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Route 53 - Life is A Highway

And the Beat Goes On – My Bucket List

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“I think we have a better persepective right now”

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive places in the country right now is an interesting study during this down economy.  Many people are talking about selling their homes, holding on to their jobs, downsizing, etc.  There still is a lot of materialism going on, people are contemplating which option to choose for a new leadership and yet for us, the world seems to be at a standstill.  All of these factors seem inconsequential right now and my wife said it best tonight, ” I think we have the best perspective right now”.

She’s right.  We have plenty to be thankful for.  Tonight I went for my first complete run in a while and the cold wind against my heated face felt so refreshing that I almost didn’t want to stop.  At this point, I’m refreshed with the perspective that I’ve lived about half my life expectancy and I need to start dreaming of what I want to do as well.  Just like a kid who dreams of being a fireman or an astronaut when they grow up, it is time for my bucket list.  The DVD we watched this weekend had a special piece about the guy who came up with the bucket list concept and mentioned that it is different for everyone depending upon their point in life, but here is my list with a little different organization:

Bucket List

  1. With my children – visit their ancestral countries of origin and provide a deep respect for those countries – Italy, France, China
  2. For my children – leave them with lessons for living a happy and productive life
  3. For my children – provide a healthy respect for parenthood and the love of their parents
  4. For my children – a childhood filled with laughter and pleasant memories
  5. With my wife – provide her with the self-confidence and self-esteem that makes her great
  6. With my wife – help and remind her to enjoy life and savor it.
  7. for me – play golf really well (break 80?)
  8. for me – learn to play a new instrument
  9. for me – learn some new Hawaiian cooking recipes
  10. For my family – play golf as a foursome in a beautiful setting. (at least play Pebble Beach with my son)
  11. For my family – Visit an inspiring natural state park
  12. General – provide a positive legacy for a community
  13. General – let friends and relatives know they are respected and loved
  14. General – Inspire someone to do the right thing

Well that is it for now.   That’s a lot to do before I kick the bucket!  I’ll add more later if needed

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

Breathing Deeply – A Loving Fight Against Breast Cancer

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“I can’t tell you anything else to tell you how much I love you”

After the good news to end the week, it was easy to take a deep breath, smile and be thankful.  Have we dodged a bullet?  Maybe, but we will be dodging it for a while.  I think that is why cancer victims rally and stick together.  The treatment time is for many years.  I might be wrong, but I’ve not noticed this kind of camaraderie and community of survivors for heart attack survivors or by-pass surgery survivors.

The weekend was filled with our children’s sports events (soccer and golf) as well as concerts, the Blue Angels, Fleet Week, and professional sporting events.  Our 9-year old golf prodigy son lost against an 18 year old in a golf match and although he’s tough on himself and had very little chance to win anyway, he gained a great perspective.  As a dad all you try to do is encourage your child and make sure that kind of event doesn’t damage him.  Afterwards I patted him on the back and told him how proud I was and that he was very poised and gracious in defeat.  He laughed and said, “Dad, he was twice my age.  It won’t be the last time I lose a match.  There are more important things if you know what I mean.” Nothing can make a parent more proud than to try and teach one’s child a life lesson and to be reminded of one of the more important lessons in life.  You just don’t expect to get reminded by a 9 year old.

That afternoon at the soccer match I caught my wife sitting on a grassy hill (making sure she didn’t get accidentally hit my a soccer ball)  She had her eyes closed and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t suffering from more exhaustion.  She smiled and replied, “I’m okay.  The sun feels good.  It has never felt this good.  I just want to soak it all in”.  It isn’t like she’d been out since the surgery, but I knew what she was doing.  Something she hadn’t done in a while.  She was smelling the roses.  The good news had taken a huge weight off her shoulders (something she hadn’t been able to express).

She looked so peaceful all by herself with the Blue Angel pilots flying over head during Fleet Week.  I’m sure she didn’t even hear the planes roaring.  We’ve aged so much in the last few months.  Maybe we haven’t aged, but we sure haved lived a lot.

I watched the “Bucket List” again with her and she sobbed.  It meant more to watch it now.  Her perspective changed now that the chemo was not in her near future.  She could laugh now.  Her own bucket list would now be more thoughtful.  Her sobs were of relief.  Of sorrow. Of joy. I had been afraid to hold her til now.  I didn’t want to hurt her.

Today was her fourth meeting with the plastic surgeon.  We’re almost done and he said that a middle of November final surgery for the swap would be likely.  It will give her time to rest before Thanksgiving.  The recovery time might be about 2 weeks and only 5% of all patients need drains afterward.  Along with the hormone therapy we decide on, it will be the last mile of this journey.  It will be a long last mile but a journey worth traveling.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

The Beginning of the End – A Loving Fight against Cancer

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“I’m Feeling Totally Empowered”

Meeting an oncologist seems so daunting.  Yet we were so excited to meet her.  We knew it would be a long appointment.  We heard she was thorough and with one appointment before us we ended up waiting a good 90 minutes.  We had had many discussions this week. I think we were both nervous.  All I knew is that I didn’t want my wife to have to go through chemotherapy.  It is such a toxic solution.  On my way back from the restroom I heard the fellow tell her colleagues, “they’re a nice couple and will be very receptive to options”.  We had met her a few weekends before when we were having drainage leaks on a weekend and she patched her up.

After the wait, we filled out more forms and met the fellow, the resident, and the pre-med student who crammed in the room with us.  You’d think that meeting a fairly well-known oncologist you’d think of a big oak desk surrounded by books.  Well this wasn’t Marcus Welby.  We pused into a tiny 8 x 10 room and the wait was finally over.  She told us the Oncotype number.  An 11, which means an11 percent chance of recurrence.  Tamoxifen hormonal therapy would put that number at 7%.  Chemotherapy would not be recommended!  A smile hit our faces.

Then the information hit us like stats on a Wall St. ticker tape.  25% of all cancers are undetectable on mammograms, tamoxifen is sometimes not metabolized by women, soy is not necessarily recommended product as tests are being done to check its relation to breast cancer, ……..it hit like a dumptruck of information being thrown on my head and my hand got cramps writing everything down.  Fortunately the pre-med student was typing notes away as the oncologist spoke.  Thorough and reasonable in her presentation, the oncologist laid out the basic plan for us and then gave us alternative trials with names of drugs and tests that i could not even begin to spell. We’ll have to peruse these options before our next meeting, or we could just email her our decision.

She did turn to me and ask me at one point how I was doing and what questions I had and thanksed me for attending this session and being supportive of my wife and others.  This woman knew everything.  I told her I was concerned because my wife, some aunts and both of my daughter’s grandmothers had breast cancer.  She took notes and then told me I needed to be tested as well to see if I carried the gene that could possibly be passed to my daughter.  I gulped.  Wow.  Sure i will get tested.  When my wife goes to get tested for the Braca gene, so will I.

The only time I felt uncomfortable was when they started talking about the side effects of tamoxifen and the other therapies: Tiredness, osteocrenosis of the jaw, menapausal symptoms, loss of libido, hot flashes…sitting in a small room with 5 women, all I could do was look at the tips of my shoes.  I cracked a small joke and everyone laughed.  They were uncomfortable too.

Three hours after we entered the clinic, we walked out hand in hand and I could recognize a little skip in my wife’s step.  “Are you okay?” I asked.  She smiled and said, “I finally feel like I’m in control.  I feel empowered”.  It was not the answer I thought I’d get, but I definitely could understand her thinking. 

We’ve still got a bit of a way to go, but this is a move in the right direction and quite possibly the beginning of the end of this chapter.  As we sat at home we discussed how surreal this all felt.  Cancer?  No chemotherapy? No Hair loss?  It just seems like we’ve been groomed to think hair loss, cancer and chemo go together.  Well, maybe this is just part of the new age of medicine. 

It sure works for me.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Making a Difference & Feeling Fortunate

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“This is a part of me now.  Even without religion, this would be my religion”

Tomorrow morning we will meet the oncologist and hopefully get all our questions out of the way.  What is our score?  What does that mean?  What choices are there?  What are the risks?  What are the side effects?  How will that effect my/our lifestyle?  Blah! Blah! Blah!

My wife the eternal list maker has worked on a total of 4 pages of questions.  When she passed the list to me I could only smile.  She had the energy to create one of her famous “lists”.  Also on the list was, “Will it change my relationship with my husband?”  I told her to scratch it as I could answer that for her.  The answer is “yes”.  “Yes that it already has changed our love.  It has put it under a microscope and magnified it for us to inspect and see that it is okay.  It has shown us that we have enough love to go around”.

I know that it wasn’t “that kind of love” she was talking about, but I wanted her to know that the side effects weren’t going to change anything about how I feel and shouldn’t be a reason to change her decision.

Still uncomfortable, she calls her expanders a bullet proof vest or a chastity bra.  Humor has come out of her that I’ve never seen before.  Calling herself the Bionic Woman..”We can rebuild her…stronger, faster…” and wondering where she might be able to find those Gauthier cone bras that Madonna wore in the 90s are all ways of her making light of the uncomfortable feeling she has on her chest.  I know it is her way of coping.  I think she didn’t want to watch the chemo / hormone therapy tape last night because she purposely wanted me to just tell it like it is.  That tape was like a movie both of us dreaded watching, but was a real thinking video which made us realize how much thought we/she is/are going to have to put into the treatment plan.

Chemo would be a drag.  She has gotten almost all of her energy back and her desire to take back some of the responsibilities that I had taken over are there.  The chemo would seriously be a setback so we’ll see tomorrow.  All signs point to no chemo, but I think we’ll breathe an even heavier sigh once that option comes out of the mouth of her oncologist.

Tonight she got a call from her OB/GYN, the one who discovered the cancer.  This is what medicine used to be.  Your doctor calling to see how you are doing out of the blue.  It had been a while and since my wife self-referred herself to a different medical group for surgery and oncology, she hadn’t been as visible to everything as she normally would have.  She is getting her records which is a good thing as we wanted to make sure that she knew where my wife was in the process.

The call made my wife smile as did the email from her old colleague who has been seeing the same oncologist ,that she will be going to, for the last 3 years.  Her colleague said that she lived quietly with cancer for the last 3 years and was now just ready to let it out.  She wanted to share her story like everyone else as long as she could affect or convince someone else to go get tested.  My wife said she also saw a special today on Robin Roberts in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month and she too said it was time to make a difference.  My wife said she wants to make a difference and she is going to figure how at work, at home, and in the community.  She said cancer prevention and detection is her belief and even if she didn’t have a religion, fighting cancer would be it.

Amen.

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

Turning the corner – One Month after Surgery

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“The Longest Month Ever”

I gave my wife a kiss and told her it has been a crazy month since her surgery and she looked at me and said, “Its only been a month?  Wow, it is the longest month ever!”  I agree that it seems like we have come so far in a month.

Things continue to evolve emotionally and physically.  Yesterday while at the clinic she ran into an old co-worker.  They hugged and sobbed as soon as they saw each other there.  They hadn’t seen each other in 7 years, but they had a new bond and have already shared their stories with each other as well as numerous emails.  Having someone she personally knows going through it with her at the same age is a comforting thing for her.  It’s all the little things now.  Even yesterday when the Plastic Surgeon stood back, took a look and said, “I think it will all come out nice”, she took a mental note.  “Nice” isn’t always the most glamorous of words to describe something in a positive manner, but it worked for her.

Today was also a day we had been waiting for.  She finally heard an indication of what the test results said about her chance of recurrence for cancer.  This is an important outcome as it indicated the type of treatment plan you should follow with your oncologist.  When she called me at work, I picked up the phone with trepidation.  It was like the day she called to tell me she had cancer and I rushed home.   Those aren’t fun calls.  The day she called to tell me that my dad wasn’t breathing was just the same.  As I picked up the phone she said, “I hope you are free on Saturday as you and your son qualified for the Northern CA Family golf tourney in the 2nd flight!”  It was good news!  Not the news I was expecting but it was great and our son was going to be happy.  We talked for a few more minutes and then she continued, “Oh and the Dr. wrote me an email saying my scores came back low for recurrence”.

First I was  happy and could feel her smiling through the phone.  Then the psychologist in me said, “Wait, she gave you news about a golf tournament before she told you about her breast cancer”  I asked her if everything was alright and she said she felt like she was turning a corner and ready to get through this thing.

We watched a 45 minute video tonight to help us with her decisions she is going to have to make regarding her treatments.  Is it hormonal therapy, chemotherapy, both, or none? The clinic is pretty hands off and likes to let each person make their own decision so it is good to get educated. I told her that I was pro-choice on this and I didn’t want my own feeling to get in the way if she wanted to make the decision alone, but it is hard to look at your own health as one big statistic.  We haven’t made many decisions without each other for 22 years and she wasn’t about to start now.

So the oncology meeting is in a couple days.  We think they are going to tell her chemo is not really going to be beneficial and that Tamoxifen a hormonal therapy treatment with side effects will be her best plan, but who knows.  It is more of a sit and wait game again, but this time the wait is going to not be so stressful and the next month will go even faster.

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

We’re a Family Again – The Highway of Life

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“Let’s keep our batteries charged as things usually get worse before they get better”

Almost a month since surgery and we seem and more importantly, feel, like we can do some normal things again.  As we had no appointments this past week, there was nothing to break up our schedule and we had what we might term to be a “normal family weekend”.  As we sat around the table at our favorite sushi restaurant on Sunday night, we had our team meeting about what we had going on this week (playdates, practices, appointments, etc.) we reviewed the past week with our children to ask them how they were doing and what they enjoyed.  Our son said he enjoyed playing in his first golf tournament.  Our daughter said that she enjoyed “being a family again”.  When we asked what that meant she said she enjoyed going out to dinner, going to her soccer game, and even playing a family board game  with all of us present.

She was right.  It was the first time we had energy to do things together rather than split up or outsource parenting to our friends and family.  We were smiling and laughing again.  The sushi dinner was never mentioned as such, but it was our first real time we had gone out together in a month for a meal and thus served as a bit of a celebration.  We needed the break, the laughs, the down time and I think we really needed to lavish our children with much needed attention.

They have seen and heard so much and partly because of their naivety and partly because they are mature for their age, they were able to process their feelings. Unfortunately, I think it wore on them to see their parents not having the fun they used to have and seeing their mom’s sunny disposition remain sunny, but at a cost of her strength.  Our daughter’s comment raised some flags for us to make sure we focused on them during the coming weeks especially if chemo becomes part of the equation.

Today marked the third of 5 appointments with the plastic surgeon post-surgery.  He says she is progressing okay but we’ll have to see how things are going with chemo to know our full schedule.  We have our 1st appointment with the oncologist on Thursday morning so we are a bit nervous.  I just wish we’d know a little more before we go in the first time to meet with her.  She’ll definitely tell us about the Tamoxifin (sp?) but all we are worried nabout now is the Oncotype score reading.  We are bracing for her to tell us she will need chemo and agreed that we just need to get our batteries charged and braced for the coming months ahead.   It is just natural to assume things will get worse before they get beetter.  In a peverse way we both agreed that everything so far has actually not been as bad as we thought it would be, but we have run across some things we never thought we’d encounter.

On this highway of life, cancer has been more than a bump in the road, but  a very windy detour that we hope leads back to the main road and let’s us get back to destinations unknown with many life adventures to discover.

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

Life is A Highway

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“Today almost felt normal”

This morning raindrops turned to sunshine and we all got up and packed for a morning at the soccer field for our daughter.  Everything worked well as we got a good parking space in a difficult area, our daughter scored two goals, and we had a good time with the other parents.  Afterwards we came home, washed up and changed, and then went to the baptism of our friend’s adopted beautiful daughter.  Of course the usual questions came up about how we are doing and some of my best friends finally had the chance to see us for the first time in weeks.  It was good to just see them and say hello rather than talk to them on the phone.

Our life really had taken a detour.

We didn’t stay at the party long in order to conserve energy.  We both needed it as we fell asleep with afternoon naps before I had to gt up to get a long-needed haircut. 

While dinner seemed normal, it was anything but normal.  It was the first time she had made a meal in a month.  It cost her a lot of energy, but she did it (I did the dishes) and she was very happy to contribute to our daily life,  Tonight before going to bed with her normal dose of pain medication she said, “Today almost felt like a normal day”.  I couldn’t have agreed more.  I still feel like I’m tip-toeing and walking on eggshells to make sure she doesn’t get hurt or fall down, but we are slowly building back up to a comfort level.

We have three more consecutive Monday meetings with the plastic surgeon as well as our first meeting with the oncologist coming this week.  We are both a little nervous about that as we still haven’t heard how our oncotype scores have come out.

Right now the pain comes when she has been upright too long.  I don’t think this is going to change until she gets swapped out with implants.  It looks like we will be living with Vicodin and Adavan for a couple more months.  Hopefully we can both find more distractions to keep our minds busy over the next couple weeks.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Think , Laugh & Cry – A Loving Fight against Breast Cancer

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“Don’t forget to think, laugh and cry everyday.”

 

(note, wrote this on the way down to LA this morning).

 

Those famous words from Jim Valvano came to mind as I watched Oprah’s episode with Christina Applegate and breast cancer last night.  I cried not just for our situation, not just for Christina, but for all people suffering from any kind of cancer.

 

Today as I make (made) one of my day-long trips down to Hollywood for business, I just find myself wrapped in thought and emotion.  This is a trip I was supposed to make weeks ago, but everyone delayed the meeting mostly because I couldn’t make it because of my wife’s surgery.  Short plane rides, showers and bathroom stalls are just some of those places where time stands still and all my emotions come flooding in.  Sitting on a plane and just starting to cry is a weird thing.  I think of those times with my dad in the hospital, then my mom in the hospital and now with my wife’s visits to the hospital and think how lucky I am to still have two of those three people left in my life.

 

This morning was the first day I ever recall walking as a family to school.  You see it on TV where the family unit of four walks to school together down a tree-lined street.  We held hands said hello to other kids and parents we met.  It felt so normal.  We kissed our kids, sending them off with a hearty “Take care of your body” and my wife and I walked back to our car holding hands.  We never hold hands.  Is this the new us?  I don’t know if we can do that forever, but it sure felt nice.

 

Although I’ll be back tonight, I am still concerned for my wife, wanting to make sure she is okay.  She promised that she’d take it easy as long as I made sure to immerse myself back in my work and stop worrying just a little.  I can try that.  I reminded her that I just have a whole new appreciation for how much it means for her to still be with me.

 

One of the movies showing on the plane in October is “The Bucket List” starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.  It’s about two guys with terminal cancer who have a list of things to do before they “kick the bucket”.  We wanted to see that movie before she was diagnosed.  I think we need a good laugh now and will watch it this weekend.  We might also find it inspiring.

 

Yes, definitely doing a little laughing, thinking and crying today.  It does feel good to let those emotions out. It feels real human.  The words my wife took from Oprah’s show with Christina Applegate were those words that Melissa Etheridge gave her, “This is a blessing and you now can live your life the way you want to”  or something like that.  Well blessing isn’t really the right word here.  A wake up call?  Maybe that is it.  We had definitely started doing that and my wife was onboard with that mentality, but we had forgotten it.  She told me this morning before I left, ” I need to put the past behind and start living.”

 

Amen

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

3 weeks post-surgery – A Loving Fight Against Breast Cancer

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“Keep resting, take your chances to rest.”

Well we are now 3 weeks post-surgery and we are slowly moving back to normal.  We both have finally gotten rid of our coughs which both hit us around the time that she was diagnosed.  I’m thinking it was a bit psychosematic (sp?) but either way, it’s all done. 

I’m still dropping off the kids and preparing everyone’s breakfast and lunch as she is still weak in the mornings and has not regained her stamina.  Picking up the kids in the afternoons and helping them go to their activities is exhausting and I see the weakness in her.  We had a long discussion to remind her to her rest when she can.  She has resumed light work which again is a good distraction for her, but she can barely stay awake at the end of the day.  She has also been going on walks with friends so I think that is helping to both get her out, but also take a lot of her energy away.

We did watch Christina Applegate on Oprah today.  Yes, I watched Oprah.  It was good for her to see Christina Applegate and her diagnosis.  They are very similar in age and diagnosis as well as surgery and timing.  I don’t think we learned anything new but I could see my wife breath just a sigh of relief.  It is the sigh of knowing that she has more people like her.  She is not alone and not left wondering why her as opposed to someone else.

It is still hard to leave her alone.  As someone recently said to me, men just want to fix things.  I do.  I want to make her feel better.  Traveling again for work is difficult to do.  Leaving her and not being close to help is so hard.  It is good though to get immersed in work again for one week (before next week’s oncologist appointment). 

At dinner though our son did ask us about the other mother of a classmate in his school who died of breast cancer.  We had to remind him that her case was different and that there are all kinds of situations.  He was also under the impression she passed after visiting the hospital again.  This explains a little why he is worried each time we go to the hospital.  Hopefully he understands a little better now.   It is best to remind our children to ask us every time they have a new question.

As a funny aside, today I met Kathy Ireland!  Wow, pretty amazing.  I was speaking at a Social Media Marketing Sunmmit and walked in to the Speakers Area before the conference and there she was.  it was like the episode od Friends where Chandler gets caught in a banking vestibule with Jill Goodacre.  Kathy even knew my name which left me feeling like I was 15 again.  My wife had a good laugh when I Tweeted her and told her I was sitting next to Kathy Ireland.  She knew at least it was relieving the tension of giving my speech.  It went well by the way.

Breast Cancer - A Loving Fight

Back to our regularly scheduled programming? Well almost.

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“You’re not quite ready to be a full time soccer mom.”

Weekend number 3 after surgery and we started to try to get back to something normal.  Soccer season with two games across at the same time required logistical gymnastics.  Another mom drove her and our daughter to the game.  She never watches but I made her promise me that she’d stay in the car and watch the game or at least watch the whole game and not take her eye off the ball if she stood on the sideline.  I reminded her that a kid or ball running into her would not be good and that she wasn’t quite ready to be a full time soccer mom.  Of course she didn’t listen, stood on the sideline, and according to our daughter, took a ball in the hip.  Yikes!

The next day was a cousin’s wedding reception.  We have lots of older sick relatives so we hadn’t told them anything.  It was a crowded restaurant with very little wiggle room so my son and I played like offensive linemen protecting her from any blind-sided impact or overzealous hugging relatives.  Somehow we made it through the 3-hour ordeal with her being totally exhausted but happy to get out of the house.  She also had the chance to talk to a cousin and a couple of aunts who had had breast cancer.  They consoled her and reassured her that all would be well.  Their stories were all different.  My cousin had the same surgery my wife did.  One aunt had a lumpectomy and had to go back for a bilateral mastectomy.  Another had a mastectomy and reconstruction on one side.  At one point the 3 of them and my mother all took a photo together with the bride.  I alone shed a tear thinking how these 4 women all indirectly related by marriage were impacted by cancer and were sisters in a community of women who have been through a lot.  There were no shared genes.  All connected by marriage and a similar disease and very bright smiles.  I don’t think they even realized the circumstances of who was in that photo.

My wife did say that the pain was lesser and that she only seemed to be pained later in the afternoon.  She really looks great and I know part of it is her always positive style which I told her she needed to put away sometimes.  While it is good to look great so everyone can feel good for her, there might still be some tough times ahead and she might have to let everyone understand that.  We still won’t know her possible chemo plan for another week.

The week is starting off okay.  I’m still taking the kids to school and she is now picking the kids up.  I think the kids really feel better knowing mom is okay enough to pick them up and play chauffeur again.  I have to remind them to take it easy on her though.  Her mobility is good and we don’t have any visits to the PS this week so it is just a good week to get things done.  The hard part for me is to get back to work and keep my concentration.  I do worry and call just to make sure she is okay.  Letting go is going to be a hard one for me as I will not feel comfortable until she has fully regained her strength and we feel like we can truly begin the healing process.

It is hard to believe it has only been two months since her diagnosis.  It seems like forever.  And we still have a litle longer to go.