Cancer

Every so often, Tom remarks how he is sick of this cancer thing. Recently we realized that he has been dealing with cancer for 10 years. Ten years of cancer. Cancer sucks, and I am sorry that it happens. My advice? You can’t control all the factors that lead to the development of cancer but those that you can, you should. I am not a perfect person and I don’t do everything in the best way, we can all try to do something better than we are doing now. Second, be a good friend, a good sister/brother/daughter, etc to anyone who has to beat down the demon. Cancer has lasting effects – physical and psychological. Don’t forget about your friend or relative when the treatment is over. If you don’t know what to say to someone, say what you feel, what is in your heart. If that is nothing besides, “Geez. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to go through this. What can I do to help?” deliver it genuinely. Third, donate to a cause, show support, give blood, give something… hold someone’s hand. I believe it is so important to be a kind person. You never know when you will need someone to be kind to you and if you are kind to a stranger, you build faith in humanity and maybe it will spread. (And selfishly, it feels very nice to be nice). We each have a profound effect on each other, our attitude and actions have effects on others, undoubtedly. Like the Buddhists believe in this karma, I agree our actions have a bit of a ripple effect on each other.
People appreciate simple things; people appreciate your full attention. Tom stomps on the flowers and I stop to smell them. Everyone deals with this cancer thing differently, I guess you can try to read them and be there how they need you, but I have to believe that kind words, prayers, and helpfulness have to be appreciated by most people. And I guess I wouldn’t think of this, but for my husband he seems to greatly appreciate what people do for me rather than him. Me as the wife of the cancer victim. Me as the mother caring for the young children that we share. So I bet this is true of others dealing with cancer – if you support their family, they feel supported. From my estimation, this probably has two parts for Tom – one is that there isn’t much sometimes that you can give or do for the person dealing with cancer and the treatment – they have to go through the motions and take the drugs and you can’t do that for them. Second is that he wants to feel that if he cant win this battle, then his family is going to be ok and when he sees the support of loved ones, he can be comfortable knowing that we will be ok. A painful subject to broach, but I’ll bet you that anyone who hears that damn diagnosis, these things pass through their heads and for my dear love, he has heard it 4 times now.
We all have room for improvement as humans – and I guess this is important because if you end up with a demon to fight you will know that you lived well and have little you would wish to have done differently if you are forced with the possibility of checking out of here earlier than you want.
Here is my mind on paper this morning as the demon is always around for us. Right now he is sleeping. Sleep tight demon, and never wake up…
Ten years is enough.

My dear friend

As I mentioned earlier, my dear friend Astoria's mama wasn't doing well. Now I can say that she is finally at peace and has been put to rest. The end of her mother's life was tortured and painful and now that is over, but Astoria is a mess. I think she kept far too much bottled up and now it's all plowing out. So once again, pray for a wonderful person who is going through a very hard time.

You brighten my life

I always find it interesting how we interact with people every day and we barely know them at all. Additionally, I have two children and this is a major part of my life that the people I work with never see and may not even know about. It is nice as a mother to be know for something other than being a mother and cleaning and cooking. But in the end, mothering is my job and I value it more than anything else.
Which brings me to my utter excitement to meld my two worlds and bring my daughter to work with me last week. She hung out with me from about 8:30 to almost 3:30 when I left early after I could see she was getting tired. I loved having her there with me and she brightened my day, my co-worker's day and the resident's day. The recreation department had a "children's fashion show / staff talent show" and that was my excuse to bring her in. As far as the fashion show, her and I just walked down a row of wheelchairs while all the old ladies looked at us and clapped. That one short walk was enough for me, but Gabriella seemed to be getting into it and wanted to walk down again. She was excited to go to work with me and the girly-ness in her was excited about the fashion show. Although after our walk-down and we were watching the rest of the very simple, amateur "show" Gabby asked me, "mama where is the show"? and I told her "This is the show". I think she had grander expectations.
All in all, I had a great day with her and I loved being able to share a big part of my life with my friends at work and to show Gabriella where I go when I leave her all day. It meant alot to me, and it would be nice if bosses were in favor of taking children to work, or if there were more excuses for me to bring her again. (Marco is a bit too young and would have needed a nap in the middle of the day so he wouldn't work out, but I'd love to take him in a year or two as well).
I kept one of the paintings she made me when we were in one of my meetings and taped a picture of her to it and stuck it on the wall of my office. I wrote on the paper, "You brighten my life".

I don't negotiate with terrorists or two-year-olds

I am on Facebook like millions of other people. I initially got emails requesting that I be friends with a couple people but I said no because I wasn't sure who they were. Then one day I got a request from a good friend of mine asking if I would be her friend. I thought, well of course I should be her friend, I am her friend. So that was friend number one and now I'm over 100 deep. Even after routinely deleting people, I have this many friends. And Facebook is so amicable in that it calls everyone your friend - whether you know them, like them or are just curious about them but could care less - they are still your "friend". As those ladies in the south would say, "Ain't that nice" with a marginal, southern smile.
So anyway, an acquaintance of mine who is my "friend" on facebook wrote a funny post that stuck in my head. "I don't negotiate with terrorists or two year olds". I found this disgustingly funny because you have a little child looking at you, nagging at you, asking for something that your better judgement tells you to say 'no'. You actually consider a 'yes' response to that little menace just because your mothering skills allow you to anticipate the reaction of the menace to your 'no' and you want to bypass that. But since I am such a stickler of a mother I say 'no' and listen to the madness ensue. I repeat in my head to myself, "I don't negotiate with terrorists or two year olds."
That meltdown is like a rattling that you can't seem to find the source of. Like the voice of a person you dislike who talks too much. Like having the TV on, the radio on and your kids talking to you about why they cant have a third bowl of ice cream. It's annoying. And for some reason, things that are annoying insult our brain from the inside out- and at all costs, we want it to stop. Being a parent requires perseverance to get through the jackhammer of infant crying and the rattling annoyance of toddler whining.
That is why we watch them when the sleep. And take pictures of them when they sleep. And reminisce of how they've grown and how sweet and wonderful they are. When those little sweet, soft lips are closed and their whole face is still it is so peaceful because all too familiar are the noises, the movement, and the energy of the day from start to finish. Culminated by the heightened craziness that comes on when little ones get tired.
So no, I don't negotiate with terrorists or two year olds and I do lose my mind sometimes and I do love to watch them sleep.

Update

So we continue with Tom being gone for a week (which is actually 8 days to allow for 7 full working days over there) and home for a week. I hold down the fort and it has been going OK. I don't have enough time to do everything I wan to do in a day, or that should be done everyday so I have to leave something out everyday. But I am quite productive in the remaining 3 hours of my waking day at home. I work out three or four mornings a week before work and it would be nice if it were more, but that is good enough considering. My kids play together nicely which allows me to do some other chores around them. It is really nice to have gotten to this point in my parenting journey that I don't have to be sitting right with them every second. Now i just have to be nearby using my second set of eyes and ears that seem to catch every room in the house- those fascinating sixth sensory skills you gain when you become a parent.
I still don't know what is happening with my job - the facility terminated the contract with the company that employees me which would leave me with no job (or a transfer) by October. Out district manager came to my facility and offered them some negotiations to the contract that would make a person think they'd be stupid not to re-sign with us. But I don't fully buy this optimism. We'll see what happens...
For my own sanity, I want to wait until after Tom's next PET/CT scan to see where he is at so we can think seriously about either moving to Louisiana again and figuring everything out with my job.
Tom thinks I should quit my job and COBRA the health insurance. Maybe his suggestion of this is indicative of his optimism and that he is feeling good. I am afraid to be too positive - id rather just wait and feel nothing until I know that I am free to feel one way or another. Everything seems to be OK right now though, in terms of another flare up of his disease - its a really nice thing! So for me personally, I don't want to quit anything until after this scan...

The kids are good - i think each time papa leaves it is a bit more disturbing, but only the first and second days - then things seem to melt back to normal. Other than that, they are happy, fabulous little wonders.