Hope

If hope was something tangible, something you could see with your eyes, what would it look like to you? Would it be "a ray" or "a flicker"...would it "float"...would it possibly look like a diamond?

What would hope look like to you?

A short story

So you are newly married. When you arrive home from a fantastic honeymoon you and your knight in shining armour begin house hunting. Soon you find the perfect house. It is a darling little farm house with a small garden. You can absolutely picture you and your stud-muffin, pookie shmookie, honey pumpkin, living there forever and ever.
Every day you will rise, and the smell of fresh baked bread will fill your home, and you will have 3 beautiful kids, and you will be out early tending to your garden full of fresh vegetables and magnificent flowers that you will cut daily for the vase in the center of your kitchen table.

WAIT! WHAT WAS THAT?! A ANT? You follow it to a small hole in the wall and discover all his little ant friends...so you call the "ant guy" and he quickly resolves your ant problem. So you return to your kitchen where you have spent the day canning peaches...huge delicious peaches, and you feel a drop of water hit the top of your head. Oh no...not the plumbing...oh yes, the plumbing. So you call the "pipe guy" and he repairs your pipes and life is good again.
Good grief, what is that smell? Someone needs to find where that smell is coming from. So you send your oldest child, a son, his name is....Jethro...after your husband's great great grandfather's brother.... to scout out the smell. During his quest he finds black mold...asbestos..and lead paint. He was able to identify all these things because he is home schooled.
So you call the "mold, asbestos and lead paint guy" and he tells you that your home must be gutted. A tear slowly slides down your cheek but you know he is right. In order for your family to survive and be healthy your house has to be gutted.

It is hard to believe. You never thought, after 20 years, you would be dealing with this. So you call the "home cleaner outer guy" and he takes the house apart.
You turn your head because it is too hard to watch...in fact, you leave, using your free Mileage Plus tickets, and you take your kids to a dude ranch in Montana and you spend some time there....roasting marshmallows...
When you come home, you can't believe your eyes. Your farmhouse is more beautiful than ever. There is fresh lead free paint, new windows that let in more light, and everything inside is new except for two hand made chairs that you received as a wedding gift. The builder thought to leave them there just to remind you of how you felt when you were first married.
That night, as you lie in bed, you realize that you are grateful, and though it was hard to watch your house torn up...the result is something far more beautiful.

Side effects

Although I am not really prepared to talk about it, last weekend was very difficult.
Cancer can be very devastating to families and relationships.

Doctor Doppler

I went to the Dr. yesterday. It was my regular monthly appointment. When I arrive I walk right to the front desk and print my name on a clipboard and check the box that says I am not presently in a nursing facility. Then I take a seat in the waiting area. Yesterday the waiting area was packed. It made me wonder if they knew something I didn't....like we were going to have some giant weather related crisis..or road construction was going to close all roads going to the hospital..or someone famous was coming to town so they all wanted to get their appointments out of the way so they would be free to see Mr. or Mrs. or even Miss Famous.
After a few minutes Dan calls my name and I hustle back to have my blood taken. Dan is awesome and somehow finds a gusher every time.
Afterward it's back to the waiting area. Then Patty calls my name...I take off my shoes and weigh myself...she always laughs that I take off my shoes...C'mon ladies...don't we all take off our shoes before we weigh?
Then it's back to the exam room. The door is usually open and I can watch my Dr. juggling patients and scans and hospital calls and x-rays always with a smile and a smidgen of sarcasm...I LOVE my Dr. I don't LOVE LOVE my Dr. I just Love my Dr. Every time he walks in the room he grabs my hand and asks me how I am...not clinically but because he really cares.
Next we review medicine and symptoms and side effects and upcoming scans and previous scans etc. Yesterday we discussed the side effects of the chemo pills I am taking and he warned me that my fingernails can fall off. WHAT? The whole nail? Yes, the whole nail. This sounded so painful and inconvenient. How am I supposed to pick up all the pennies I find on the ground, that when added up may someday help me pay for a quarter tank of gas to get me to these regular monthly appointments? Or how do I scratch something when it itches? He didn't have any answers for me but he did tell me that my red blood cell count was 34 (my mom says 35 but I swear I heard him say 34) and my "hemopoptillyosisssssisisss" number was 19, which is just under halfway to normal but better than last month.
We also discussed my big fat ankle that is tiny and dainty and feminine when I wake in the morning, but by exactly 9a.m. it's big and manly and swollen and I am limited to just my "practical" shoes... : ( So my Dr., whom I LOVE, sent me off for a Doppler test to see if there might be a blood clot in my leg...talk about inconvenient.
So Mom and I weave our way through the sea of patients and caregivers, find my assigned recliner and for the next hour or so I eat a bran muffin and have my IV infusion of good important medicine.

Wow, this is a long post...are you getting bored? Sorry..you can hop on facebook if you need to or check your email...I won't be offended...

After the infusion we head to the Doppler office and for the next hour a technician did an ultrasound of all the big veins in my legs and abdomen, talking into a microphone, saying things like...distal and flow and compressable and pulsatory (I may have made up the last one) Anyway, no clots but I do have "venous insufficientitis" in my left leg...

Finally I was on the freeway headed home, illegally talking on my phone while I drove and as expected, forgetting to pick up grain.

I better go, it's 8:00 and if I hurry I can wear my cute shoes while I go and buy some grain

Back by popular demand

"Outback" in Anacortes (posted 2/08)

Recently our local hospital did some remodeling.I do believe, after spending some time there yesterday, that they hired the crack team of designers from the Outback Steakhouse to create their new foyer and check-in system. You see, my Dr.'s office called yesterday and the Dr. would like me to have my blood drawn again just to double check some results. The office is located about 1.5 hours away so the easiest thing to do was to go to my local hospital and have my blood drawn there and send the results to my Dr.'s office. Doesn't that sound simple? I thought so too! So I set off to the newly remodeled hospital. I pulled into the updated and now very distant parking lot and made my way to the door. With a loud swoosh the doors opened to......nothing....kinda like the space where the shopping carts go when you first walk in to Fred Meyer....it was like that...but there was nothing there, no gumball machine, no hot tamales, no plastic rings nothing....... So I head down the hallway....a very long hallway..... passing a desk for Emergency Check In....thank goodness I wasn't bleeding or had a full bladder....I mean why isn't the ER desk in the open area Fred Meyer part? You know, close to the door?
Next to the ER check in was a big sandwich board sign that said "All other check in" with a large arrow and instructions to go to the blue light. I follow the sign and look for the K-mart style blue light...right? It said to go to the blue light. Passing desk after desk I saw no blue light.....then around the corner there is another desk with a large , elongated blue glass chandelier suspended from the ceiling dropping low and sexy over the desk. I stop. A small sign approximately 4 feet from the desk read "For the privacy of our patients, please stand behind this sign." A gentleman stood in front of the sign, presumably in the cone of silence, answering the questions asked him by the woman behind the desk. After overhearing his name, number, insurance carrier, and when he had his last bowel movement, it was my turn. "Hello, and what are we here for?" asked the woman. "I am here to have some blood drawn" I answer. "Do you have your paperwork?" "No, my Dr. just called it in about 30 minutes ago" I replied. "Called it in??????" her face squnched into a confused expression. "Let me check" she said as she turned to a small cardboard box that used to be a large cardboard box containing Scott toilet paper at Costco and had been cut down to hold faxes from Dr.'s offices. She pulled out a piece of paper "Your name?" "Laurie." "Your birthday?" "September 28." "Is this it?" she asks, showing me a fax from last February. "Uhhhh, no...this is from last February" I answer. "Well, maybe it's upstairs. I will call and check." She dials a sequence of numbers and begins to tap her fingers on the desk beneath the low, sexy, blue chandelier. "Hello?.....Is this upstairs or downstairs? Ok" and she sets the receiver down. What? What do you mean is this upstairs or downstairs? Is there only one phone? Or two extensions and if the wrong floor answers you have to hang up and dial again hoping that the person on the desired floor is a little quicker on the draw next time???
Staring at the phone briefly the woman then suggests we call the Dr.'s office and ask them to fax the information to her station. Sounds reasonable to me and I hand her the Dr.'s card. She picks it up and her hand reaches toward the receiver ......"OH!" she says with great concern. "This is a long distance number. Do you have a cell phone that we can make this call on?" "Are you kidding?" the voice inside my head responds while my mouth utters "No." "Well, I am going to have to get permission to call long distance...just a minute" she says as she spins out of her chair and heads off to who knows where. As I watch her head down the long hallway I lean back in my chair under the soft glow of the blue glass chandelier and wait.
After a while she reappears and reaches for the receiver, punches the number in, not sure of whether or not she should have dialed 9 first , and then shakes her head and rolls her eyes like this is somehow putting her out. She instructs the person on the other end of the line to fax the information to her and ,unable to remember the fax number, scrambles for a hospital business card. Placing the receiver back in it's place she instructs me to sit on the green sofa while she waits for the fax. I glance to the right and arranged living room style are two green sofas, a large leather ottoman and two stripped chairs with built in end tables. The chairs were directly across from the sofa and looked far more comfortable, but I began to wonder what kind of rule I would be breaking if I chose the chair over the green sofa I was instructed to sit in.....would she be able to find me? Would I have to go to the end of the line? As I stood in the midst of my dilemma she approached me with a slip of paper and a buzzer.....like the ones at Outback Steakhouse. "When the buzzer goes off I will tell you which desk you need to go
to-bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... Uhhhh desk number 1" ,she says as she points to the chair 3 feet from the chair I was just sitting in. After taking two steps to the left I sit in the next chair and begin the process again, this time with a woman wearing a name tag that read "Check In Specialist". "Your name?" asked the specialist....."Laurie, has any of your information changed?" "Ok then," she said handing me the same buzzer, "Please have a seat on the green sofa and when this buzzer goes off someone will come out and get you." What a relief to be in the hands of a specialist during this difficult time of disclosure I thought to myself. And why did they even buy the comfortable looking chairs if we aren't allowed to sit in them?
Within microseconds of sitting down the buzzer vibrates, makes a loud noise and 6 or8 little red lights begin to flash at random. So I look around.....no one is coming to get me......tapping my foot I look left and right and still there is no one. Blue chandelier woman gets up and heads over to me and with more than a bit of frustration in her voice says, "The woman down there is waiting for you" and she points to a woman on the other side of the building, standing there silently, with a white lab coat and a clipboard, standing next to a few dozen other hospital employees in white lab coats with clipboards.... like I was somehow supposed to know without hearing my name.....which they can't say out loud evidently, due to HIPA laws....hence the elaborate Outback Steakhouse buzzer system...that this particular employee , 50 feet away, was waiting for me.
After thanking blue chandelier woman, I walk to lab coat woman. "Please place your buzzer in the bin" she instructs. I look down and see a wire basket full of Outback Steakhouse buzzers and wonder briefly if they have hired someone solely to collect the buzzers and deliver them back to the blue chandelier woman. Hmmmmm.
I take a seat in the lab chair and greet the other lab tech in the room with us. She turns around and informs me that Doris....white lab coat woman.....has "mad skills" at drawing blood. Phew!!!!! Good information to have when your sitting in that chair about to have your blood drawn. And sure enough, Doris has mad skills! Doris was also mad that the other lab tech had not shown up to cover her for her break. This she mentions as she pokes the needle deeply into my vein.
"How long will it take for the results?" I ask "mad skills" Doris........"3-5 days" she responds........
Would it speed things up if I had a buzzer?

Your turn

Just out of curiosity....what would your perfect day look like?

I can't wait to read your answers : )

My perfect day..... A warm (no calorie)buttery gooey cinnamon roll and coffee for breakfast, followed by my Dr. informing me that my cancer is gone, followed by a long ride on Holly, lasagna for dinner, then roasting marshmallows outside with friends and family at my yet to exist gorgeous fire pit.

I have other versions of the perfect day but this is a good starting point.

Weekend Pictoral

Ree/Pioneer Woman





How was your weekend?

Horse Heaven

I have no idea if we dream before we are born, but if I did, I am positive that I dreamt of horses. I may not have ever seen one before, but God must have described them to me while I laid there listening to my mom's stomach growling. I can't remember one single day in my life that I haven't had a thought about horses.

As I grew I began to beg my parents for a horse. "NO!" was always the answer and I simply could not understand how anyone possessing a sane mind could say no to such a beautiful creature...to the smell of their breathe and the hay and leather and the outdoors...to the feeling of running full speed ahead or laying on their backs as they graze in the sun and listen to the birds. I think my parents had a temporary loss of their minds as they were trying to raise this little hand full.

They did however, send me to horse camp...and they sent me a lot. This served two purposes...1. to get me to shut up and 2. to get me to shut up.

I eventually began teaching children to ride and no matter how much time I spent on the farm it was never enough.

If you have been reading the blog for a while you know that I now have a horse of my own. She's beautiful. She had a baby last June. I go to see her every day and it's one of the hardest aspects of cancer for me because I can't ride her...just a sec...I need a tissue...

Sometimes I drive to the pasture and I can't even get out of the car, even if my knees feel ok, because when I get close to her and smell her winter coat and look in her eyes, my heart literally falls out of my body and I have to pick it up and pick all the hay off of it and put it back in my chest.

The doctor is the mean mean man who said that I can't ride. Actually I think he has a different motivation but it's the same answer every time..."No". His reason is that my spine will compress with every little bump and if I fall off I am "toast"...that was the exact word he used..."toast". Ooohhh my aching heart.

When I get to Heaven you won't be seeing me for a while....it's not that I won't be excited to see you, or my grandmas and grandpa or Jane Austen...it's just that I will be horseback riding for a while...possibly days...or maybe years...but I will come see you when I am done.

License to have HOT coffee

Remember when you were a child and you noticed the Christmas decorations showing up everywhere and you found yourself starting to get excited? It seemed that every night there was something on TV to remind you. Then it was time to watch Frosty, Charlie Brown Christmas, Heat and Snow Miser, Rudolph and so on. The adreniline in your body was set to full-blast. Then it happened... you woke up and it was actually Christmas...it was almost too good to be true!

Well it's Christmas here today. Today is the day that Em takes her driving test. By the end of the day she could have the present of all presents for a girl her age....the gift of freedom...well, whatever freedom a quarter tank can give her (we broke the news last night that we weren't paying for gas :O OUCH)

My mommy heart is nervous and excited...nervous for her safety and excited to know that I will actually be able to finish a HOT cup of coffee in the morning without having to rush out the door. No more driving to school in my pajamas and slippers...no more being the first one out to the car to turn on the heat...no more avoiding near death experiences in the "drop off" area of both the highschool and the middle school.....just you and me and maybe a scone or some toast or possibly oatmeal

Poo-lips?

Ok, so maybe I am stretching it a bit here...but it's just a thought I had.
Every year at this time the Skagit Valley invites the world to come see it's tulips. I believe last weekend the world took them up on it. There were so so so many cars...backups for hours on I-5, but I believe that if asked, most of the people in those cars would say that seeing the beauty in those fields of flowers was well worth it. They truly are beautiful.

So after being stuck in traffic for a while and having gone through the rolodex of all the curse words I know but can't say out loud, my mind took another path. I thought to myself.."I wonder how these tulips grow so well and are so beautiful." I don't think I saw one that wasn't picture perfect. I bet it takes a lot of "poo" to get them to grow so well. THAT'S IT!!! It's the poo that makes them beautiful.
Ain't it the truth?!

No whining

Well after over 8,200 blog hits I just received my first negative comment today. Evidently this reader was under the impression that I was whining in my last blog entry and suggested that I quit.
I am sorry that they felt that way. There is no whining here...I share these experiences to offer encouragement and humor to others with cancer or know someone with cancer...and it doesn't even have to be cancer...we all have our own hard stuff to deal with. I share it to provide some perspective on the life of a stage 4 cancer patient who is also a wife and a mom and a friend and a daughter and a sister and a woman who is in treatment and pushing through each day with hope. There is no whining here....just real life, because that is where the beauty is...in being transparent and vulnerable and real.

Can't we all just go to school?

I am on day 3 or 4 or maybe it's 8 of my chemo pills for this month. It's right about this time that I begin to feel very tired. The pills change my blood counts but that's not the only reason I am tired. I am tired because my husband snores. I am tired because that cat ALWAYS needs in or out, my kids love to argue, there are dishes in the sink, we are out of milk, we are out of most things, the horse is hungry,there are 12 messages on the answering machine, there is a small animal's worth of dog/cat hair collectively on the floor, the dishwasher is full, 2 or 3 of us need prescriptions refilled, dinner doesn't make itself, my son's birthday is next week and after a week of spring break I can't get my kids off to school on time because THEY are too tired.
The beauty that lies in this story is that they will be parents too someday, and they will read this blog and my phone will ring at my new condo in a very hip, very active senior living setup...and they will cry and beg forgiveness for every time they said they were too tired to go to school.
Ahhhhhh

Little big things

Cancer is a odd reality. It can take the little things in life and make them more important and it takes the things we thought were important and make them little....things like what people think of me (gave up on that a while ago) how short I am now (still struggling with that one)driving my kids to school in my sleep cap and bathrobe..shhhhhh...you know...stuff.
I try to find joy in little daily things, or should I say it is easier to find joy in the little daily things.
When I started this documentation of my life with cancer, it started with just some emails to family and a few friends. As it grew and more people became interested, someone suggested a blog Carolyn. I thought that blogs were only for movie critics and people with lots of political angst (angst...homeschooler's word for the day..sorry homeschooling moms..it's been a while, I'll do better)
I didn't think it was for plain ol'moms or sick people.

Well, I won't go into how stupid I felt when I actually looked up some blogs written by plain ol' moms and sick people and found out there are tons of them. But one blog in particular, written by a mom who is funny, transparent, talented, willing to laugh at herself and who has lots of horses...became my favorite. She went from isolation to blog to book to cookbook to soon to be filmed movie. And best of all, she will be no more than an hour's drive away on April 17th at a bookstore signing her book . This little thing is now a big thing and there will be much joy or "mucha alegria" (Your welcome..just trying to make up for the last few blogs)when I meet her.
What makes this little thing a much much bigger thing, is that I will be going with two of my dearest friends.
This is so much better than finding really cute boots and a purse to match...don't you think? Of course you do...yes you do...you do!

Small/Big...Smig

I have been looking at pictures of the earth tonight. I am not sure why I decided to google pictures of the earth...ok I'm sure, but I am just sort of embarassed about it. It was because I was feeling very small today. Not thin, not short, but small. But for the record I would like to be thin and a little less short.

I looked at the earth and felt my smallness. Then I thought about the size of the earth knowing that there are other planets and stars a zillion times larger than earth and that made me feel even smaller.

Then I began to think about the fact that all I have to do is one small thing and that can change the world forever.

Not so small after all now huh? huh?