The Wait is Over

Yep, the wait is over – my cancer has returned.  Cancer, the Sequel.  Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me I don’t really have my game face in place yet.  It’s only now after a week and half that it’s beginning to hit me.  It’s back. It looks like you have more tumors, Joan.  Where,there, there, yes there….why, who knows, I don’t know…..third base (my daughter and I say that to each other whenever someone says I don’t know – it’s an Abbott and Costello routine)

For the past week I’ve been asking myself, how do I feel?  The answer so far is……I feel nothing.  No tears have leaked from my eyes, no panic fear has clutched my chest and interrupted my breath,  arms have been not yet been flung into pillows with anger.  I just move, go forward.  Get out of bed, get dressed, tie my shoes, hustle the girls off to school, do dishes, knit one, purl two.  Feed the dogs, the cats, the fish, the goats.  Wear socks because it feels cold.  Pull the covers over my head because I don’t want to think of what tomorrow will be.

I’m seriously good at rationalizations, though.  Well, I’d better cancel my hair appointment – since I might lose my hair again.   And damn, wouldn’t you know I finally have a cut and color that I’m happy with.  It will be okay…….we knew this was going to happen.   I have stage IV cancer, sooner or later it’s going to kill me.   Hey, don’t worry – it’s not like this is going to be the “kill shot”.   You know, I really did want to take some of this extra weight off before Christmas.  Looks like I’ll have no problem loosing it.

The fact is I do know what to expect.  I wish I really could stay in bed and make tomorrow never happen, but I can’t.  No change in chemo, just get to go through the whole regiment of radiation therapy again.  Oh joy.  I get to look forward to my skin turning lobster red and ooze with whitish pus, massive fatigue that will wear my body, my mind and my heart down and trample all over it, green bile from my mouth while diarrhea cramps the rest of me over in half.   Loneliness will plague me from the isolation of being with friends and family. 

A friend recently said, “it looks like you’re going to do anger this time, Joan”.  I’m not sure if she’s right or wrong……I just wish I’d feel something.

But hey……it will be okay (keep your fingers crossed)  I should be fine soon (in 6 months if I’m lucky)  We’ll manage (I seriously doubt)  I don’t need any help (Hahahahahaha……I guess it’s time to re-activate TeamJoan)

Gardening

Summer is finally here on Bainbridge Island.  It’s hot – around 80 degrees, clear blue skies, frogs croaking in the Alder tree infested woods, chipmunks chatting to each other from tree to tree.  Summer is iced sweet tea, melting popsicles, juicy seed spitting watermelon triangles.  Sun hats, sun screen, sun dresses, sun kisses in the form of freckles on your face.  Summer is also a time for gardening.

For the past three years, I haven’t really been able to garden.  The pain in my chest from having my muscles, underarm, and breast ripped from my chest has made it almost impossible for me to raise my hoe.  Tumors in my ribs, in my hips and sternum make it extremely hard for me to listen to loud rock music through earplugs as I walked back and forth mowing the dandelions and grass down on our lawn.  Poor Rainer has had to do everything – mowing, weeding, hoeing, planting, digging.  He’s been so overwhelmed – we moved from the Bay Area – where if you were lucky, you had a postage stamp for a garden.   To see tall trees you had to either head north to the redwoods to eww and ahhh or find the nearest park and be happy with the occasional non deciduous tree or two.  However thanks to wonderful friends, my church ladies have given me not only someone who helps to keep my house in order but someone to take the stress of the yard off Rainer’s shoulders.  While my wonder woman, Cecile, gives me laughter and a sparkling house, her friend Ruben mows the back forty and whacks down the tall weeds.  And because my dear friends have given me a gift I can never repay, they have also given me back my beautiful garden as Rainer is still weeding, hoeing, digging and planting - but more for pleasure than for the drudgery of always being behind on the massive weeds that were overtaking our house and septic system because the chief weed officer was out of commission.

I not only used to be a Vice President of Finance but I used to also be the Chief-Weed Officer of our little family company.  I used to love to weed.  I had very cool tools, a well sharpened red hoe to turn the soil and pave the way for seeding, the four finger claw that I used to hack not only the slugs but could break up the root systems of the dreaded Himalayan blackberries, a trowel that with one swoop dig down and get the deep roots of the pretentious dandelion.  Weeding was my source of relief from the ins and outs of working as an executive and playing the party politics games that one is forced to play when being the chief bread winner of the family.  Each time I raised my hoe, dug with my trowel, or raked through the soil with my trusty claw enabled me to put away the frustrations of work and helped me to still keep my chin up even in the chaos of working.  I enjoyed seeing the fruits of my labors – the year we grew corn – it was deeeelicious as my Nana would say, or when we built teepees and grew tomatoes, planting seven different colors of red nasturtiums and collecting their seeds in the fall for yet another year’s crop of little flowers.  But that pesky cancer has prevented me from doing what I love, however this year……I’ve been able to do very small tasks and those small tasks and Rainer’s back breaking hard work has given me my garden back.

This year I decided that if I couldn’t garden at least I could become the Director of Planting.  Poor Rainer, my bullheadedness is probably driving him crazy but he loves me unconditionally and has given me the beautiful, deep, rich colors of our garden back.  Since he was no longer playing catch up, he’s been able bring our garden slowly back to life.  It’s not as huge as it used to be…..and there are more perennials and self seeding plants as we used to have.  But he has given me little patches thriving greenery and smiling faces of flowers that I can see from my window when I sit in my rocking chair trying to take my mind off the pain in my bones.  And I have even taken of the role of weeding clerk.  I no longer can swing my hoe or claw, but I can sit crossed legged and with a little hand held device I can turn the earth and get rid of the pesky weeds and flower eating slugs.  I can only work on a small patch, usually no bigger than a square foot or so (for which I still pay the piper in the pain department – and usually take the next week to recover from).  And now when Rainer tackles a huge project of a new bed or a planting a hydrangea or two, I sit in my chair outside and play at being the Director of Planting.

I wish all my friends both near and far would come over to our little slice heaven and sit with me outside on a hot summer day, drinking lemonade, watching the hummingbirds sipping nectar from my many shades of red flowers.  I thank my church ladies for giving me back the ability to garden even if I never actually lift a hoe.