Category Archives: Breast Cancer – A Loving Fight

Our battle with breast cancer

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Breast Cancer Caregiver Guide for Spouses

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The source of all life and knowledge is in man and woman, and the source of all living is in the interchange and the meeting and mingling of these two: man-life and woman-life, man-knowledge and woman-knowledge, man-being and woman-being. – D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) English writer

I hinted at this yesterday but it has been beating on my mind all day.  When I retraced my steps over the last several months I looked back and wonder how I made it with my senses still intact. 

Let me first say that what the men go through when their wives have breast cancer is nothing compared to what their wives or mothers or daughters will experience, but I believe the life partners  (I’m mostly talking about husbands) are a critical part of the management when cancer enters a woman’s life.  There is no doubt that men get a bad rap about how we react when our loved one tells us that she has cancer in a part of her body that is such an intimate part of our physical relationship.  But aside from where it is located, we just aren’t ready for cancer period.   Even if we men were better prepared, all it takes is one bad apple to spoil the cart and our reputation as a group would be back out curbside.

I’m not saying we men are the fairer sex.  Heck no.  We definitely have a few (make that many) flaws.  That’s why we love women so much!

What I am saying is that while my wife came home with packets of information and videos, there was nothing for me.  Not a word of guidance.  I spent hours taking notes at each doctors visit, I ended up having to do lots of research and looking to other women and their spouses for what to do and more importanly what not to do.  Its harder than you think.  I don’t even think that my wife’s surgeon shook my hand the first time we met.  Mind you she is a wonderful lady and we have a great relationship, but I don’t know if the doctors know what to do when the spouse shows up.  Rightly so, they spend all the time talking to our wives.  They need tools to give us. I don’t need much.  All I needed was a one pager.  Something that said, the best thing you could do right now is hold your wife’s hand.

Well I gathered a lot of information.  Unfortunately I found some good resources after the fact, but I saved them.  I have links to most of them in the Cancer Resource Links in the right column of this blog.  So if you’ve just found this, take a look at these links specifcally for men.  Some come from friends I’ve met and others from research I’ve done:

Good Websites:

Men Against Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer for Husbands

Breast Cancer Husband

Some Real Personal Blogs:

The Moutray Chronicles

The Price of Love

Articles Every Husband or Father Should Read:

Love Her Tender

A Guide for Clueless Guys

A Supremely Kind Spouse

I hope you all find these useful in your journeys wherever you may be.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

My Life With Laura Blog Book Tour & FightPink.org

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If you’re going through hell, keep going.  ~Winston Churchill

Before I begin my post for today I want to thank Stacy from FightPink.org.  Stacy was kind enough to post my original three blog posts on her site in the co-survivor section of her website.  I hadn’t read them in a while and it seems like years ago since I wrote them, but I’m glad she found them and felt they were worthy of posting.  I hope someone finds them useful.

I also want to make sure anyone who reads this post to come back here on January 19th, Martin Luther King Day.  I will be hosting an interview on the Blog Tour for Chad Moutray’s book, My Life with Laura – A Love Story.  It is a love story which ends sadly when Chad and his wife lose their battle with breast cancer.  Chad is having a blog tour about his book and several of us have read it.  I encourage you to follow the different dates on his two week tour of many different blogs.  Here is a link to his schedule:

Today flew by for me, but I can say it was a full day of thinking, laughing, and eight glasses of water to fight my voice which is pretty weak right now.  I received an email that made me laugh.  The person asked me why I was posting “Celebrity Sightings” on my Cancer Blog!  Yes, my life is moving in a different direction.  Cancer still stares us in the face and will occasionally be on topic for the next several years as my wife faces her post-cancer trials and therapy.

In fact as I worked up some interview questions for Chad, I was thinking about the predicament that many men are put in when their wives discover they have breast cancer.  We have to be strong, silent, empathetic, and unselfish all at once.  Some of us have not even had practice at one of those things.  That does not even begin to talk about the tasks that we need to serve as cook, provider, chief information officer, Florence Nightengale, joe the plumber and many other things I can’t remember.  Let’s face it, men just don’t have a good rap as caregivers.  When I was faced with those many hours sitting in the waiting room, I hated being the only husband sitting in the room with a young wife.  Where were the other husbands?  Face it, the waiting room of a breast cancer clinic was no place for a man.  All those glamour and cooking magazines.  I was left to read last year’s ESPN Spring Training Preview where they picked the Detroit Tigers to win it all (boy were they wrong).  I started bringing  in more current magazines on business, sports, photography, and travel.  By the time my father-in-law made it to his first and only visit with his daughter to the doctor (5 months after her original diagnosis) , all he could tell me about was the marvelous skiing magazines they had. My wife and I could only smile.

In those hours of waiting, I did discover the bulletin board which was full of community groups to help with coping.   I wandered around the Clinic’s Cancer Resource Center  which was helpful and I met a few men and befriended a few sharing stories about our wife’s situation then asking if we knew the score from last night’s basketball game.

What I realize was missing when I was working on my questions for Chad was a primer on what to do.  I had gathered so many articles and written so many notes and resources that I put together a small guide.  I think it would be a great set of readings for husbands, so I’ve packaged them together as a reading list for our surgeons and oncologists to give to their patients and spouses.  Even though my wife has passed her surgery stage of chemo I just feel like we owe so much to those that will follow behind us.

So what’s the status with my wife?  Well she still has scars and is dealing with letting them heal.  There is always some mention of them every night.  I keep reminding her that time heals all wounds.  I hate those words.  Who said that anyway?  She has four visits to the clinic this week.  The first was to check on her suture which opened up.  Tomorrow she gets one of her monthly suppression shot to reduce the amount of estrogen that feeds the type of cancer they removed from her, then she meets the following day with her oncologist to go over her clinical trial.  The trial is called S0307 and is a bisphosphonate trial primarily for pre-menopausal women.  Bisphosphonates are a group of drugs that have strong effects on the bones and have been shown to strengthen the bones in many patients who take them. This study will compare three study drugs, ibandronate, clodronate, and zoledronic acid in breast cancer.   My wife is taking clodronate.  The study will take place for 3 years.  My wife will be taking Tamoxifen for 5 years.    She has seen some minimal side effects but we just say that it shows the treatment is doing something. I try not to make a too big deal about it as I want her to feel like it is a normal thing we are ready to deal with. 

I know this is a weird note to end this blog, but I had a great run tonight and at the end, my iPod had a congratulations message from Tiger Woods for running my fastest time yet.  This was a pleasant surprise and I can’t wait to run faster tomorrow.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

The Run of 118 Christmas Trees – Life is A Highway

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Our 2008 Christmas Tree
Our 2008 Christmas Tree

The perfect Christmas tree? All Christmas trees are perfect!”
~ Charles N. Barnard, American author, travel writer.

 

I just got back from my 2nd run of the year.  Thanks to the reader who said they’d help remind me to get out there and “Just do It”.  (Note to self – next time you write down your resolutions, tear them up and burn em).  It definitely was the weekend to start throwing out the Christmas Tree.  I counted 118 trees on the sidewalk during my run.  We could have left it up but the weekends are getting booked up already with travel, basketball games, holidays and parties!

No Christmas tree counting is not what i do when I run, but it sure helped to make tonight’s run a little different than the more than 300 other runs I will have this year.

We had a pretty active weekend.  Since I won’t be able to attend my son’s Little League Skills Assessment this year, we went out and played catch and hit a few balls.  I love sports, but I am not one of those crazy parents (I hope I’m not) who people can’t stand at the games.  My son is so focused anyway that sometimes you can scream at him and he doesn’t flinch.  Last year he ran through my stop sign at third base when I was the third base coach.  I had a good laugh with the other parents afterward and got a lot of ribbing about having more discipline at home and wondering if he would have stopped if mom had been there instead of me.    Seriously though I have a son who has decent capability to play any sport although I’m not sure where he got the talent from.  I have no visions of grandeur though as he definitely got his small stature from his parents!

We also got out as a family to spend time at the park and get some fresh air and exercise.  My daughter called it her highlight of the weekend which made me feel good.  My wife is still limited with her stitches so she and my daughter went for a little hike to a lookout point near our home overlooking the San Francisco Bay.  In fact, one of the stitches seemed to maybe have come out too soon and she might have to go back in early this week to have it fixed.  After our family meeting at dinner tonight where we talked about our schedules and highlights for the week, my wife and I had some alone time to talk about how we are doing.  She laughed at me.  She was the one in college who was going to be a bio major and I’m the one who runs at the sight of blood.  She was quite amazed at how I was able to deal with all the tubes and procedures she had to go through when she was ill.  I told her I sucked it up, and kiddingly told her to promise to never make me go through it again.  Well this little stitch is causing some fluid to run out.  Oh my…..medic! 

She did thank me for being her rock.  I had to do a lot of research for her as she was overwhelmed and frankly quite scared to read everything online and also had selective hearing when it came to what the doctors were telling her.  Depending upon her mood, she’d only hear the good things sometimes and other times only the bad things.  She’s better now and is able to even go online and meet some of the people I met online who gave me lots of advice.  I think it is great that she is now able to converse with some of these people and join the sisterhood of survivors.

Back to normal life?  Well maybe it is with the regular TV season coming back on.  We’ll be able to have our banter about Desperate Housewives, Lost and everyone’s favorite, American Idol…

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

P.S. – He’s Still With Us – Life is A Highway

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“This is my most special place in all the world. Once a place touches you like this, the wind nevers blows so cold again. You feel for it, like it was your child. “

– Moonlight Graham

Last night I was continuing with my cleanup.  I came across some old stuff in my dad’s roll-top drawer desk.  It has zillions of drawers and after almost 3 years I still am barely throwing away some things.  I came across some old Savings Bonds that he had bought for me (I had found these once before but they hadn’t matured yet and I remember giving the others to my siblings).  I could hear my dad saying, “Money’s tight, don’t spend it all on one girl”.  My dad was always funny like that.  I remember calling home from college one day to ask for help and his first words were, “Did you get a girl pregnant?”.  Fortunately I hadn’t, but my dad always had a comment to lighten the load.

Coming across the savings bonds seemed like he was still here.  In college, I remember he used to slip a $100 bill in between some clippings from my favorite columnist, Herb Caen, the Pulitzer Prize columnist who wrote so eloquently about the Beautiful Baghdad by the Bay known as San Francisco.  If ever a city belonged to someone, San Francisco belonged to Mr. Caen.  Herb Caen wrote about my dad on many occasions.  Many heard about the dentist who had a wife who owned candy stores (very true) and also about how my dad and our dog would retrieve golf balls stolen from the Presidio Golf Course Driving range by young “hooligans” and rolled down Arguello Blvd and hit them back onto the course at night.  My dad never told me about those incidences in our house.  I had to read them in Herb Caen’s columns after finding out from friends.

The columns were treasures themselves, but for me they were more than that.  They were a conversation between me and my dad.  How much he loved San Francisco.  How much he enjoyed raising a family here.  How much he wanted us to have more than he had to start with.

I’ve mentioned that I worked for a luminary on the aging of America named, Ken Dychtwald.  Ken has nightmares of those growing old, dying, and leaving theirfollowing generations with debt and no base to grow on.  My dad did not do such a thing.  As I watch movies like “P.S. – I love you” or the “Bucket List” or even the book called “My Life With Laura”, I see examples of people who give richness, instruction and other items to others even while in their last days or even after they are gone.

So finding those Savings Bonds was in a way a chance for my dad to pass something on to me this holiday season and he seemed to know I needed it.    I also found all the baby teeth (remember my dad was a dentist) that he saved from my brother and sister.  I put them in my dad’s old business envelopes and gave them to them as stocking stuffers.  I also found my dad’s golf shoes which fit my brother.  I told him he had large (size 7.5 actually) shoes to fill.  My dad had 4 holes-in-one in his lifetime.

One of my questions to Chad Moutray, author of My Life with Laura, was as to why he felt the need to publish his memoirs.  At first I felt it was more for his own sanity, then maybe for him to move on.  He kept saying it was for his daughter.  I now feel that if I were him, I’d have to put all those feelings in a place where they can be read by his daughter and he can leave them there.  She can then see the wish that the love of her parents wanted for her and her mother can be there for her forever.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Listening to win – A Loving Fight

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“The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.” — Woodrow Wilson

I was recently asked if some of my earlier posts could be used on the site www.Fightpink.org.  Quite frankly I was surprised as I never intended for these postings to be used elsewhere.  The intent of this blog becomes clearer every day as it is more for me than anyone else.  My memory isn’t what it used to be, but more importantly I’ve always documented my thoughts and someday I’d like my children to know why I did what I did or know what I thought about particular incidents in our lives.

Reading those old posts was haunting.  I guess I’d forgotten already how I was feeling at that time.  That is pretty funny given that many say I have a photographic memory.  I laugh at that as I pretty much find myself to be so scattered in life that I just document my life meticulously so I won’t forget.  I listen and listen hard.  I listen to learn and listen  to comfort others.  I sometimes am asked why I don’t speak up on some conversations.  I guess that I’ve always believed that sometimes silence is golden.  And sometimes silence, pictures and images speak a thousand words.

Right now it’s all about listening to my wife’s questions.  I can see and hear her concerns about her surgical scars.  She doesn’t complain but tells me about the research and conversations she is having.  The skin-sparing matectomy has several kinds of scars, but the ones my wife had (over 18 only please) can be depicted through the attached photo links:

Areolar: http://www.justbreastimplants.com/gallery/incision_areola.htm

Crease: http://www.justbreastimplants.com/gallery/incision_crease.htm

The areolar was used for the original expander, but the crease was used to help reconfigure my wife so as to allow my wife to have a bit of a reduction.  Right now the ster-strips still cover the scars.  The black and blue are gone and now the healing once again becomes both physical and emotional.  While many would think this sounds more physical, I’m listening to my wife and her voice.  She wants to look normal.  Normal for me and for her.Pictures speak a thousand words for her.  Seeing things look almost normal will have an emotional healing that things are still the same for her.  Hearing her husband honestly telling her that he thinks she looks great is one thing, but she is going to have to believe it herself.  Any married couple knows that.

Tomorrow I think I’ll talk more about my own expectations and observations for 2009.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

3 Days of Shopping to go – Life is a Highway

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Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart. – Washington Irving

Tonight’s run was a cold and painful one.  Each run is like every day in life.  One day you might feel good but the next day you might feel like you are running a marathon without shoes.  One day is different from the next.  It’s like life.  Many of us are given the same set of circumstances, but some make more or less of it than others.

I’m reading a book by Chad Moutray, another man who had a wife with breast cancer only his story ended tragically.  Why would I read it?  Why do I care?  I often wonder if I am alone in this world.  In fact I think we all wonder if our life is unique or normal.  Do others deal with similar issues?  Are all my peers being hit with the recession the same way? 

Chad, while raised differently, has many similar qualities to me.  I’m finding the book entertaining at times and hard to read at others.  It hits hard and close.  I’ll write more about the book at a later date once I am finished.

Today my wife went back to the clinic and the nurse practitioner supplied her with new and cleaner steri-strips to cover her scars.  Her breast surgeon came by to say hello.  This would be the last visit with her for another 6 months.  She gave my wife a hug and then said some complimentary words about me.  We had become more cordial with each other over time and recently discussed my blog.  I was hesitant at first to tell her about this blog , but gave her the adress.  She told my wife that she loved my honesty.  Whew!  I was not ready to go back and edit anything here.  While this blog is more of a channel for me to express the feelings which I can’t describe with words, I find it to be more of a release for me and hopefully a memoir for my children

I am encouraged by my wife though.  Her energy levels are high and her desires to enjoy herself and get back to a regular exercise regimen.  She is worried about the scar and I’ve told her that I’ll help her to get used to her new self and promise to be honest and open about my feelings with her.  It’s hard to argue with her when I want to be positive, but I have to pick my points.  Sometimes she deserves the ability to just be down.

We are getting ready for the holidays this year with a full house of family.  While everything might be the same as years past, just like running, it might be a bit more of a struggle than in the past

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Looking Within for Happiness – Life is a Highway

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When you are down, look to your children and your children’s children for hope and happiness – Fortune Cookie

I looked at my fortune tonight as my son and daughter read it over my shoulder.  My daughter asked me what it meant and my son gave me a wry smile as if I had been rooked by the fortune cookie gods.  It is so true to have not just children but to have faimly around you who give you that unconditional love and respect.  That ear that will listen or that smile that brightens a gloomy day.  You don’t have to have that kind of felling with all your children or relatives because it just takes one.

These past five months have had me running, literally, to keep my sanity and energy.  Our children while never less important in our lives have not always been given the attention we’d like to have given them.  As a parent you shield them from life’s problems so that they can approach life without barriers and without bias while tryig to provide them with the tools that will help them to survive barriers and bias.  one of my more favorite movies in the past 10 years is The Pursuit of Happyness.  It is a true story about a single father who did all he could to raise his child in a world that was unkind to him.  Ironically it is a story that took place right here in San Francisco and at the time of the real stroy I was a struggling young college intern right across the street.

I’m not homeless, but the emotional adversity has been rougher on me than I thought it would be.  Finally after 5 months, my wife’s parents are here to help.  The relief in my body is a bit of a shock.  I don’t have to worry about my wife every second of the day and the ability to focus more on my children and reconnect with them on more than just a “bedtime story” level is something I really want and need. 

This weekend we found an hour between the raindrops to toss a baseball around.  It felt good to feel that ball pop in my glove and sting my hand.  After an hour, my hand was burning from my 9 year old’s pitches.  It felt so good for it to hurt like that.  I also took my daughter to go to see the Nutcracker with my mother.  For her to get all dressed up and have a day out on the town with her grandmother made her feel special and the smile on her face was all I needed.

So back to that crazy fortune cookie at San Tung Restaurant.  It was the most honest and truthful fortune cookie for me.  To those who wonder about such things.  I am superstitious.  I take the cookie that is pointing to me and I never read the fortune until I have full swallowed the cookie.  At least that is the rule my cousins always told me to obey.

I explained to my daughter about what it meant and I told them how the game of catch and the Nutcracker were perfect examples of all that I needed to make my life better this holiday season.  I know they don’t get it and they’ll still want the latest electronic games and gadgets for the holidays under the Christmas tree, but should they get my good fortune someday when they are my age, I’m sure they’ll at least understand what I was feeling tonight.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Another Trip to the Hospital – Life is a Highway

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Those who are lucky are happy, and I’m happy to be lucky.  No excuses.

– Participant in the show, Survivor

The reconstruction surgery didn’t go as long as smoothly as we would have liked.  It lasted five and a half hours and will require more healing than we anticipated, but I think the relief of the surgery being over was felt both by me and her.  As soon as the surgery was over, a storm hit the city.  She was delirious but okay so I decided she was stable enough to go home for the night and get back first thing in the morning.

I woke up after 7 hours of sleep ( 2 more than I had been averaging) with a major knot in my stomach and a huge throbbing headache.  I think the stress of the week that I had been internalizing came crashing in on me.  I had read myself to sleep by reading he story of another husband who lost his wife to breast cancer.  I read the synopsis and realized how lucky I am.  I’ll write more about this book later.  I quickly grabbed some ibuprophen  and went to pick up some breakfast.  She hadn’t eaten in 35 hours so she would be famished.  Fortunately my mother had spent the night to watch the kids.  After calling her parents to tell them she was okay, I arrived at the hospital.  I would later find out that she had not told her parents before that they were going in to clear her margins some more.  She had not told them as she didn’t want them to be worried.

I was not only the last visitor to check out the night before, but I was also the first visitor to check in that morning.  Opening the door and seeing her sitting up and smiling was more than a relief.  She was in pain still and a bit week but she was hereslf again.  When she starts barking orders I know she’s fine.  There weren’t side effects from nausea like the previous surgery.  Both physicians came in and checked on her.  They said it had been slightly more complicated than thought, but that it just required more adjustments.

We were able to check out by 11am and we were soon a family again.  The children were happy to see their mother sleeping in her bed.  It was a bonding experience.  I left my son to watch his mother and get her anything she requested while I took or 6-year old daughter run errands to the pharmacy to pick up medicines, the deli to get sandwiches, and the card store to get my wife’s birthday card.  As I ran the errands, I could only think of the book I was reading and squeezed my daughters hand.  She was enjoying being my helper and I was enjoying the bonding time.

I slept the whole rest of the afternoon with my wife.  I needed the rest and she held my hand.   She requested sushi for dinner so I took the children out for sushi and brought back the leftovers.  Dinner was different.  A dinner for three instead of four.  I saw people look at us.  Was I divorced dad?  A widower?  It didn’t matter.  I knew what I was feeling.  I was thinking how much I wanted to be a complete family and how good that feels to me. 

I told her I am so happy to still have her with me and feel so fortunate.  I’ll never take her for granted again.  This week isn’t going to slow down with the holidays upon us.

Her parents arrive on Tuesday and there are a bunch of “honey do’s” that I have to get done around the house before they arrive!

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Racing Down the Highway – Life is a Highway

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I’m Driving like Hell, Racing Down the Highway – Blake Shelton

Although the lyrics above are from a song about a guy who realized he let his woman get away without telling her how much she means to him (which is not my case), those words seems to express my feelings these days about how my life is going.  I feel like I’m spending my days on those things which I shouldn’t and not on the people and things that matter.  Have I lost perspective?  It’s so easy to find your way in life one day and then lose it.  Yes, just like driving without a map, going 85 mph and not talking to the other people in the back seat.

 As I write this I’m sitting in the 3rd Floor waiting room of the CPMC Carol Franc Buck Cancer Clinic waiting for my wife who is undergoing her 3 hour reconstruction which includes a brief procedure from her cancer surgeon to clear margins that will help reduce her chance of cancer returning.  This surgery will be about half the time of her original surgery.  It is a weird feeling as I felt so prepared for her original surgery that today’s procedure both of us felt so unprepared.  The results maybe aren’t so much about mortality I guess, but I feel like I haven’t given today’s proceedings as much attention as they deserve.  The same goes with the time I’ve had to spend with our kids. 

Last night we each had a brain dump of thoughts.  When we communicate it is almost like a game of chess with a time clock.  First me for 1 minute, then her for a minute, then me, then her, etc.  We race through topics such as how she ran into her friend Jessica at the Starbucks (Jessica is also a breast cancer survivor and an inspiration to my wife), how our son was nominated for a summer Young Scholars program, holiday dinner plans, coordinating pick up of her parents from the airport, etc.  This type of communication might not work for many, but it works for us.  Twenty-four years together will do that to you.  In the end we finally smiled and did a sanity check (maybe it should be an insanity check).  How are we feeling?  Are we prepared for this next surgery?  Is she feeling side effects from the hormone therapy? Apologies to each other are also part of the conversation.  These are mostly from me for the guilt of not being there as much as I wish I could, but she understands the stress we are all going through.  Who says love is about never having to say you’re sorry?

Back to the present, I’m sitting here waiting with two other gentlemen and have about 90 more minutes to go of waiting.  The smile on her face as she chatted her way through the swinging surgical doors are so typical of her, and so atypical of the image of someone going in for a major surgery.  The looks of concern on their faces tell me that their cases seem more grave.  There is a certain somberness in this room that hits me and reminds me of sitting in this room three months ago.  There is a déjà vu with the smells and sounds all around me.  I hope we never have to be here again.  Once again the stress and anxiety of the week have caught up.  The sleepless nights have me and I need to rest.

The next 90 minutes are going to be spent napping and listening to an iPod mix of inspirational songs.

Hopefully the next couple of days will let me catch up, slow down and give everything its proper attention.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight, Route 53 - Life is A Highway

Now is the Time – A Loving Fight

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Now is the Time When You Show How Much You Care – Ronnie Lott

I was driving to work today listening to talk radio and heard Hall of Fame defensive back Ronnie Lott talking about his foundation and giving.  I was thinking to myself about how hard it must be to give at this time of year and in this economy.  Doing some of my own fundraising for our kid’s school I was sensitive to his comments.  But he inspired me by saying how he didn’t get as much from everyone but got more people to participate.

I’m feeling that right now.  As I ran last night I was thinking about my “Secret Santa” exchange which our family set up and just remembered how fortunate I feel that my wife is still with me and that my kids still have their mother.  I’ve decided that I have all the gifts I need.  If someone wants to give me a gift, they can donate those dollars to my wife’s cancer clinic, the Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center.  My family is pretty bitter that I’m ruining their Secret Santa because I don’t want anything, but that is truly how I feel.  Even if they gave me something I truly want or have wanted, I just can’t enjoy it this year.  Now is not the time for me to be greedy.  I know my family wants to give me something, but I’ve been a materialistic person my whole life and right now my wife is the only thing I want and am so glad to have her.  

Maybe it is the stress of the holiday season, work integration projects, the bad economy, and my wife’s upcoming surgery this Friday, but I just can’t sleep or feel like I can rest.  Now is not the time to be selfish.  No matter how bad life is, the only way to feel better right now is not to feel sorry for onesself, but to make yourself feel better through the gift of giving to others.

Maybe my wife’s energy level is what is driving me.  She seems to be so strong now while on OS, Tamoxifen and bisphosphonates while staring surgery in the face again.  I just don’t know how she does it, but maybe for her now is the time as well.  I can only gather strength from her this holiday season which will be the greatest gift of all.