ll need to know you love them extra-special once this baby arrives, and well, you aren’t doing so much in that department right now. Come on! Better is now! You already have better!”

And, I think of Claire a lot, and how awful she felt for so long only she had no idea that she would ever feel anything different. She barely complained, and the minute she felt better, even minutely, she was playing with as much energy as she could muster.

I know the morning sickness will sincerely get better around week 15 or 16, so I have a few more weeks to go, and I’m thinking I should revel a little in the fact that taking a nap on the couch every afternoon while the girls watch Bambi is to be expected. That could be ‘better,’ right? A nap everyday? Plus, I pretty much only eat carbs right now, which are my favorite anyway, and I shouldn’t feel guilty for that at 13 weeks pregnant, should I? That could my ‘better’ today. No guilt about not eating my vegetables? Pre-nates should take care of the deficiency, right?

I guess my real point is that even with the pep talk and thinking about the positive side, I’m still waiting for better. I have a hard time motivating myself to do anything more than laundry and nightly meals when I’m feeling so crummy, and even those simple things seem overwhelming.

Still, better is just around the corner.

We’ll talk more then.

From the Front Lines

When the Unthinkable Happens to You: 7 Things That Helped Me

     source

Discovering Claire’s cancer was one of the most pivotal moments of my life. I had so many thoughts, one of which was, “Things like this don’t happen to me.” I’m sure others have had this thought when faced with an insurmountable challenge. If you are one of those people, or if you will be someday, here are a few things that I’ve learned:   

1.     Find gratitude for whatever makes it ‘enough’:

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more.” - Melodie Beattie

Throughout Claire’s treatment, when I was feeling grateful, everything seemed to be better than it actually was. Instead of feeling angry about Claire’s disease, I felt grateful that we only lived 3 miles from one of the best children’s hospitals in the nation. Instead of feeling cramped when my mother-in-law, then sister, lived with us in 1200 square feet of space for a combined 12 weeks during those first 6 months, I felt grateful that they were both willing and able to serve us. Instead of being angry with God, I felt grateful that He trusted that I could endure the trial and become better. Gratitude made whatever I had at the time enough.

What can you find to be grateful for? Cling to it with all that you are, and ask in prayer for help to see any good thing.

2.     Let it go:

The idea that you have a normal life is over. At one point during the most intense parts of Claire’s treatment, I looked down at the kitchen floor. I was flabbergasted at what I saw. LAYERS of food caked the linoleum under the table. With a toddler and a baby, it was probably only 3 or 4 days worth (okay, maybe a week), but it was disgusting. Despite the gross factor, it had to be okay. I had been at the hospital everyday with Claire that week for rounds of chemo. I had to let go of any embarrassment I felt that the babysitter saw my house like that because . . . it didn’t matter. Not that week. I give you permission to stop cleaning your house, or whatever it is that falls to the bottom of your priority list.

3.     Ask for help:

If something really overwhelming has appeared in your life, then something else will have to give. It might be your normally clean house as was my case. It might be yard care, or car maintenance, or bill paying. When we initially came home with Claire from the hospital, Dustin and I both panicked that some germ lurking somewhere would make her sick enough to be hospitalized. This was a real concern. Claire’s immune system was completely gone. I worked up the courage to ask my visiting teachers to organize a cleaning group to come to my house to sanitize every single surface – door knobs, window tracks that might have harmful mold, every wall and ceiling, furniture, cabinets inside and out, etc. It was a big job that would have felt too overwhelming for me to tackle on my own in those front line days. A group of 6 or 7 women came and took the house by storm. It was amazing. Ask.

4.     Take Control:

I heard the words, “Let me know what I can do” many, many times in those first weeks and months. I usually didn’t have an answer for them. I knew that the offer was sincere, but I didn’t know how to ask for help. Dustin on the other hand was an expert. If someone said that to him, he always gave them an assignment right away. He asked for yard care, babysitting, dinners on clinic days, etc. If you asked, Dustin had something for you. Most often, I was the benefactor of his requests. I learned a great lesson from that. Although it doesn’t feel that helpful when someone says, “Let me know if I can help,” it can be, if you decide it is.

Make a list of things that someone else could do. Keep the list in your pocket. When someone asks what they can do to help, and they will because they don’t know what you need, pull out your list and give them an assignment.

5.     Accept your circumstances:

Denial helps no one, especially not you. One time, when Claire was hospitalized for neutropenia, we roomed with two teenage boys. One had a cancer that was requiring severe rounds of chemo and radiation to shrink the tumor. The other had an ongoing blood issue since childhood. He’d been hospitalized repeatedly since he was a toddler. It was easy to think we were more fortunate than they were – to downplay our own difficult circumstances. DO NOT DO THIS. Comparing gets you nowhere. Recognize your own difficulties and do what you can to make them better. Just because someone else seems to have it worse off than you, that doesn’t mean you don’t also feel overwhelmed, frustrated, pained, sad, angry, etc. Your feelings are legitimate. Be honest about them.

6.     Shrink Your To-do List:

Make your list like you normally would. Then read it once. Then throw it away. You don’t have to do any of those things. Maybe everyone knows of your difficulties so it’s easy to do this. Like when I would apologize to someone for not calling them back in a timely manner. Their response was almost always, “No worries. You’ve got a good reason.” They were of course referring to Claire’s Leukemia. In many ways, this made it easy for me to have lower expectations for myself. But, what if your difficulty is private, but just as consuming? You still need to learn to say, “No.” You can’t do the fundraiser. You can’t help with the wedding. You can’t volunteer for the Christmas play. No one needs to know why.

7.     Confide in a Friend:

For me, this was most often the Caring Bridge blog we wrote to keep friends and family informed. Just writing the words helped me to gauge where I was and how we were doing, but a thousand times better were the comments and emails that would come after we had posted an update. It was proof that someone cared. Someone was listening. Someone else was hoping and praying for us to succeed. Other times, it was confiding privately to a good friend. If your difficulty is not something you can share publicly, I encourage you to find one friend who can keep a secret. A friend who can listen and not judge. A friend who loves you.

Hint: If you are not currently ‘on the front lines,’ I encourage you to BE the friend for someone who is. Believe me, it will come back to bless you tenfold.

What has helped you when you are hunkered down in the midst of challenges? I’d love to know. 

See this post for advice for those of you who want to help someone who is currently on the front lines.

Dinner . . . Again?

      Photo taken on a day that I let Red Robin make dinner for our family. It was amazing.

My mom used to tell this story about me. In the story she was making dinner for our family. I, being the self-centered three-year-old that I was, wanted her attention and stood whining at her side. I’m sure the conversation went something like this:

“Mo-Uhm! Mo-Uhm!”

“Yes, Sally. What do you need?”

“What are you doooo-hing?”

“Making dinner.”

Stunned into silence for a moment, I came up with the following:

“Diiiin-nyer? I don’t want dinner. We ate dinner yesterday!”

My mom thought this story was hilarious. That is until many years later into my teens when I still didn’t like dinner. Then she worried. She worried about eating disorders. She worried about my health. She was probably a little more than annoyed that I disdained the food she cooked for our family, but most of all she worried that I wouldn’t cook dinner for my future family.

This is a true story.

So, one evening as she was preparing dinner and I was hoping to just snag a snack instead of sit down to a meal, she confronted me:

“What are you going to do when you have your own family, Sally?” My mom asked with worry and annoyance thick in her voice and manner.

I rolled my eyes and breathed in patiently as only a teenager can and took the bait, “What do you mean, Mom?”

“About dinner. I hope you’ll make dinner for your own family,” she said with such importance that I felt defensive.

“MOM! Of course I’ll make dinner when I’m in charge. I’ll make dinner every night,” I said this with assurance like ‘Why in the world would you think that I won't make dinner for my family? Why do you even think about things like that?’

I’m sure she didn’t believe me, but the thing is, I do make dinner for my family pretty much every night even when I don’t want to eat it. And, really, I think it’s because I told my mom I would.

Thanks, Mom.

P.S. Claire seems surprised every night that I’m making dinner again. She complains, “I don’t want dinner, Mom! I don’t want healthy food! I want a snack.” Like mother, like daughter, I guess. :) Also, thank you for all your comments about this baby-on-the-way. I have nausea and fatigue, but I'm happy. We are due June 4.

An Announcement

I've been working on the next From the Front Lines column. It isn't quite ready, but I think I have a good reason. Check out our little family of pumpkins and see if you can see why I've been a little slow with my writing:

Cheers!

On Floors and Squinkies

                                                     source: pinterest

My ultimate dream in life is to have someone else clean my house. I’m sure this desire isn’t unique to me, and it wasn’t even important to me until I had two small, wonderfully messy and imaginative girls in my life. Now it is at the top of my list. Before they were here, I declared that I enjoyed cleaning. It was ‘therapeutic’ I said. I’m sure I thought this because I only had to sweep the floors once a week and maybe mop once a month. Adults don’t tend to drop cheerios, toast crusts, syrupy waffle pieces, and cups full of milk on the floor during breakfast. J

Because I feed children in my house on average five times a day, I also sweep several times a day. No matter how recently I’ve swept, I will always find Squinkies, jewelry, fairy wings, and beads in the dustpan with all the other crumbs when I’m finished. Sweeping becomes monotonous. On top of that, my dustpan recently broke. It’s particularly annoying to use a piece of paper as a dustpan, which means that I sweep less often. This increases my wish for a house cleaner tenfold, if you know what I mean.

We moved into our new house two weeks ago. I have spent most of that time unpacking and arranging all our stuff. Until this morning, I had yet to clean this new house. It’s always that way with me. We’ve moved enough times that I know what I’ll do. We move in a flurry and unpack for a couple of weeks, but I don’t clean. I think it’s because I don’t feel like it’s my job yet. Because it doesn’t feel like it’s my house yet. 

Today it was time. To clean the house.

I started with the tile floors. I swept up bits and pieces of our day’s meals. While sweeping, I mostly watched the massive amount of dirt, food, and toys accumulating in a pile, but when I started mopping that tile floor stretching to forever, I finally saw my kitchen floor. I settled into a rhythm with my mop brushing back and forth over the brown and gray pattern. I covered every inch of that beautiful tile floor for the first time with my mop, and do you know what? Suddenly, the kitchen floor was mine. By cleaning the floor myself, I felt ownership over it, a connection to it, and care for it.

My new house didn’t feel like my house until I cleaned it. Myself.

So, today, while I sway to the rhythm of the mop and Train, I am the steward of this house. I will clean it. I will care for it. I will love this house into a home.

Would a cleaning lady do that I wonder?

Disclaimer: If you have a house cleaner, I’m really just jealous of you. J

Joy Triumphs Over Pain

Claire July 2011: Our first amazing month for over a year.

“We decided that divorce would never be an option,” President Tucker confided to the Marriage class.

In the front row, his wife Pat, nodded her agreement. It was evident to all in attendance that Paul and 

Pat Tucker had not only fallen in love more than 40 years ago, they had chosen to love every day since. Without knowing their romantic ‘how we met’ story, without hearing the trials they had inevitably encountered and overcome, I felt the power in their marriage and in their words. Marriage was a choice and they had chosen well.

I admired the Tuckers immediately upon meeting them at church five years ago. President Tucker, in particular, made me feel at home our first week there. He taught Sunday School, and amazingly, he learned the names of all the new couples. All twenty-five of them. I soon realized he did this every year with each new batch of graduate students. During our first class, Dustin whispered in my ear, “If I closed my eyes, I would think your Dad was teaching the class.” I agreed completely. He sounded just like my dad – mannerisms and doctrine both. Even if I didn’t sound or feel like either of President Tucker’s two daughters, President Tucker was A father, much like my own.

And Pat. I loved Pat as only a kindred spirit can. When I bought the chocolate chip cookies that she sold at a service auction, I insisted that it come with a baking lesson. I wanted to be her friend. I soon discovered that Pat had kept a daily journal for decades without fail. I also have stacks of journals. So Pat, like me, was a writer whether she knew it or not.

When Claire was diagnosed with Leukemia in the summer of 2010, Dustin called President Tucker to assist him in giving Claire a priesthood blessing. Pat came with him. Upon their arrival, Pat gave me a motherly squeeze and President Tucker shook my hand gravely. The tears collecting in my eyes dripped out onto my cheeks like a slow leak, my throat too tight to speak. With understanding that can only come through personal suffering, the Tuckers expected no explanation and simply listened to the beautiful blessing. Afterword, President Tucker said that he had felt the truth of the words “You will be healed” given in Claire’s blessing. My strained faith felt immeasurable comfort knowing that this Man of God had been given a witness to Claire’s healing blessing.

On Saturday March 10, 2012, I learned that my beloved Tucker family was to face one of life’s most difficult trials. The trial of the unknown. Pat was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer.

I discovered the news amidst a gathering of women, busy with service. I was sure that my ears had deceived me and that Janet, the bearer of the news, had either meant a less intimidating disease or a different person altogether. 

I shook my head as if to disagree with her. Then, questioning the validity of her report, I said, “You said Pat Tucker, right? Pat. Tucker.”  I emphasized both names with a nod of my head just to be sure Janet understood the weight of putting the name ‘Pat Tucker’ with the diagnosis ‘Ovarian Cancer.’ 

Although Janet is no stranger to grief herself, I think my visible mourning at the news overwhelmed her. She hugged me and moved on. I walked the ten steps to my post at the ironing board where several women were gathered. One of them glanced my way to say hello. She easily saw the emotion on my face.

“Are you okay?” she asked with great concern.

I brushed my tears away. Taking a deep breath, I was about to answer that I was fine, but the deep breath brought no relief.

“No. I’m not okay. You’re not going to be okay either once you hear this news.”

I went on to share the crushing information about the Tucker family and searched the faces of the other women for the emotion I was feeling so strongly. But, I didn’t find it. These women were not as deeply affected as I was. One reached out to give me a hug to comfort me.  One reassured me that ‘if anyone can do it, the Tuckers can.” And still a third asked me, “Are you guys close to the Tuckers?”

For several days, I felt devastated at the news. I was not sure why I was so profoundly affected other than that I know something of what her family might have been feeling - shock, fear, incredibly overwhelmed, full of grief, and many other emotions that are so powerful even on their own that together, they are just that: devastating.

Later I pondered this experience. Admittedly, since our own traumatic experience with Claire’s diagnosis, I am much more sensitive to bad news. I now know firsthand what it means to say, ‘my soul weeps.’ No other description is full enough in moments like these, and I have found that my soul weeps for other people who are handed some of life’s more difficult situations. Maybe my acute reaction has something to do with the love and admiration I feel for the Tucker family. Maybe it’s that it was a cancer diagnosis, just like Claire’s. Or, perhaps, I was simply feeling their pain.  Whatever the reason, I hope that I am one step closer to understanding what it is to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.

I’m happy to report that my dear Pat Tucker finished her cancer treatment the same week Claire finished hers. Her cancer is now in remission. In March, my heart was overcome with sorrow, and today it sings with a joy that surpasses the pain of yesterday.