Sara is in surgery. Right now. She's not supposed to be, because she had surgery on Monday, and that took all day, but in the end it seemed to be worth it because everything looked really good and everyone was quite proud of themselves and Sara's recovery was chugging along smoothly. I was surprised yesterday by just how fine she seemed to be, and although she was in pain, I had prepared myself for so much more. She was supposed to be moving around today, possibly even standing up, and eating solid food. Instead, she's back in surgery.
It's not that there's too much to worry about, so I'm sorry to scare anyone who might be reading along in real time. The reason she's back in is that the tissue that they put in (living tissue, that they removed from her thigh) is not doing a very good job of getting blood. They checked it out last night and seemed to think that it was pretty good, but upon this morning's inspection it seems that they had a change of heart. So they're taking her back in, and they are going to attempt to rescue the surgical site. But if they can't, then they are going to remove it and move forward from there.
The unfortunate thing about that is that I imagine that this time around it's going to be much harder on her. Just the look of what it did to her morale this morning when they told her that they were going to have to do that was devastating. She is still a trooper though, and will be fine.
I had a lot of good stuff prepared about this whole experience. Stuff like sitting in the little consultation room waiting to speak to the doctor. That's the same room you see in the movies, the one where the doctor comes in and says "we did the best we can.".. That shit is scary. And it's got to suck being the doctor when there are already all of those movies out there covering what you're going to come out and say so that when you do have to come out and give some husband/wife/parents/kid the worst news that they are ever going to get it just seems cliche. That's the worst. I seriously hope that they have some super secret top secret (that's two classes above regular top secret) speech prepared that they say that is never covered in movies and does not come out sounding contrived and like the worst cliche ever at seriously one of the most important moments of the lives of the affected ones. Then again, maybe you don't care how stupid the doctor sounds when he's (or she's, I don't know why that came out so sexist.. .. yes I do, because I was imagining Sara's doctor) delivering that kind of news. I hope I never have to experience that.
I started that last paragraph the way that I did because I was going to finish it with "but I will tell you about that another time" .. and instead I told you about that. So yeah, there's other stuff.. Hospitals are filled with stories.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
pity
Cancer is a funny thing.
I keep getting the feeling that people are looking at us and assessing our situation and offering glimpses of pity. I wouldn't expect that, as I would expect that in the medical environment so many people are in similar situations that they are just used to it, that they treat it with a sort of clinical professionalism, something that doesn't leave room for pity. But then someone gives a look that says something like "that's a shit break guys, I'm sorry."
I swear I'm not making it up. Yesterday morning when we were getting prepped for Sara's first surgery and the team came to introduce themselves, there were two doctors who were around my age (correction, one of them was a medical student), and they both kind of gave me the creeps. They did not exude enough confidence and professionalism to assure me that they weren't going to be sitting in the operating room thinking "boobies." At least, not at first. But then the one guy, the actual doctor, he shot me this fleeting look as if to convey that he couldn't believe how rotten our luck was, and that he fully sympathized. And that if there was a subtext to the look it was that he was trying to assure me, telepathically, that he wasn't going to be thinking "boobies." Perhaps I read too much into things.
I keep getting the feeling that people are looking at us and assessing our situation and offering glimpses of pity. I wouldn't expect that, as I would expect that in the medical environment so many people are in similar situations that they are just used to it, that they treat it with a sort of clinical professionalism, something that doesn't leave room for pity. But then someone gives a look that says something like "that's a shit break guys, I'm sorry."
I swear I'm not making it up. Yesterday morning when we were getting prepped for Sara's first surgery and the team came to introduce themselves, there were two doctors who were around my age (correction, one of them was a medical student), and they both kind of gave me the creeps. They did not exude enough confidence and professionalism to assure me that they weren't going to be sitting in the operating room thinking "boobies." At least, not at first. But then the one guy, the actual doctor, he shot me this fleeting look as if to convey that he couldn't believe how rotten our luck was, and that he fully sympathized. And that if there was a subtext to the look it was that he was trying to assure me, telepathically, that he wasn't going to be thinking "boobies." Perhaps I read too much into things.
Friday, August 10, 2012
For Science.
Damn. My pageviews have really jumped since this morning. It looks like you all really want to know what it's like to sit in a little corner room of a medical building and jerk off into a plastic cup. Well,.. it's weird.
I got a late start and the roads were crap, so I barely made it to my appointment. I wanted to be more composed than I was when I got there, instead of running late. Also, I think in my head that the office girls working would be like the ones at virtually every other medical appointment I've ever had, meaning younger and usually attractive. This would make it easier for me to joke about what it was that I was about to go do. Instead, there were two women, one who reminded me of someone that would be friends with my mother, and then also her mother.
"Do you have the pink sheet we gave you?" this was the older of the two.
(Crap)
"It's okay if you don't."
(well, that's a relief)
They make me a new pink sheet and say "do you know where it is?" I do not know where it is.
They send me down a little hallway which is on the opposite side of the lobby as was our appointment here previously, when we met with the fertility doctor.
I get to the end of the hallway where there is a little window and a woman on the other side who for some reason reminds me more of a lunch lady than a medical professional who will soon be handling my specimen.
I hand her the sheet and tell her my name. It's a good thing that they didn't, in fact, check my identification, because I left it in my running shorts 100 miles away.
"Do you have a sample with you?"
(that was an option?!)
"No. I do not."
"Okay, follow me." I follow her.
She comes from behind the glass window and opens the door across the hall ( the door had a sign labeling it the "collection room" and one of those slides that either covers up the part that says "vacant" or "in use"). I kind of stop listening as I take it all in but she says something like, "twist the lid on the cup really tight when you're done." Later I wonder if she also said to put the cup into the biohazard bag, because I don't remember her saying that, but I figure that that's what the bag is for. She does not, however, even acknowledge the giant television or the drawers on the cabinet. Those are apparently for me to figure out what to do with on my own.
"Can I use the bathroom first?" I really had to pee for about the last hour of driving.
"Of course, it's right next door."
I go to the bathroom and she goes back to her fishbowl across the hall. I finish and wash my hands, even though I will quickly be soiling them again. Habits, you know? I open the door to the bathroom and there is another girl, I think who worked there but I didn't really want to stick around and make eye contact or anything, who either needed something from the first girl or who was pretending to need something from the first girl so that she could see what kind of guy was about to go into the spank tank (that's what I would call it if I worked there). I'm getting paranoid at this point.
I go into the room and close the door. I take a few pictures for my facebook fans. The cabinet underneath the television has a drawer marked "magazines." I almost don't want to open it because I'm afraid that the girl in the fishbowl can hear the drawer and knows exactly what is up and I would still like for there to be some kind of mystery. I can actually hear some chatter from outside in the hallway. This is unexpected. I don't know why, but in my head this room was soundproofed... or maybe sufficiently far enough away from anywhere else that I don't have to worry about things. Or maybe in my head the room was just.. . bigger.
I am curious about what happens if I turn on the television. I had expected a pile of DVDs and an accompanying player. There was none. I thought maybe this was just regular television, that I am meant to find the most attractive person on Maury or whatever daytime television nonsense that I could find, and have my fun. I found the volume on the remote before I pushed the power button. I wanted to turn it on while immediately turning it to silent. I hit the button.
Somewhere from behind the unit I heard the unmistakeable whirring of a disc. The movie began to load on it's own. Everyone was kind of fake and typical pornstarrish. This movie was not for me. For the record, the magazines were three penthouse and two playboy. One was one of those "college" editions, and one was the Lindsey Lohan edition. Although I handled them with curiosity, I did not need them.
Even though I had waited for several days for this very moment, I didn't want to start right away. I didn't want the girl outside to know exactly when I was doing what I needed to do. I also didn't want her to know how long it took. This seemed too intimate.
Eventually, it happened. I put the lid on, tight. I put the cup in the bag, and I washed up. I thought about going for a round two, just to ensure that there was enough. I decided that this was unnecessary, and that I didn't want to be here any longer, and I opened the door. The girl took the bag, and I left.
I stopped to see my mom's friend and her mother on my way out, to make sure that I was all set. This felt odd, as I don't think that they were expecting me, and they did not have quite the same pokerface attitude about it all that the girl from the lab had. They had the air of "but you just...." and "no.. you don't need to be talking to us, at all,.. you can just leave" while they explained that I was all set. Again, paranoid.
I should mention that on my way out I asked the girl in the lab, since I am going to have to do this all over again in a few weeks, what she meant when she asked if I had brought a sample. She explained that this was only an option if I lived less than an hour away. I wanted to explain that I drive really, really fast.
I got a late start and the roads were crap, so I barely made it to my appointment. I wanted to be more composed than I was when I got there, instead of running late. Also, I think in my head that the office girls working would be like the ones at virtually every other medical appointment I've ever had, meaning younger and usually attractive. This would make it easier for me to joke about what it was that I was about to go do. Instead, there were two women, one who reminded me of someone that would be friends with my mother, and then also her mother.
"Do you have the pink sheet we gave you?" this was the older of the two.
(Crap)
"It's okay if you don't."
(well, that's a relief)
They make me a new pink sheet and say "do you know where it is?" I do not know where it is.
They send me down a little hallway which is on the opposite side of the lobby as was our appointment here previously, when we met with the fertility doctor.
I get to the end of the hallway where there is a little window and a woman on the other side who for some reason reminds me more of a lunch lady than a medical professional who will soon be handling my specimen.
I hand her the sheet and tell her my name. It's a good thing that they didn't, in fact, check my identification, because I left it in my running shorts 100 miles away.
"Do you have a sample with you?"
(that was an option?!)
"No. I do not."
"Okay, follow me." I follow her.
She comes from behind the glass window and opens the door across the hall ( the door had a sign labeling it the "collection room" and one of those slides that either covers up the part that says "vacant" or "in use"). I kind of stop listening as I take it all in but she says something like, "twist the lid on the cup really tight when you're done." Later I wonder if she also said to put the cup into the biohazard bag, because I don't remember her saying that, but I figure that that's what the bag is for. She does not, however, even acknowledge the giant television or the drawers on the cabinet. Those are apparently for me to figure out what to do with on my own.
"Can I use the bathroom first?" I really had to pee for about the last hour of driving.
"Of course, it's right next door."
I go to the bathroom and she goes back to her fishbowl across the hall. I finish and wash my hands, even though I will quickly be soiling them again. Habits, you know? I open the door to the bathroom and there is another girl, I think who worked there but I didn't really want to stick around and make eye contact or anything, who either needed something from the first girl or who was pretending to need something from the first girl so that she could see what kind of guy was about to go into the spank tank (that's what I would call it if I worked there). I'm getting paranoid at this point.
I go into the room and close the door. I take a few pictures for my facebook fans. The cabinet underneath the television has a drawer marked "magazines." I almost don't want to open it because I'm afraid that the girl in the fishbowl can hear the drawer and knows exactly what is up and I would still like for there to be some kind of mystery. I can actually hear some chatter from outside in the hallway. This is unexpected. I don't know why, but in my head this room was soundproofed... or maybe sufficiently far enough away from anywhere else that I don't have to worry about things. Or maybe in my head the room was just.. . bigger.
I am curious about what happens if I turn on the television. I had expected a pile of DVDs and an accompanying player. There was none. I thought maybe this was just regular television, that I am meant to find the most attractive person on Maury or whatever daytime television nonsense that I could find, and have my fun. I found the volume on the remote before I pushed the power button. I wanted to turn it on while immediately turning it to silent. I hit the button.
Somewhere from behind the unit I heard the unmistakeable whirring of a disc. The movie began to load on it's own. Everyone was kind of fake and typical pornstarrish. This movie was not for me. For the record, the magazines were three penthouse and two playboy. One was one of those "college" editions, and one was the Lindsey Lohan edition. Although I handled them with curiosity, I did not need them.
Even though I had waited for several days for this very moment, I didn't want to start right away. I didn't want the girl outside to know exactly when I was doing what I needed to do. I also didn't want her to know how long it took. This seemed too intimate.
Eventually, it happened. I put the lid on, tight. I put the cup in the bag, and I washed up. I thought about going for a round two, just to ensure that there was enough. I decided that this was unnecessary, and that I didn't want to be here any longer, and I opened the door. The girl took the bag, and I left.
I stopped to see my mom's friend and her mother on my way out, to make sure that I was all set. This felt odd, as I don't think that they were expecting me, and they did not have quite the same pokerface attitude about it all that the girl from the lab had. They had the air of "but you just...." and "no.. you don't need to be talking to us, at all,.. you can just leave" while they explained that I was all set. Again, paranoid.
I should mention that on my way out I asked the girl in the lab, since I am going to have to do this all over again in a few weeks, what she meant when she asked if I had brought a sample. She explained that this was only an option if I lived less than an hour away. I wanted to explain that I drive really, really fast.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Balls (the other kind)..
Tomorrow I get to masturbate into a cup. I'm going to drive to Ann Arbor, sign in, provide my insurance card (and hopefully identification, just imagine if anybody could pretend to be me and do it instead!), and then be taken into a back room somewhere, shown to a collection of pornography, and then left alone to do my business. While everyone knows exactly what business I am doing.
Weird.
And who pays for the pornography? Is it something that the university has in their budget? Does it get donated? Should I bring something in for the pot. Do they have gay porn for all the gay guys who want to donate their specimen for other people? Do they do fetish stuff? I mean, on the one hand I understand how it seems that I might be being a bit childish about all of these questions. Especially when you consider that I am currently being disallowed to so much as shake more than three times so I won't actually need the visual aids. But on the other hand, these are the sorts of things that I've always wondered about fertility clinics. Excuse me, "Reproductive Services."
I'm someone who typically tries to put myself into other people's shoes. So, over a lfietime of growing up where a great many television shows have covered the experience of fertility treatment, I have often imagined what it must be like to go through it all. What will it be like to know that someone is looking at my little soldiers (and soldierettes) in a microscope? I mean, that's what tomorrow is all about. Tomorrow's donation isn't even meant to make any kind of babies. Tomorrow's warriors give their lives for science. Tomorrow is just an exercise, wherein they ensure that the guys are fit to fight, so that we don't waste time harvesting from Sara if we can't win the war (I don't know why I'm making this all military analogy. SPERM. I'm talking about sperm. And fertilizing an egg. There will be no conquering (well, sort of)).
Provided that my semen is good, we will go through this all over again in a few weeks. This time in what the military would call "real world." Hopefully the second time around I'll be a little more prepared. More comfortable, anyway. Because, believe me, I'm prepared.
So yeah, this was the sperm episode. I'm sorry for the crastness, but we had to get through it (also, apparently crastness isn't a word. Oh well).
Weird.
And who pays for the pornography? Is it something that the university has in their budget? Does it get donated? Should I bring something in for the pot. Do they have gay porn for all the gay guys who want to donate their specimen for other people? Do they do fetish stuff? I mean, on the one hand I understand how it seems that I might be being a bit childish about all of these questions. Especially when you consider that I am currently being disallowed to so much as shake more than three times so I won't actually need the visual aids. But on the other hand, these are the sorts of things that I've always wondered about fertility clinics. Excuse me, "Reproductive Services."
I'm someone who typically tries to put myself into other people's shoes. So, over a lfietime of growing up where a great many television shows have covered the experience of fertility treatment, I have often imagined what it must be like to go through it all. What will it be like to know that someone is looking at my little soldiers (and soldierettes) in a microscope? I mean, that's what tomorrow is all about. Tomorrow's donation isn't even meant to make any kind of babies. Tomorrow's warriors give their lives for science. Tomorrow is just an exercise, wherein they ensure that the guys are fit to fight, so that we don't waste time harvesting from Sara if we can't win the war (I don't know why I'm making this all military analogy. SPERM. I'm talking about sperm. And fertilizing an egg. There will be no conquering (well, sort of)).
Provided that my semen is good, we will go through this all over again in a few weeks. This time in what the military would call "real world." Hopefully the second time around I'll be a little more prepared. More comfortable, anyway. Because, believe me, I'm prepared.
So yeah, this was the sperm episode. I'm sorry for the crastness, but we had to get through it (also, apparently crastness isn't a word. Oh well).
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Balls...
Let's face it, blog. I'm bad at you. Even when I shouldn't be. Even when I have things to write about, like when my car gets hit by a douche on his phone. Or like when I get the rejection letter from the school that was simultaneously offering to give me a full ride.
Yeah, my car got hit. I was following my brother to get something to eat after work two days ago and there was someone stopped in the middle of the road making an illegal left hand turn. This was not a huge problem, as there was plenty of warning and my brother stopped behind this person and then I stopped. And then I heard tires shrieking for just a split second, and then they were my tires. My tires for a second more, in an attempt not to slide into my brother's car in front of me (I had virtually this exact same accident play out in much the same way exactly ten years prior, with the notable difference being that my attempt to not hit the car in front of me was not successful then). I didn't hit my brother's car.
We all pull off into a side lot and wait for the police to come (45 minutes). The driver of the car that hit me apologizes again and again, and I assure him again and again that he has nothing to worry about, that accidents happen. It was a bummer, as having an accident on my title is something that is going to reduce the value of my vehicle, something I've taken great pains to protect, but oh well.
But then he makes a mistake. This guy, this guy who I didn't really have any hard feelings against says something, sheepishly. "Yeah, I just looked down at my phone for two seconds." He lost me. If he'd had the wherewithal of a fence post he would have seen my face go from "don't worry about it, man" to "get away from me, ass stain." He didn't.
People, Sara in particular, sometimes think that I tend to overreact to situations which piss me off. The truth is that I have a hard time understanding how other people deal with them so calmly. When I see other drivers swerving all over the road and then casually chatting away on their phone, I seriously want to ram them. I want to pull them out of their vehicles and give them the beating they deserve. They are recklessly endangering my life so that they can fart around with their spoiled-ass technology and feeling entitled about it the entire time. Driving is not a right.
Rejection letter last night from law school. After calling around about it today I come to find that it was because they based everything off of the information that they had in their file as of last year. Even though I already updated everything and essentially handed it to them on a silver platter (through lsac, the law services governing body), it seems that somewhere along the way one hand stopped talking to the other. Whatever. I can fix this if I want to resubmit everything, reapply, rewrite my letters, and then call to make sure that it all gets done properly. I can probably get this all done and be ready to start just barely in time for the September deadline.
But now the question that I have to ask myself is: Do I want to? Do I want to spend the next couple of weeks busting my ass so that I can barely make the cutoff to be ready to start, still have to deal with getting my scholarship processed, and then deal with financial aid to make sure that I can afford to live (that we can) while I'm in school, just in time to hit Sara's surgery and recovery, just in time to hit year one, which is notoriously one of the hardest things a person can do in their education.
I have to admit, that I'm leaning towards no, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should admit defeat. I was supposed to be relaxing this month. That was the plan. Then I would hit school super hard and wouldn't have any other distractions. Instead, I have every other distraction imagineable. Maybe it really is in my best interest just to put this off for a few months (it doesn't have to be a year). They have classes starting in January. Maybe I could get all of my ducks in a row. Sara would not have just completed surgery. In fact, she would be partially done with chemo, and could potentially even have a steady job then, maybe even with insurance. I mean, it's entirely possible that if I just hold off a little bit, that maybe I'll be able to do virtually everything as planned anyway, instead of killing myself trying to get it done.
Still, I've already stalled for a year. I'm getting impatient. But the truth is, that probably my biggest concern with when I start law school has always been that it means putting off having children. I suppose that's something that's going to be put off, anyway.
Yeah, my car got hit. I was following my brother to get something to eat after work two days ago and there was someone stopped in the middle of the road making an illegal left hand turn. This was not a huge problem, as there was plenty of warning and my brother stopped behind this person and then I stopped. And then I heard tires shrieking for just a split second, and then they were my tires. My tires for a second more, in an attempt not to slide into my brother's car in front of me (I had virtually this exact same accident play out in much the same way exactly ten years prior, with the notable difference being that my attempt to not hit the car in front of me was not successful then). I didn't hit my brother's car.
We all pull off into a side lot and wait for the police to come (45 minutes). The driver of the car that hit me apologizes again and again, and I assure him again and again that he has nothing to worry about, that accidents happen. It was a bummer, as having an accident on my title is something that is going to reduce the value of my vehicle, something I've taken great pains to protect, but oh well.
But then he makes a mistake. This guy, this guy who I didn't really have any hard feelings against says something, sheepishly. "Yeah, I just looked down at my phone for two seconds." He lost me. If he'd had the wherewithal of a fence post he would have seen my face go from "don't worry about it, man" to "get away from me, ass stain." He didn't.
People, Sara in particular, sometimes think that I tend to overreact to situations which piss me off. The truth is that I have a hard time understanding how other people deal with them so calmly. When I see other drivers swerving all over the road and then casually chatting away on their phone, I seriously want to ram them. I want to pull them out of their vehicles and give them the beating they deserve. They are recklessly endangering my life so that they can fart around with their spoiled-ass technology and feeling entitled about it the entire time. Driving is not a right.
Rejection letter last night from law school. After calling around about it today I come to find that it was because they based everything off of the information that they had in their file as of last year. Even though I already updated everything and essentially handed it to them on a silver platter (through lsac, the law services governing body), it seems that somewhere along the way one hand stopped talking to the other. Whatever. I can fix this if I want to resubmit everything, reapply, rewrite my letters, and then call to make sure that it all gets done properly. I can probably get this all done and be ready to start just barely in time for the September deadline.
But now the question that I have to ask myself is: Do I want to? Do I want to spend the next couple of weeks busting my ass so that I can barely make the cutoff to be ready to start, still have to deal with getting my scholarship processed, and then deal with financial aid to make sure that I can afford to live (that we can) while I'm in school, just in time to hit Sara's surgery and recovery, just in time to hit year one, which is notoriously one of the hardest things a person can do in their education.
I have to admit, that I'm leaning towards no, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should admit defeat. I was supposed to be relaxing this month. That was the plan. Then I would hit school super hard and wouldn't have any other distractions. Instead, I have every other distraction imagineable. Maybe it really is in my best interest just to put this off for a few months (it doesn't have to be a year). They have classes starting in January. Maybe I could get all of my ducks in a row. Sara would not have just completed surgery. In fact, she would be partially done with chemo, and could potentially even have a steady job then, maybe even with insurance. I mean, it's entirely possible that if I just hold off a little bit, that maybe I'll be able to do virtually everything as planned anyway, instead of killing myself trying to get it done.
Still, I've already stalled for a year. I'm getting impatient. But the truth is, that probably my biggest concern with when I start law school has always been that it means putting off having children. I suppose that's something that's going to be put off, anyway.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Job Security
I keep wanting to write something about how I've never had a job that I couldn't walk away from before. I mean, the military. I couldn't exactly walk away from that. But that was different. That was planned. And, perhaps more importantly, I couldn't be fired from that. This is not to say that I think that I may be fired (although, writing blogs from work is probably not the best thing in the world. But I do my job, and I do it well, so who cares how I use my spare time?), but the pressure of not being able to be fired, not having the flexibility to be fired if push comes to shove. Well, this vexes me.
The reason I can't leave, of course, is the insurance. But I've always been in a position where if someone pushes me in just the right way, that I can feel comfortable taking the moral high road. That I can say, "look, you just made this about more than professionalism, and if you think that you can stand there and talk to me in the tone or voice or words or face or whathaveyou, that you're using, then you are poorly mistaken." Because no job is worth more to me than my integrity. Never has been.
But now.. well, now everything's sadly different. Now, if someone starts to get a bit lippy and think that they have the right to treat me as less than a person because I have to put up with it. Well, now they are kind of right. I do have to put up with it. I just hope that I'll be able to when that moment should happen to come. This makes me really more nervous than it probably should. But there's a lot on the line.
The reason I can't leave, of course, is the insurance. But I've always been in a position where if someone pushes me in just the right way, that I can feel comfortable taking the moral high road. That I can say, "look, you just made this about more than professionalism, and if you think that you can stand there and talk to me in the tone or voice or words or face or whathaveyou, that you're using, then you are poorly mistaken." Because no job is worth more to me than my integrity. Never has been.
But now.. well, now everything's sadly different. Now, if someone starts to get a bit lippy and think that they have the right to treat me as less than a person because I have to put up with it. Well, now they are kind of right. I do have to put up with it. I just hope that I'll be able to when that moment should happen to come. This makes me really more nervous than it probably should. But there's a lot on the line.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Time capsule
When I was in high school, everyone I knew who was pregnant fell into one of three categories: Friend of my parents, parents of a friend, or teenagers. All three categories have the common characteristic that they are overwhelmingly unplanned. People in my parents' generation already had their kids, and their kids were already mostly grown. They didn't want to have more. And, teenagers. Well, that one seems pretty obvious, doesn't it? So when I came to the mistaken assumption that the vast majority of pregnancies were the result of accidents, I didn't feel so bad to figure that I, too, must have been an accident.
I wrote an essay essentially to the effect that I was okay with being the result of an accidental pregnancy; that my parents treated me with love and compassion, and that everything pretty much worked out for the best. At some point I shared this with my mother and imagine my surprise when her response was "but you weren't an accident." It turns out that she and my father actually tried really hard to have me.
I gotta say, that felt incredible. To know that I'd been wanted all along.
My child is going to feel that. My child is going to feel that times 1000. Right now we're in the middle of a push to save our fertility (I suppose I should plug that here: Our fundraiser), but even if that turns out to not be an option. Even if we go with adoption, our child is going to happen.
I think it's still kind of unnatural to our generation, even though we were the first of the internet age, to really appreciate that something we put here can be permanent. I can, for instance, right now, address a message to the unborn, unknown child that I'm talking about, and that child may someday be directed here to read it. How strange.
We wanted you really, really badly. I thought you should know. It's hard to imagine your parents as having existed before there was a you. I can't imagine my father ever being this open with me, and I'm pretty sure that I'll have a hard time pulling it off with you when you're actually in front of me. Right now, I don't know the first thing about you, except that we appreciate you, and that a whole lot of people helped us to ensure that you would be here. That's gotta feel pretty good, right?
To everyone else, sorry for the sap.
I wrote an essay essentially to the effect that I was okay with being the result of an accidental pregnancy; that my parents treated me with love and compassion, and that everything pretty much worked out for the best. At some point I shared this with my mother and imagine my surprise when her response was "but you weren't an accident." It turns out that she and my father actually tried really hard to have me.
I gotta say, that felt incredible. To know that I'd been wanted all along.
My child is going to feel that. My child is going to feel that times 1000. Right now we're in the middle of a push to save our fertility (I suppose I should plug that here: Our fundraiser), but even if that turns out to not be an option. Even if we go with adoption, our child is going to happen.
I think it's still kind of unnatural to our generation, even though we were the first of the internet age, to really appreciate that something we put here can be permanent. I can, for instance, right now, address a message to the unborn, unknown child that I'm talking about, and that child may someday be directed here to read it. How strange.
We wanted you really, really badly. I thought you should know. It's hard to imagine your parents as having existed before there was a you. I can't imagine my father ever being this open with me, and I'm pretty sure that I'll have a hard time pulling it off with you when you're actually in front of me. Right now, I don't know the first thing about you, except that we appreciate you, and that a whole lot of people helped us to ensure that you would be here. That's gotta feel pretty good, right?
To everyone else, sorry for the sap.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Advice
My goal with this whole thing is honestly nothing more than therapy. Writing it all down and pretending that nobody is listening (I know, I haven't been pretending that nobody is listening as of late, but I'm about to again), so that I can get whatever I need to out of my system. I'm not trying to document what this experience is like, what each appointment looks like and complete a whole story of what cancer treatment is like. There are plenty of blogs out there that do that, and I'm grateful. But I don't think I have anything new to contribute here. I'm also not out trying to give future people in my position advice, because so far I've figured out very little. But I did learn an important lesson today, and here it is:
Get the best possible care that you can.
Even if you think that it's so early that the quality of care is not going to vary very much from clinic to clinic. That's what we thought. I woke up today one hundred miles away (almost exactly) from where we live, running just a few minutes late to our appointment at the University of Michigan. We went there for a second opinion. We did not expect the opinion to be all that different. Mostly we just wanted more information, someone else's perspective on what all of the options in front of us spelled out. When I woke up this morning Sara's tumor was 1.7 centimeters. By the time we left it was over double that.
In addition to the discovery that the tumor was twice the size of what our local cancer treatment facility had told us it was, we were also told that much of the surrounding tissue that we had already been told not to worry about should be worried about. The radiologist was fairly certain that the second biopsy, the one that came back negative, nothing to worry about, was quite possibly just a sample of the wrong site. In fact it likely is something to worry about.
This all seems like it might be bad news, but it's not. We'd rather know all of this now, before she actually undergoes surgery, before we start treatment, before we think we're in the clear when we're only halfway out of the woods. Because honestly, if we never have to go through this again, that would be really, really ideal. Seriously. Never. Again.
And we left the longest day of appointments today not only better informed, but with a much higher confidence that we'll be getting the right treatment, that our odds of having to go through this ever again will be as low as we can get them, and that we're in good hands. What a difference a little bit more experience makes. So the point, the moral here, isn't necessarily that you should always get a second opinion (I don't think we would bother if we had started here), but rather that you should seek the best possible care that you can get. While I'm sure that this is true of other things in addition to cancer, it is especially true of cancer.
Alright, on to other news:
I'm ready for bed. Goodnight.
Get the best possible care that you can.
Even if you think that it's so early that the quality of care is not going to vary very much from clinic to clinic. That's what we thought. I woke up today one hundred miles away (almost exactly) from where we live, running just a few minutes late to our appointment at the University of Michigan. We went there for a second opinion. We did not expect the opinion to be all that different. Mostly we just wanted more information, someone else's perspective on what all of the options in front of us spelled out. When I woke up this morning Sara's tumor was 1.7 centimeters. By the time we left it was over double that.
In addition to the discovery that the tumor was twice the size of what our local cancer treatment facility had told us it was, we were also told that much of the surrounding tissue that we had already been told not to worry about should be worried about. The radiologist was fairly certain that the second biopsy, the one that came back negative, nothing to worry about, was quite possibly just a sample of the wrong site. In fact it likely is something to worry about.
This all seems like it might be bad news, but it's not. We'd rather know all of this now, before she actually undergoes surgery, before we start treatment, before we think we're in the clear when we're only halfway out of the woods. Because honestly, if we never have to go through this again, that would be really, really ideal. Seriously. Never. Again.
And we left the longest day of appointments today not only better informed, but with a much higher confidence that we'll be getting the right treatment, that our odds of having to go through this ever again will be as low as we can get them, and that we're in good hands. What a difference a little bit more experience makes. So the point, the moral here, isn't necessarily that you should always get a second opinion (I don't think we would bother if we had started here), but rather that you should seek the best possible care that you can get. While I'm sure that this is true of other things in addition to cancer, it is especially true of cancer.
Alright, on to other news:
I'm ready for bed. Goodnight.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Waiting rooms
So this weekend was amazing. Sara and I have both been wallowing in the comfort of knowing just how many people have our backs (it's awesome). But now it's back to the grind of it all. I've been sitting alone in the waiting room at the University of Michigan breast cancer clinic for the past two hours. Two hours. I can only imagine where they've got Sara waiting, but I'm sure it's equally as fun.
At least I have my iPad. You have every right to hate that guy who sits around in public on his (or her) electronic devices looking like a pretentious tool. I hate that person, too. But today it happens to be me, and I'm so glad. Because without the Internet my options are Sports Illustrated and Better Homes and Gardens. Yep, I'm rambling.
We're here today for our second opinion. We're supposed to meet with a different surgeon who will tell us what he or she thinks is the smarter of our options and what the game plan might look like. And we're supposed to meet with a new oncologist, who will hopefully not assume that they know what every question we are going to ask is before we ask it. Don't get me wrong, our current oncologist is very nice and seems to know her stuff. But this one character trait is enough to drive someone crazy when the questions are so important. And then we'll meet with who knows whomever else.
But right now we are in breast imaging. I know that our current team already sent everything over but apparently they wanted to do it all again. I'm okay with that, but I wish I could go back there with her. At least for this part where I know she is probably just sitting in some sort of small room back there alone waiting herself for 95% of the time. And she doesn't even have an iPad to keep her company.
It's kind of comforting how unprofessional medical professionals can be (in a good way). I'm used to the people in medicine being kind of distant, but the more interactions that I have, the more everyone starts to seem like a person. I had a light hearted talk with one of the interns at the fertility clinic about the porn selection (it's not bad, he tells me), and now I know about the payroll technician's (the one here) career ambitions and the other guy (I don't know his name) is leaving soon to take a motorcycle safety course.
I suppose I like when these people start to look like humans because I hope it means that we look like humans to them. Although I want the people treating my wife to not be guided by emotion in any decision, I also don't want to feel like a product wherein our only function is to eventually lead to a paycheck. I think this is one of many problems with our healthcare system, every person and every illness is a dollar value. I like being humanized.
In the future I should refrain from writing blog entries from waiting rooms on my fake keyboard. It keeps attempting to make often hilarious typos (sorry if any got through), and it's too slow for me to make really coherent thoughts. Now I know.
Edit: typos (breast imagining?).
At least I have my iPad. You have every right to hate that guy who sits around in public on his (or her) electronic devices looking like a pretentious tool. I hate that person, too. But today it happens to be me, and I'm so glad. Because without the Internet my options are Sports Illustrated and Better Homes and Gardens. Yep, I'm rambling.
We're here today for our second opinion. We're supposed to meet with a different surgeon who will tell us what he or she thinks is the smarter of our options and what the game plan might look like. And we're supposed to meet with a new oncologist, who will hopefully not assume that they know what every question we are going to ask is before we ask it. Don't get me wrong, our current oncologist is very nice and seems to know her stuff. But this one character trait is enough to drive someone crazy when the questions are so important. And then we'll meet with who knows whomever else.
But right now we are in breast imaging. I know that our current team already sent everything over but apparently they wanted to do it all again. I'm okay with that, but I wish I could go back there with her. At least for this part where I know she is probably just sitting in some sort of small room back there alone waiting herself for 95% of the time. And she doesn't even have an iPad to keep her company.
It's kind of comforting how unprofessional medical professionals can be (in a good way). I'm used to the people in medicine being kind of distant, but the more interactions that I have, the more everyone starts to seem like a person. I had a light hearted talk with one of the interns at the fertility clinic about the porn selection (it's not bad, he tells me), and now I know about the payroll technician's (the one here) career ambitions and the other guy (I don't know his name) is leaving soon to take a motorcycle safety course.
I suppose I like when these people start to look like humans because I hope it means that we look like humans to them. Although I want the people treating my wife to not be guided by emotion in any decision, I also don't want to feel like a product wherein our only function is to eventually lead to a paycheck. I think this is one of many problems with our healthcare system, every person and every illness is a dollar value. I like being humanized.
In the future I should refrain from writing blog entries from waiting rooms on my fake keyboard. It keeps attempting to make often hilarious typos (sorry if any got through), and it's too slow for me to make really coherent thoughts. Now I know.
Edit: typos (breast imagining?).
Friday, July 20, 2012
Gratitude
I can't even begin to express the amount of gratitude I'm feeling today (Sara, too). We are so lucky to have the friends that we do. The amount of support that we have right now, the sheer size of the group adopting our cause,.. it's humbling. It's amazing. It quite literally brings tears to my eyes to know how many people have our back.
I can't believe that I once left this town feeling dejected and alone. You have made yourselves very clear. We are not alone. Thank you.
I know that the dust settling on this one is a long way off, but I'm already trying to imagine what I can do to pay it forward. I honestly believe that you can take the worst experiences in life and turn them into a net gain. All you have to do is try. I'd really like to do that here.
(I don't have a concluding paragraph. Also, I'm at work, and people are coming).
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Community
Just launched the fund drive. Really nervous about it. Not in the sense that I'm nervous about how much it will or will not generate (because I have to believe that one way or another, we will find a way to make this whole thing work). Just nervous about the idea of appealing to our friends for help. What is it about our culture that makes it so hard to ask for help? Everybody needs it sometimes, right?
Yet I can't help but fight this feeling like I did something wrong. Like you're not supposed to need help, you're supposed to figure everything out alone and make it work alone. I'm actually really glad that I can see through that, that I have the type of friends who expect me to see through that, because they actually mean it when they say that they're here for us. That's pretty awesome.
Yet I can't help but fight this feeling like I did something wrong. Like you're not supposed to need help, you're supposed to figure everything out alone and make it work alone. I'm actually really glad that I can see through that, that I have the type of friends who expect me to see through that, because they actually mean it when they say that they're here for us. That's pretty awesome.
tangential
So I'm abandoning the format of a themed blog. I mean, this is still going to document the whole of this experience, right? I just find it really difficult to come here and write when I know it's supposed to be about this one thing, especially when it's one thing that I generally have to force myself to think about even more in order to write a blog about it when the fact is that I would prefer to think about it somehow less.
I'm in the process of designing a bookshelf or bookshelves to replace the one in my living room. I'm trying to create a design that tells a story through math; wherein every ratio has a significance. Our anniversary here, a couple of birthdays there--that sort of thing. Getting them in there isn't that hard. It's the getting them in there while still maintaining a product that is aesthetically pleasing that gets kind of tricky. I know of the prevalence of the golden ratio ( x² = x + 1 ) in various construction and design projects, but this really makes me wonder how much more is written out there in a code that nobody's ever bothered to decipher. Did some clever engineer hide the name of an old lover in the shape of my headlights? Could be.
I'm in the process of designing a bookshelf or bookshelves to replace the one in my living room. I'm trying to create a design that tells a story through math; wherein every ratio has a significance. Our anniversary here, a couple of birthdays there--that sort of thing. Getting them in there isn't that hard. It's the getting them in there while still maintaining a product that is aesthetically pleasing that gets kind of tricky. I know of the prevalence of the golden ratio ( x² = x + 1 ) in various construction and design projects, but this really makes me wonder how much more is written out there in a code that nobody's ever bothered to decipher. Did some clever engineer hide the name of an old lover in the shape of my headlights? Could be.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Regularity
It's interesting how stress works. And how it vents. It's been about a month and things are starting to taper off. I have a lot on my plate. More even. But it's not impossible. And I think I'm past the pity party. These past few days have been characterized by being productive and spending time with friends. I will add exercise into that mix and perhaps a dash of creativity and in the end I will be better off than when I started. That is always the goal, after all, isn't it?
I really like math. Did you know that?
I really like math. Did you know that?
Friday, July 6, 2012
Insurance
Sara told me that if we didn’t have insurance she would not
have gotten her lump checked out. At least not when she did. This is all too
common. I have seen it cited numerous times (almost always pointing back to the
American Cancer Society) that people without insurance are three times more
likely to be diagnosed with cancer in a late stage. This, quite understandably,
is due to early screening.
The chances of surviving five years with Stage I breast
cancer and insurance is approximately 97%. Conversely, receiving a Stage IV
diagnosis with no insurance reduces those chances to less than 12% (http://bit.ly/MOYID8).
I sometimes hear opponents of universal healthcare say
something tantamount to “it’s their own fault. They are choosing not to spend
the money and therefore gambling with their health.” The implication that this
statement makes, the unspoken necessity for it to be a valid argument, is that
the people who have insurance are somehow of such different character that they
would not make the same decisions as the uninsured, were it that they
themselves were uninsured. This is quite obviously preposterous. Quit blaming
the victims.
Sara’s insurance comes through my job. In August of last
year we were married. I was supposed to start law school in September. I
didn’t. I considered starting in January, instead, but decided that this would
make it too hard to transfer to another school after I had completed the first
year. Rather, I changed jobs. It was actually my intention to quit in a month from now, to enjoy the end of the summer before starting law school this
fall. The point that I’m making is that the fact that we have insurance, the
fact that the cancer was caught in this tiny little window of the best possible
way this could have happened, it’s luck. It’s extreme luck.
I’m sick of people pretending that people who are insured
are somehow more entitled to quality care than people who aren’t. That they
somehow have made better life decisions, or are harder workers. Sara works ten
times as hard as I do, she always has. Yet here we are, with my insurance. So
be it.
I can’t tell you how lucky I feel. I can’t tell you how glad
I am that my life is not still plugging along at its normal hunky dory pace,
completely ignorant to the fact that there is a poison growing inside of my
wife which will, given around another year, emerge with a veracity that will
almost certainly end in disaster, in a tragedy of such magnitude as it breaks
my heart to even imagine. But that almost happened to us. And it does happen.
It happens every day to some unsuspecting couple where he loves his just as
much as I love mine. And they are no more deserving of it than I am. And I am
no more entitled to what is essentially this luck than they are. And I’m sick
of people pretending that they are. What makes you so fucking special?
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Anger
I've never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve. I believe that generally, even when people think that they know what I am feeling, it is only insofar as I want them to know what I am feeling. Overall I would say that people probably think that I am a far easier read than is the case. So it is with full understanding that the following is my own doing, that I am fully responsible for my present situation.
I don't know who to turn to for support. There is a general overwhelming showing of people who are more than willing to offer said support, but a fairly lackluster turnout of people who know how.
When I was away it was just a matter of time before I learned to replace my social dependencies with an internal support system. I was alone. That was the way it was. Just deal with the problem and move on. But being back here. Being around people that I care about deeply. It's just so hard to accept that this is the way it is. Just deal with it and move on. Sometimes I feel like one of those people in that nightmare situation where they are awake and fully aware of their surroundings, but have no way whatsoever to communicate with anyone around them.
I don't want to talk about it. I really don't. I don't want to look you, or anyone in the eye, and have the conversation about what's going on. But I still want you to reinforce that you can hear me. That you are all my family. And I want you to have a better idea of who I really am. Of how I actually feel. That's what this is all about. I can sit here, and I can write it down. This is my therapy. But it only works if I know you're listening. This is all so pointless if I am just talking to myself.
Typically there is one person that I have somehow, miraculously, managed to teach the secret code. The official language of the men in my family, communicated entirely through subtle body language and eye contact. It's a language that can only be read through empathy. But right now that person is having a hard enough go of it as it is, and I can't vent.
I am always a somewhat angry person. I have a very hard time dealing with people's utter lack of compassion for one another. My response to the overall lack of empathy that other people seem to display every single day is, somewhat ironically, anger.
Don't get me wrong. I know that there is a level of hypocrisy at work here. It's impossible to be human without being flawed. I know that I occasionally drive erratically, or that I also occasionally have too much to drink at the bar. I know that I probably do a slew of things that annoy others, but here's the thing. I try, really, really hard, to consider those around me. I attempt to consider the people who have to clean up after me, the people who have to wait behind me because I am making an illegal left-hand turn, the people at the other table who are just trying to have a conversation. So when other people, when seemingly all the other people, don't have these considerations, I get upset. Why does anybody pretend that it's the Golden Rule? It's obviously far less valuable than that.
In the past, I've been able to vent. I've been able to let it go. I move on. Lately, though, I swear it's just building and building like a little pressure cooker. I know that this is the result of several factors. I know that quitting smoking makes people irritable. I know that my wife having cancer is an added stressor. The same is true of all of the extra work, the compressed schedule in anticipation of law school, and the nightmare that I now know law school will be. None of these things help. But I swear to you, dear reader, I was starting to feel this way even before any of this happened. Now why is that?
Here's what I need: companions. I need people to help me not take things so seriously, even serious things. And I need to know that you know. I need your feedback.
I don't know who to turn to for support. There is a general overwhelming showing of people who are more than willing to offer said support, but a fairly lackluster turnout of people who know how.
When I was away it was just a matter of time before I learned to replace my social dependencies with an internal support system. I was alone. That was the way it was. Just deal with the problem and move on. But being back here. Being around people that I care about deeply. It's just so hard to accept that this is the way it is. Just deal with it and move on. Sometimes I feel like one of those people in that nightmare situation where they are awake and fully aware of their surroundings, but have no way whatsoever to communicate with anyone around them.
I don't want to talk about it. I really don't. I don't want to look you, or anyone in the eye, and have the conversation about what's going on. But I still want you to reinforce that you can hear me. That you are all my family. And I want you to have a better idea of who I really am. Of how I actually feel. That's what this is all about. I can sit here, and I can write it down. This is my therapy. But it only works if I know you're listening. This is all so pointless if I am just talking to myself.
Typically there is one person that I have somehow, miraculously, managed to teach the secret code. The official language of the men in my family, communicated entirely through subtle body language and eye contact. It's a language that can only be read through empathy. But right now that person is having a hard enough go of it as it is, and I can't vent.
I am always a somewhat angry person. I have a very hard time dealing with people's utter lack of compassion for one another. My response to the overall lack of empathy that other people seem to display every single day is, somewhat ironically, anger.
Don't get me wrong. I know that there is a level of hypocrisy at work here. It's impossible to be human without being flawed. I know that I occasionally drive erratically, or that I also occasionally have too much to drink at the bar. I know that I probably do a slew of things that annoy others, but here's the thing. I try, really, really hard, to consider those around me. I attempt to consider the people who have to clean up after me, the people who have to wait behind me because I am making an illegal left-hand turn, the people at the other table who are just trying to have a conversation. So when other people, when seemingly all the other people, don't have these considerations, I get upset. Why does anybody pretend that it's the Golden Rule? It's obviously far less valuable than that.
In the past, I've been able to vent. I've been able to let it go. I move on. Lately, though, I swear it's just building and building like a little pressure cooker. I know that this is the result of several factors. I know that quitting smoking makes people irritable. I know that my wife having cancer is an added stressor. The same is true of all of the extra work, the compressed schedule in anticipation of law school, and the nightmare that I now know law school will be. None of these things help. But I swear to you, dear reader, I was starting to feel this way even before any of this happened. Now why is that?
Here's what I need: companions. I need people to help me not take things so seriously, even serious things. And I need to know that you know. I need your feedback.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Lessons
I think I'm starting to understand why the oncologist told us that some people experience PTSD when the dust settles after cancer. It is stressful. This is not my cancer, but it is certainly taking it's toll. I'm glad that she doesn't have even more on her plate.
I was in the military. I went to Iraq. I did not experience any kind of post traumatic anything. I also deployed into the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If anything were going to scar me, I think that would have been it. I'm glad it ended when it did, I'm not sure what it would have done to me had I stayed even longer. Throughout both of those experiences, in fact, throughout my entire enlistment, there were a couple of lessons that helped.
Learn to (quickly) identify that you are not in control. It sounds simple, because it makes total sense. But it is not simple. Instincts often want to take over in a high stress environment. Sometimes, though, there's absolutely nothing you can do. Sometimes you just have to hang on for the ride and trust that it's all going to work out, that the people who are in control of the situation have some idea of what they are doing. This rule applies to riding in helicopters, amusement park rides, and cancer. The tricky part about this rule is that sometimes, even though you have accepted that you are not in control, you still have a job to do. Sometimes you have to make sure that the logistics are laid out. Sometimes you have to make decisions, or aid in those decisions. Sometimes you want to second guess everything.
When I was in training for SERE we spent a lot of time focusing on the POW experience. I'm having a hard time right now remembering where these principles first came up, but I think it was in watching a video interview with a former Vietnamese prisoner, likely Floyd Thompson. (If it was Thompson, it is important to note that the man was held as a POW in Vietnam for NINE years. Think about that.)
(Have you thought about it? Really? Okay)
The person being interviewed was asked how he managed to keep his sanity and not be "broken" for while being held in captivity for such a long period and what advice he would give to anybody else in a similar situation. His advice has helped me cope with every low period I've had since.
Always hold out hope. Know that it's going to end. In the POW situation, know that you are either going to get rescued, escape, or the war is eventually going to end. You will someday return to the life you've left behind. It's important not to give up. The same thing holds true with cancer. It's a long way off, but someday this mess is going to be behind us. Someday we're going to be the one's giving this advice to others who are going through what we are going through now, and we're going to be so grateful that it's not us going through it again, and we're going to remember what it was like.
Don't set deadlines. While it's important to know that the situation is going to end, it is just as important not to set timetables. The person in the interview recounted how he knew so many people who said things like "six months" or "this will all be over by Christmas." When those events passed and the situation hadn't changed, it was too much to bare. It broke their will.
I know that this will end. I know that this Summer is going to be hard. I know that the months immediately following will be hard. But I also know that, eventually, it will all get better. I know that while these things seem almost insurmountable now, these hard things will become second hat (that's a saying, right?), and then eventually they will fade.
I am grateful for these lessons.
I was in the military. I went to Iraq. I did not experience any kind of post traumatic anything. I also deployed into the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If anything were going to scar me, I think that would have been it. I'm glad it ended when it did, I'm not sure what it would have done to me had I stayed even longer. Throughout both of those experiences, in fact, throughout my entire enlistment, there were a couple of lessons that helped.
Learn to (quickly) identify that you are not in control. It sounds simple, because it makes total sense. But it is not simple. Instincts often want to take over in a high stress environment. Sometimes, though, there's absolutely nothing you can do. Sometimes you just have to hang on for the ride and trust that it's all going to work out, that the people who are in control of the situation have some idea of what they are doing. This rule applies to riding in helicopters, amusement park rides, and cancer. The tricky part about this rule is that sometimes, even though you have accepted that you are not in control, you still have a job to do. Sometimes you have to make sure that the logistics are laid out. Sometimes you have to make decisions, or aid in those decisions. Sometimes you want to second guess everything.
When I was in training for SERE we spent a lot of time focusing on the POW experience. I'm having a hard time right now remembering where these principles first came up, but I think it was in watching a video interview with a former Vietnamese prisoner, likely Floyd Thompson. (If it was Thompson, it is important to note that the man was held as a POW in Vietnam for NINE years. Think about that.)
(Have you thought about it? Really? Okay)
The person being interviewed was asked how he managed to keep his sanity and not be "broken" for while being held in captivity for such a long period and what advice he would give to anybody else in a similar situation. His advice has helped me cope with every low period I've had since.
Always hold out hope. Know that it's going to end. In the POW situation, know that you are either going to get rescued, escape, or the war is eventually going to end. You will someday return to the life you've left behind. It's important not to give up. The same thing holds true with cancer. It's a long way off, but someday this mess is going to be behind us. Someday we're going to be the one's giving this advice to others who are going through what we are going through now, and we're going to be so grateful that it's not us going through it again, and we're going to remember what it was like.
Don't set deadlines. While it's important to know that the situation is going to end, it is just as important not to set timetables. The person in the interview recounted how he knew so many people who said things like "six months" or "this will all be over by Christmas." When those events passed and the situation hadn't changed, it was too much to bare. It broke their will.
I know that this will end. I know that this Summer is going to be hard. I know that the months immediately following will be hard. But I also know that, eventually, it will all get better. I know that while these things seem almost insurmountable now, these hard things will become second hat (that's a saying, right?), and then eventually they will fade.
I am grateful for these lessons.
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Credibility
DISCLAIMER: It's not my intention to politicize this blog. But an unforeseen consequence of our situation is that it is suddenly so very apparent what effect group decisions (ie. laws) are having on our lives, and potentially could on anybody's.
Yesterday was our first meeting with the oncologist. Although it was informative, a lot is still in the air and pending the results of her second biopsy (results which should be gotten today), so I don't have much to say about "the plan" just yet. But I noticed something peculiar. And it helped me put my finger on something that has bothered me for a long time.
DOCTOR: Hello, I'm the Doctor. And you must be the Patient? And this must be your... (and this is where it happened) husband?
PATIENT: Yes, this is my husband, Jason. (Note: my wife hasn't been using her name over at her blog. I'm not sure if that's intentional or it just hasn't come up. But until I clear it with her, I'm not going to, either. I do, however, have no problem using mine)
DOCTOR: Oh. And how long have you been married?
You probably didn't catch what happened there. It's a hard thing to document in written dialogue, and I'm not even sure my wife caught it while she was actually there. So I'll tell you. The oncologist wanted to know who I was. She wanted to know how important it was to address me and make sure that I was as equally informed as The Patient. Even after establishing that we were married, she wanted to know for how long to better help her establish an answer to this question. There was only a split second where it was obvious to me that this question was more than just innocent small talk, but it was enough.
In relaying this story to a friend last night, she got upset that a doctor might even attempt to make that consideration, that it is none of their business. While I certainly understand this point of view. I don't necessarily agree. Our oncologist has probably helped billions and billions of cancer patients. And each time she meets them for the first time, they are likely to invariably have brought along some sort of emotional support. It's only natural for our oncologist to have seen the entire range of the gamut, from spouses and siblings, to neighbors. And it's not all the same.
Here's the part that matters: she was establishing my credibility. She was trying to do it in a way that didn't make it apparent to me (even though she failed) that she was calling into question my credibility, and thus it had to happen quickly. Two tiny bits of information. Married. One year. That's all she needed. I did not say "We've been married for about a year but were together long before that. In fact, we first started dating ten years ago, even though we were not together when I enlisted." That would be a more accurate representation of my credibility.
What I'm getting at is that I've always wanted to buy into the ideal that "marriage is institutionalized." That marriage is unnecessary. That if you really love somebody then "you don't need a piece of paper to tell you to love them." That is most certainly true. But marriage lends credibility to others. It allows complete strangers to make a quick and accurate picture of just who this person is in your life. By only telling the doctor that we've been married for just one year I bought more credibility than if we were boyfriend and girlfriend and told her that we'd been together for ten.
That's why it's important. That's why marriage is a right. That's why every person alive should get to have the ability to say, "This is my partner. This is who I love and am going to spend the rest of life with, and this is who I want you to respect as my partner, and give all necessary information to. And share pertinent decision-making details, because this is who is going to be helping me make those decisions. I trust this person more than anybody else. And so you should trust them, too."
Everybody should have this right. Everybody. And it shouldn't be trivialized.
Yesterday was our first meeting with the oncologist. Although it was informative, a lot is still in the air and pending the results of her second biopsy (results which should be gotten today), so I don't have much to say about "the plan" just yet. But I noticed something peculiar. And it helped me put my finger on something that has bothered me for a long time.
DOCTOR: Hello, I'm the Doctor. And you must be the Patient? And this must be your... (and this is where it happened) husband?
PATIENT: Yes, this is my husband, Jason. (Note: my wife hasn't been using her name over at her blog. I'm not sure if that's intentional or it just hasn't come up. But until I clear it with her, I'm not going to, either. I do, however, have no problem using mine)
DOCTOR: Oh. And how long have you been married?
You probably didn't catch what happened there. It's a hard thing to document in written dialogue, and I'm not even sure my wife caught it while she was actually there. So I'll tell you. The oncologist wanted to know who I was. She wanted to know how important it was to address me and make sure that I was as equally informed as The Patient. Even after establishing that we were married, she wanted to know for how long to better help her establish an answer to this question. There was only a split second where it was obvious to me that this question was more than just innocent small talk, but it was enough.
In relaying this story to a friend last night, she got upset that a doctor might even attempt to make that consideration, that it is none of their business. While I certainly understand this point of view. I don't necessarily agree. Our oncologist has probably helped billions and billions of cancer patients. And each time she meets them for the first time, they are likely to invariably have brought along some sort of emotional support. It's only natural for our oncologist to have seen the entire range of the gamut, from spouses and siblings, to neighbors. And it's not all the same.
Here's the part that matters: she was establishing my credibility. She was trying to do it in a way that didn't make it apparent to me (even though she failed) that she was calling into question my credibility, and thus it had to happen quickly. Two tiny bits of information. Married. One year. That's all she needed. I did not say "We've been married for about a year but were together long before that. In fact, we first started dating ten years ago, even though we were not together when I enlisted." That would be a more accurate representation of my credibility.
What I'm getting at is that I've always wanted to buy into the ideal that "marriage is institutionalized." That marriage is unnecessary. That if you really love somebody then "you don't need a piece of paper to tell you to love them." That is most certainly true. But marriage lends credibility to others. It allows complete strangers to make a quick and accurate picture of just who this person is in your life. By only telling the doctor that we've been married for just one year I bought more credibility than if we were boyfriend and girlfriend and told her that we'd been together for ten.
That's why it's important. That's why marriage is a right. That's why every person alive should get to have the ability to say, "This is my partner. This is who I love and am going to spend the rest of life with, and this is who I want you to respect as my partner, and give all necessary information to. And share pertinent decision-making details, because this is who is going to be helping me make those decisions. I trust this person more than anybody else. And so you should trust them, too."
Everybody should have this right. Everybody. And it shouldn't be trivialized.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
silly fears..
Tomorrow is our first meeting with The Cancer Team. With any luck, this is when we get some answers. This is when we find out how bad it isn't and what the game plan is. This is when we get some sort of idea of what the next x months of our lives are going to look like and what to expect. Which means that tonight is the last chance that I have to post about all of my worries before they are alleviated (because, deep down, against my better judgement, I'm an optimist).
I worry about losing her. Which is silly, because we've already been basically told that this isn't going to happen (it hasn't been ruled out outright, but it seems pretty far-fetched at this point). That's good, but then I worry things like "what if this is the first in a series of cancers and illness that spirals down until the worst." I think about how I would be lost without her. About how, even though we've been together for years, and only married for one, every day she becomes more and more a part of me. Especially over this past year. I think about the fact that I don't think there will ever be anyone that gets it. I think about how I wouldn't have the effort.
I wonder what I would do. I think that what I would like to do is leave the country. Leave it all behind me and utterly change my lifestyle to the point that it's not even recognizable and bury myself somewhere...else. But I know that this is not what I would actually do. What I would actually do is bury myself in books. I would knock the crap out of law school, not bothering to take note of anything else along the way. I would knock the crap out of the beginning of my career. I would conquer. And realizing that this is what I would do helps me to realize that this is what I should do, anyway. Without completely burying myself. But maybe I need to focus more on things that matter, and less on video games. So that when she is better, we can eventually fulfill the sorts of potentials that we possess, because otherwise what's the point?
I realize that the thought of losing her is far fetched. I am so glad it is. But I find it impossible not to consider in this situation.
The next worry is that we may not be able to have children. I have to admit that this thought bothers me more than I thought it would. It is still not so much that I would mind terribly, I've always thought that adoption was a perfectly acceptable and much needed option. But I know how important it is to her. And I've gotten used to the idea that that's what was going to happen, I built up this little image in my head, this fantasy plan about how it would all go, and so it's hard to let go of that.
Add to that the understanding of how important it is to her. I know that this would be a devastating blow, and I'm scared of what kind of impact this would have on her. I also feel somehow responsible. In the sense that, although neither one of us has been really ready (who is, right?), it's been me that's more or less been saying "not until the first year of law school is done," since I had the inclination to go to law school. Every year she gets a bit more baby crazy, and every year I delay.
Another fear is a mastectomy. This for numerous reasons. The first being her well being. I don't really know what kind of an impact something like that would have on her. How could anybody. What will it do to her self image? To her sex drive? How do I reassure her that I'm going to think she's sexy no matter what (I do know this. Which is comforting. It's the kind of thing that you think about in some weird thought experiment and you hope the answer is noble, but you never really know until you're faced with a certain predicament.)
If that happens, what will I think about it. Right now I am very confident that I don't really care. If my wife's breast is a threat to her continued existence, then breast be damned. Seriously. But also, let's face it, I'm a man. What would it be like after the fact? Hopefully we don't have to find out. But I'm trying to be prepared just in case we do.
The last big concern is of a financial nature. It's not as bad as it could be. Thanks to insurance, we won't have to worry about bankruptcy. But things are going to be rough, for a while anyway. Just when we should be starting to recover from it all, the fiscal year is going to roll over, and it all starts again. Hurrah.
That's it. Those are the main fears that I have. Tomorrow, with luck, they will mostly be put to rest.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
the worst part
My wife has cancer.
It's so surreal. Even saying those words doesn't seem to fit. As though I'm using them in entirely the wrong fashion. It is precisely the opposite feeling of adjusting to calling her my wife for the first time, instead of "girlfriend." At first it is totally alien and then each time I try it on it gets more and more familiar until, at some point, it flows off of my tongue naturally. I don't want it to ever flow off of my tongue naturally. My wife has cancer.
We only found out last Monday. That was eight days ago. Which means that nine days ago our lives were normal. Crazy. I mean, sure, we knew there was a lump. But that didn't really sink in with any serious gravity. At least, not for me. There was a lump. People get lumps, don't they? All the time and they turn out to be nothing. My wife is only 28. Her family has no history of breast cancer. She was a little worried, in the same way that I often worry that every chest pain is an undiagnosed heart problem and that every tinge of pain in my nether is a hernia. I sometimes worry that I'm a hypochondriac, which is exactly the sort of thing a hypochondriac might worry about, really. But every time I get any of these little worries checked out, they inevitably turn out to be nothing. This is the luxury of youth. Not anymore.
So yeah. I didn't think she had anything to worry about. And I wasn't worried. I wasn't even really worried when they told her to come in for a biopsy. People get those all the time, too. There was still a huge chance that it was nothing. It was when we got there that I started to worry. Sitting in the little waiting room (they don't let you go back with the patient) listening to horrible elevator music reading awful People Magazine, that's when the first pangs of worry began to settle in. This is where lives change. This is where your life is going to change. I wanted to ignore that voice, but I heard it then. Before any results. Waiting to find out, that was the worst part.
But it didn't stay the worst part. I had left her sleeping when I headed out to work Monday morning. I was probably only in the office for around a half hour when she called. I saw it was her on the caller ID and I swiped to accept the call and nervously put the phone to my ear. I knew that I would know from her tone before she even said anything as to what the answer was. I hoped for the best.
I couldn't understand her words through her tears, but I knew what she said. It was positive. I told her to sit tight, that I would be home as fast as I could be. I was. She was sitting on our back porch when I came home. I opened the gate and came around the fence and she greeted me with a sobbing hug. We were both crying. That was the worst part.
I was surprised by Monday afternoon at how quickly we had seemed to come to terms with our new life-altering predicament. The tears were gone. The first cancer jokes were not long to follow, and we faced the fact that we really didn't know a whole lot and would just have to wait until our first doctor's appointment the following morning. Waiting was going to feel like an eternity and that sucked. And then I had to call my mom and tell her and that really sucked. I thought I was handling it just fine, that we were all done with the emotionality of it. And then I had to say those words for the first time. I had to hear myself saying them. I had to deal with the reaction of my mother hearing them for the first time. That was the absolute worst. And then, as the days went by, as we became more and more used to the idea that we were living with cancer, we still had to tell our friends and other family. And no matter how used to the idea I may tell myself that I am, hearing the shock and sadness in someone else's voice, or seeing it in their eyes, keeps taking me back to the first time I heard it. And it doesn't get any easier to tell someone.
And now here we are. Called back for another biopsy because the results of the MRI were "troubling," and we start this whole process again. Because you know what's worse than cancer? More cancer.
So it turns out that the truly worst part is that it's all so terrible, that every new experience is worse than the last one, and that we haven't even left the gate yet.
Somehow as I write this I realize how awfully pessimistic it all sounds, and I didn't mean for that to happen. I'd say that overall we are quite optimistic, even grateful. I'm grateful that I have a job with insurance, and that we are married and she is covered (more on how unfair that really is later). I'm grateful that I get to be there for her through this, as odd as that is to say and it's hard for me to figure out a way to explain what I mean. I'm grateful for her, for how strong she is and incredible really. I'm grateful for all of our friends and the support that they have offered up and will undoubtedly have to muster in the future. I'm grateful for our marriage. It gets stronger every day.
It's so surreal. Even saying those words doesn't seem to fit. As though I'm using them in entirely the wrong fashion. It is precisely the opposite feeling of adjusting to calling her my wife for the first time, instead of "girlfriend." At first it is totally alien and then each time I try it on it gets more and more familiar until, at some point, it flows off of my tongue naturally. I don't want it to ever flow off of my tongue naturally. My wife has cancer.
We only found out last Monday. That was eight days ago. Which means that nine days ago our lives were normal. Crazy. I mean, sure, we knew there was a lump. But that didn't really sink in with any serious gravity. At least, not for me. There was a lump. People get lumps, don't they? All the time and they turn out to be nothing. My wife is only 28. Her family has no history of breast cancer. She was a little worried, in the same way that I often worry that every chest pain is an undiagnosed heart problem and that every tinge of pain in my nether is a hernia. I sometimes worry that I'm a hypochondriac, which is exactly the sort of thing a hypochondriac might worry about, really. But every time I get any of these little worries checked out, they inevitably turn out to be nothing. This is the luxury of youth. Not anymore.
So yeah. I didn't think she had anything to worry about. And I wasn't worried. I wasn't even really worried when they told her to come in for a biopsy. People get those all the time, too. There was still a huge chance that it was nothing. It was when we got there that I started to worry. Sitting in the little waiting room (they don't let you go back with the patient) listening to horrible elevator music reading awful People Magazine, that's when the first pangs of worry began to settle in. This is where lives change. This is where your life is going to change. I wanted to ignore that voice, but I heard it then. Before any results. Waiting to find out, that was the worst part.
But it didn't stay the worst part. I had left her sleeping when I headed out to work Monday morning. I was probably only in the office for around a half hour when she called. I saw it was her on the caller ID and I swiped to accept the call and nervously put the phone to my ear. I knew that I would know from her tone before she even said anything as to what the answer was. I hoped for the best.
I couldn't understand her words through her tears, but I knew what she said. It was positive. I told her to sit tight, that I would be home as fast as I could be. I was. She was sitting on our back porch when I came home. I opened the gate and came around the fence and she greeted me with a sobbing hug. We were both crying. That was the worst part.
I was surprised by Monday afternoon at how quickly we had seemed to come to terms with our new life-altering predicament. The tears were gone. The first cancer jokes were not long to follow, and we faced the fact that we really didn't know a whole lot and would just have to wait until our first doctor's appointment the following morning. Waiting was going to feel like an eternity and that sucked. And then I had to call my mom and tell her and that really sucked. I thought I was handling it just fine, that we were all done with the emotionality of it. And then I had to say those words for the first time. I had to hear myself saying them. I had to deal with the reaction of my mother hearing them for the first time. That was the absolute worst. And then, as the days went by, as we became more and more used to the idea that we were living with cancer, we still had to tell our friends and other family. And no matter how used to the idea I may tell myself that I am, hearing the shock and sadness in someone else's voice, or seeing it in their eyes, keeps taking me back to the first time I heard it. And it doesn't get any easier to tell someone.
And now here we are. Called back for another biopsy because the results of the MRI were "troubling," and we start this whole process again. Because you know what's worse than cancer? More cancer.
So it turns out that the truly worst part is that it's all so terrible, that every new experience is worse than the last one, and that we haven't even left the gate yet.
Somehow as I write this I realize how awfully pessimistic it all sounds, and I didn't mean for that to happen. I'd say that overall we are quite optimistic, even grateful. I'm grateful that I have a job with insurance, and that we are married and she is covered (more on how unfair that really is later). I'm grateful that I get to be there for her through this, as odd as that is to say and it's hard for me to figure out a way to explain what I mean. I'm grateful for her, for how strong she is and incredible really. I'm grateful for all of our friends and the support that they have offered up and will undoubtedly have to muster in the future. I'm grateful for our marriage. It gets stronger every day.
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