Jen, who writes at The Dinoia Family, offers some strong personal arguments in favor of breast reconstruction.  She argues effectively against those who might suggest that such surgery is arbitrary and needless

Last summer my neighbor and good friend was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer.  She decided to be treated at the community hospital where I worked for 20 years.  So I knew all of her doctors and many of the nurses and technicians caring for her.  Chris does in home daycare.  So I most often see her in the summer when my granddaughters are spending a lot of time at our house.  We would always walk down when the kids were playing in the driveway.  My girls would bring their bikes or scooters, toys, dolls, and cookies to share.  We would sit in the driveway and watch the kids, exchanging news and neighborhood gossip.  She and her husband are self-employed so they had less than optimal healthcare options, part of the forgotten America the healthcare reform bill was meant to serve.

Chris started a Caringbridge page in addition to her Facebook updates.  When I read her January post, I felt I had to republish it here.  Like so many of us making a year’s end assessment, she has focused on the blessings as much as the suffering that cancer brings.

New Year, new me

Hello everyone,

I have never been so glad to see a year end !  2012 Will be a new year with new beginnings for me.  I finished all of my treatments just before Christmas.  It was a perfect time to wrap treatments up.  After  12 weeks of chemo and 36 radiation treatments I am finally finished.

My Oncologist said they have surgically removed, poisoned (chemo) and burned (radiation) every cancer cell that they could.  I am considered in remission.

It is frustrating  though because with Triple Negative Breast cancer that even though it is the worst kind of breast cancer, very aggressive ,there are no blood tests or other test  to prove it is all gone.  The treatments are like an insurance policy they tell me.policy.

They cautioned me that most women experience depression when treatment ends. I however refuse to let myself go there. I do feel somewhat anxious now that the heavy duty treatments have ended and I am somewhat on my own.  Will it come back ? What do I fight it with currently ?

I know I have a wonderful support system to rely on and now that treatments are over. Also I plan to rely on my spiritual side to continue to help me stay strong. I have felt empowered by all of you with your kindness and prayers. My niece pointed out that it is like everything I have ever done for anyone has come full circle back to me. That is very true. It has been overwhelming all the love I have felt.  I could never have imagined how kind everyone would be !!

I can honestly say that more good has come from the last 7 months than bad.  I have seen many other patients in much worse shape than myself and it made me feel like one of the lucky ones if there is such a thing with cancer. Lucky  however I did not have cancer when my sons were young, the situation my late Mother had to endure.

There were so many rules to follow during treatment that I now feel free at last. Free to try to return to normal. For example free to eat blueberries and other antioxidants once again.  Free to take supplements, free to wear a bra !  Free to use a regular toothbrush because there are no more blisters in my mouth from chemo,Free to wear a deodorant that might contain aluminum…even though the aluminum is not good for any of us.Free not to force myself to consume 64 oz of water, free to drink WHATEVER I want like wine  AND free to watch my hair slowly growing in now. Free to have my hair colored again, that is as soon as I grow enough to color !  Did I really expect it to grow in blonde ?? I have never seen myself any other way.

I see one of my 3 oncologists  in 2 weeks and I will continue to be watched closely for a while but basically the worst is behind me.

In fact the day I “graduated”, they even gave me a diploma, from radiation my husband Tom went out and bough me some graduation presents ! Some beautiful Susan Komen Breast cancer jewelry that are now dear to my heart.

Speaking of hearts…I am so happy to mention that Tom is also doing very well after his Open Heart Surgery.  What a pair we are.

His surgeon said that people often die from what he had and it was  a very serious situation. Dr Storey said it is a very slow recovery, 3 months, but Tom is doing very well.

We are both truly  blessed to have such good outcomes from such a scary time. A new year and renewed health for both of us !

Again, Thank you so much for your support !

Here is another more positive outlook for the new year.  It is written by a professional writer and lymphoma survivor blogging at OPEN Mike

For more than three years now I have sumo wrestled with the Emperor of all Maladies, each of us trying to throw the other out of the ring. (At 145 pounds I may be in the wrong sport but, hey, I’m feisty.) Our next honbasho starts on Jan. 12.

Here are five things I’ve learned about my foe:

Cancer is an accumulation of accidental cellular events that conspire to take down the whole system, slowly building momentum over the years until it reaches a tipping point and then cascades out of control toward the grave.

Cancer can take decades to mature, during which the initial mutation is augmented by other random genetic changes, fueled by carcinogens in our food and environment and super-charged by stress.

Cancer is born in, and borne along by, the genes, as Dr. Mukherjee points out: “Abnormal genes governed all aspects of cancer’s behavior. Cascades of aberrant signals, originating in mutated genes, fanned out within the cancer cell, promoting survival, accelerating growth, enabling mobility, recruiting blood vessels, enhancing nourishment, drawing oxygen—sustaining cancer’s life.”

Cancer hijacks the body’s normal processes to its own narcissistic ends. There’s nothing extraneous about cancer. It doesn’t invent new proteins or pathways but exploits existing ones, like mitosis and motility, while overriding built-in safeguards like apoptosis and tumor-suppressor genes.

Cancer has vulnerabilities; it can be beaten—or at least beaten back for several years—by a combination of healthy habits and medical treatments. My seven-fold strategy includes: a positive attitude, a sense of humor, a plant-based diet, targeted intervention (surgery, radiation, chemotherapy), submissive prayer, a focus on others, and the loving support of family and friends.

I thought that this post would be a good way to start the year.  It combines sadness with hope, a place we often find ourselves in.  This is certainly true of those of us battling cancer.  It is true for those who cherish and love us.  And I can say it is true for we professional  caregivers who choose to follow this journey, experiencing sadness and hope month in and month out.

Dear Mom, I’m married.

Hi Mom,

It’s been a while since I’ve written. My last post, when I just got engaged, pretty much described everything leading up to the wedding. I survived it all and even had a great time. A lot of people have been talking to me about it, asking me how it went, so here’s the list of what I thought I wouldn’t survive – and what ended up happening:

• You won’t be there for me to tell you I am engaged. You weren’t, but I survived.
• You won’t be there to help me with the preparations. But Grandma came with me to be fitted for the dress the first time (the seamstress offered her a job), my baby sister the second, and my good friend the third. Shanainai tied it for me and everything. I survived.
• Your name will be listed as z”l (deceased) on my wedding invitation – or is it not supposed to be listed at all? I have no idea. A non-issue. We didn’t list any parents on the invite, we just made the invitation from us. That was easy. I survived.
• You won’t be at the signing of the Ketubah. Neither was any other female. If anything, you were there, but I wasn’t. I didn’t even know when it happened. Survived.
• You won’t be walking down the aisle. Grandma went with me instead. The rabbi suggested it, and I loved the idea. So did she. Definitely survived.
• You won’t be under the chuppah with me. Grandma was. But then again, so were you. I know it was you that made that wind blow and knock everything over. Definitely survived.
• You won’t be beaming down at me. Ever. No, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I guess I accepted it, so I survived.

The truth is, the  most stress I had about and from the wedding was that I was afraid of the attention. I was hoping no one would mention you when they saw me, and thankfully just about no one did, other than a few of the elderly. But I had that invisible “pretend you are someone else” wall up, and it worked perfectly.

In fact, everything went very smoothly, from the planning (which I hated, but I would have hated it if you were here, too, to be fair), all the way through the wedding. I had more offers of help than I knew what to do with, and The Boy and I knew what we wanted and wouldn’t let anyone bully us into something we didn’t want to do. Well, we did invite a few people I didn’t want to invite, but The Boy was right, it wasn’t worth the fight.

I had the sleeves from your dress removed, and the back opened up with a corset-type thing to tie it with, and the dress ended up being great. I would have preferred to be a few pounds lighter, but who wouldn’t… Dad’s best friend growing up actually asked me at the wedding if it was your dress – he somehow remembered your dress from 36 years before!

I’m so happy I got to wear it. There were a few times where I felt I  missed out on the choosing-a-dress part of the wedding, but the truth is it doesn’t matter – who wouldn’t rather wear their mother’s dress if it was as gorgeous as it is? There were times where I would suddenly think, I can’t believe my mom danced in this and ate in this and got married in this. I thought it would make me cry, but I loved it. By the way, I hope you didn’t take it personally that I changed clothes when we were dancing. I was just jealous of The Boy and wanted to be part of the t-shirt fun, too.

The wedding itself went by in a second and a half, like everyone said it would. I survived the family picture taking (mostly because people were already coming, so I just wanted it to be over), the reception was great, and the hike to the chuppah was a lot of fun. After a brief 10 minutes when we couldn’t find Grandma, she appeared, and the ceremony started.

It was the fastest 10 minutes of my life. I felt like an actress playing a part, just I was surrounded by people I love instead of random actors and stand-ins. At one point, the rabbi said that Jewish tradition says that 3 generations back come to visit at the chuppah, and that we have to mention your absence. I swear, he could have been talking about sauerkraut if you were to judge by my reaction. I can’t believe how calm I was. The only time a few tears fell down my face was when I heard Grandma sniffling beside me. Of course, The Boy is amazing and took  me hand the second he heard it, just to beam some extra strength into me (which worked, of course).

And then she asked when do we kiss already, so that was over.

The rabbi picked up one of the glasses of wine, started the first prayer, and then an insane gust of wind blew in and knocked everything over – the other glass, the ring, etc.

My reaction: Yey, The Boy broke the glass succesfully

The reaction of the 175 other people at the wedding: That was Talia’s mom.

Thankfully, I made no connection. I didn’t think about it at the chuppah, I didn’t realize it during the wedding, and only later when I got home, people started talking to me about it.

And as it turns out, everyone thought it.

So I’ve accepted it. Even though I am not mystical in any way, I kind of like the idea that you made a statement and said, “Ahem! I am here! I am in the dress and the wind and the glass of wine that just shattered on the floor.”

So the wedding went by smoothly, and honestly, it couldn’t have been more perfect, that is other than you actually being there. Everyone laughed and danced and ate and had a great time.

I waited a while to write about the wedding because I was waiting for a nervous breakdown. A week passed, another week passed, and another, and I was OK. I don’t know how. And then suddenly it was just over; Reports of the impending emotional storm were greatly exaggerated.

A few weeks after the wedding, I started feeling really weird. Not sick or anything, but just weird. After a few more weeks of weirdness, I decided to take a small test.

It had 2 definite lines on it. I am pregnant.

A few weeks later, the doctor was able to tell me exactly what day we conceived.

It was 5 days after the wedding.

On your wedding anniversary.

from Daughter of Cancer

My tenth cancerversary came and went almost without notice.  I would feel bad about this oversight but maybe it is a sign of good mental health, of having moved on.  It was 2001, a year that is remembered darkly anyway for the events of that September.

It was a series of events in my case, each one more portentous than the one preceding.  I awoke with a start – a stabbing pain in more lower left abdomen.  Then reaching down to feel a large hardened shape that hadn’t been there before.  Having a physician colleague palpate the mass when I went to work at the hospital.  Being told “you need a CAT scan.  I mean today!” So I went to my own primary care doctor.  He also felt the mass, ordering a scan and a reading STAT.  So I had it done, returning the next day to pick up the results and ferry them back to my doctor’s.  It was a rare sunny, balmy day in early December, the kind that fills you with optimism.  That lasted until the typed results slipped out of the envelope in the car, revealing the words “leukemia or lymphoma.”

Life was never the same after that.  Becoming cancer.  Achieving remission.  Falling back into relapse.  Second remission followed by stem cell transplant.  The operative word in this paragraph is life. I still have it.

Here I am ten years later, much longer than the 7.5 months predicted in the literature.  A miraculous testament to the theory of targeted biotherapy.  A poster child for my own rare disease – t-cell prolymphocytic leukemia.

So I let the anniversary slip by me unnoticed.  Maybe I want to forget that cold, cold day when I first read my prognosis, and crouched in the shower crying for my last Christmas season, crying for the for the family weddings I would never witness, for the unborn grandchildren I would never hold.

I do still celebrate, although quietly, as many transplant survivors do, the anniversary of my stem cell transplant, the birth of my renewed immune system, and hence my new “birthday.”  August 16th – now that’s a day to remember, although I don’t, remember much of it, that is.  The preparatory chemo made me weak.  In the morning, at home, I collapsed to my knees in the bathroom.  My wife and teenage son had to help me back to my feet and into the bedroom.  My wife drove me to the clinic.  Before the infusion of my donor/brother’s stem cells, I received 50 mg of Benadryl intravenously.  That’s about the last I remember of the procedure.  Photographs exist that prove that it happened.  But then I still exist which should be proof enough.

My wife drove me to University Hospital for admission to the Bone Marrow Transplant unit, the place where I now work.  Although it was August, for some reason I remember it as being cold.  The rest of my twenty-two day stay is a cloudy, episodic mixture in memory.  My wife kept notes of each day’s events on our Caringbridge page.  Someday I will reread them, then set them on virtual paper in narrative form, the next chapter in my Diary of an Illness, for others to read.  Perhaps then my memory will be restored.

I am grateful, immensely grateful, to have survived, to continue surviving when I know of others not so lucky, people with my own disease, people with other types of cancer.  Cancer once again provides me with a font of new relationships weekly.  Most of the new people I meet are folks with cancer or those affected by cancer – the wives, husbands, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers that stream through are clinic, not knowing exactly what to do but trying to do the best they can.  Just being there…sometimes that is enough.  Which is good because sometimes just being there is all that can be done.

I am grateful but sometimes I think not grateful enough.  One of the first lessons a cancer patient learns (right after the lesson that life is not at all fair) is to cherish time, to cherish relationships.  We sometimes adapt the conviction that this is a lesson which will change us forever, change the way we relate to the world. We promise ourselves never to forget these lessons, never to fall back into a lazy, unfocused approach to life.

But then time passes.  For the lucky years pass.  We get further and further from the drama of our illness.  We fervently hope for a return to normalcy.  I think we never quite get there.  We are not as close to death as we were when we were ill.  But we are closer than before we were sick, before we were cancer.

For survivorship to be meaningful is has to require a certain level of enduring responsibility.  So much was suffered by us, so much by the people that loved us.  For the time of our illness immense resources were directed towards – the finest fruits of medical science were laid at out feet, the ministrations of dozens of nurses, aides, technicians, social workers, chaplains, office staff were showered on us.  For a while we basked in the prayers and good wishes, the karma of hundreds of people, many we did not even know.  Our existence became defined by our struggle with cancer.  It brought focus.  It offered the glimpse of an epiphany, the possibility of a redemption.

These gifts did not depend on our eventual cure or not.  They presented themselves instead as a separate expression of a different kind of healing.  For the sake of those others who did not survive, for the sake of all that was expended on our behalf, for the sake of all that it seems that we must strive to honor our own survivorship by remembering those precious lessons that came at so dear a cost.  We must strive to be better persons than we were before cancer.  We have been given a gift.  To not honor it is to compound the tragedy.

Ten years later I am still here.  I am still trying.

Take care, Dennis

Cancer affects us in so many ways.  Priorities rearrange themselves.  Things get lost along the way.  Some are recovered, some are not.  Here is a pleasant little story of a young sarcoma survivor and the pet dog she gave up but never forgot. The survivor’s Mom maintains the blog No end in sight except heaven…

It felt like a victory!

Her name was Galadriel The Fair.

Anyone with a knowledge of Tolkien would know the name.  We called her Galadie for short.  She came into my familie’s life on a  snowy New Year’s Eve years ago, as my third daughter and her friend watched and assisted in the birth of a litter of Golden Retriever puppies.  Chloe, the mom, was patient and willing as the two young girls comforted her and gently tied colored ribbons around her pup’s necks.  My daughter, who I affectionately call “My Little Dog Whisperer”, had already chosen Galadie, the runt, as her own.

When she was old enough, Galadie, came to live at my house.  She loved my family, my big back yard, chasing balls, and she loved water.  “My Little Dog Whisperer” loved her most. Galadie was hers.

And all was fine, until my son got sick with cancer.  Then life became chaotic, my home was full of stress and intense emotion.  Slowly Galadie became more and more territorial.  She took on the role of protector and began aggresively going after people who came to my house.  One day, she ran after my neighbor nearly biting him.  This was the last straw.  Too overwhelmed with my son’s care, I had to find her a new home. So I called the Golden Retriever Association.

I’ll never forget standing in our driveway as we each took turns saying good-bye to Galadie.  The tears were streaming down all of our faces and my heart was breaking especially for my third daughter.  And I watched her grieve for her Galadie for a year.  Her loss was real and palapable.  And I was angry. Here was one more thing that damned cancer had stolen from us, I thought.  Another loss to grieve.

Galadie was placed in a foster home for a while and then eventually adopted by a couple who lived on property north of Astoria.  Over the years “My Little Dog Whisperer” would talk about going to visit her.  But it just never seemed to happen.

But just a couple weeks ago, as she and I were planning her trip back to college, she asked me if we could stop on our drive up north to visit Galadie!  I hadn’t realized she was still in touch with Galadie’s new owners!  In fact, they were Facebook friends!

And so on a rainy, dark day, we took the scenic route north and stopped at a warm, dog loving home in Naselle, Washington.  There we were reunited with  Galadie.  It had been six years.   She had been renamed Sophie, and her Golden Retriever friend, Nellie, was just as eager to see us.

She was clearly well loved by Chuck and Jan as they showed us pictures of her swimming and jumping into Priest Lake in Idaho.  They showed us the creek in their yard she would swim and play in.  They shared with us their travels back east with Nellie and Sophie.  Always staying at Motel 6 because they are dog friendly.  They talked about her recent knee surgery and how they searched out the best vet going all the way to Spokane.  And how they’d put in a doggie door and ramp just for her while she was convalescing.

And as I listened to their stories and looked into Galadie’s now grey face and watched “My Little Dog Whisperer’s” face shine, I realized she hadn’t been stolen from us at all.  She had been a gift to a wonderful couple and a companion to their dog Nellie.

That damned cancer hadn’t won after all!

It felt like a victory!

~ from No end in sight except heaven…

True beauty ...

Grey, rainy day.  Still battling this sinus infection.  Doctor put me on antibiotics. Told me to take a few days off.  Worked 10 hours the day after Thanksgiving.  Twice my normal.  And I felt it.  The last of my roses are finally fading.  Brought blossoms in the house up to last week.  Finished the roof on my mother’s shed before the snows.

Thanksgiving gift to you all comes from a young Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor writing at true beauty, never hurries.

I’m still breathing.

For some reason as cancer patients, dates and specific times of the year during our illness are so incredibly important to us.  Looking back towards the day we were diagnosed, when our treatment started, when/if we hit our first remission, transplant dates.  This in turn spills into big life changes as well, when I left this job, when I started this grad school program, when I started that grad school program When I moved from Florida… When I moved from Boston… When I moved back to Boston… When I moved home, to good old Doylestown Pennsylvania.

There are so many endings and beginnings in our journey and part of our moving forward process is grieving over the past, so we are allowed to enjoy the future.  This November, marks two incredibly brutal, life-changing, euphoric, challenging, progressive, loving and memorable years. Two Novembers ago at 87lbs I made the decision to leave Boston, my Grad Program, my life to come home and be cared for by the most amazing mothers in the world. I packed my bag, and left behind a life I dreamed of.  And in an instant I felt my future vanish, the rug pulled out from under me, and a life now lost.

Coming home signified that I was too sick. Too sick in fact to hardly shower, walk to the bathroom, or eat. Coming home meant treatment was not working, the disease was progressing, and an uncertainty of time, my time.  You can ask some of my best friends how deeply heartbreaking these months were for me, as they became heartbroken as well, thinking  they might need to schedule flights to come home and say their goodbyes. Their final goodbyes.

Two years, a life time ago, and a life lost somehow has been an entirely new life gained.  I can not tell you how this happened besides the caring and nurturing of friends, family, and an oncology team that never gave up on me. But, it did. Two years later and in a few short months I will be graduating from this grad program, I am not only able to walk, but run miles.  I not only shower, but I intern, celebrate life with friends, and eat, eat and eat.

We hold these dates so close to us, these months that symbolize pieces of our lives.  We tuck them away so delicately in our hearts that we know when the foliage changed two years ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago — we remember where we were, and we stop to take in the moment now to see where we are.

As cancer patients these dates, times, months, memories are so important and vital to our identity and to our souls because they are the moments in which we changed.  They are the moments that molded us into the people we are today.  These were the moments we felt the purest pain and still begged to be here. And these are the moments that although we couldn’t do much, we had to, no matter what: continue to breathe.

And for some of us,
those few lucky ones,
myself included.
We still are.

Five years ago, two years ago, and today so much has changed that I could never even justify it with  words.  But for all the change, evolution, moments and memories, one thing continues to hold true…

I’m still breathing.
(and you are too…)

And this November I can’t think of anything I am more grateful for, than that.

Sending love, light and tons of good health to all of you,
Wishing you all the most wonderful Thanksgiving.
And here’s to lots, and lots of breathing.

xox,
B.

~from true beauty, never hurries.

A nice little humorous piece for a gray day here in Indy where I am fighting off another cold bug.  Who will win this one.  Jenny Reeder writes at Tender Mercies

Little Miss PICC-y

Today I bid farewell to an old friend, affectionately known as Little Miss PICC-y. Goodbye to the little dangly patch right above my left elbow.

Goodbye to the little sock covering it every day so the dangly didn’t catch on everything or poke out.

Goodbye to weekly flushes and dressing changes.

Goodbye to sutures pulling on the skin of my arm.

Goodbye to three-minute showers with Glad Press ‘n Seal and cloth medical tape (3 boxes!).

Goodbye to 3/4-length sleeves.

Goodbye to not being able to sleep on my left side without my heart going into flutters.

Goodbye to flinching anytime anyone grabbed my left arm.

Goodbye to not being able to lift weights and my lost guns.

Today I started my maintenance chemo–a 10-minute IV of vincristine once a month and a bunch of pills. (which means I’ll have to get an IV once a month. and weekly blood draws where they now have to poke me.) Hooray!

The new me–Little Miss Somersault
(note her long ponytail… my dream hair-do)

from: Tender Mercies

Another long delay between posting.  I have been dedicating a lot of my energies towards my job, a lot of extra time devoted to exploring ways that I might be able to affect changes in some of our processes.  I come to this job, to this organization with a pair of fresh eyes.  The organization is large and growing still, extending its reach across the state.  But with its growth comes an increase in complexity – of systems, of challenges, of administrative structure.  More levels, more problems.  There is a concept called empowered nursing.  Something I subscribe to.  A concept my organization professes to value also.  So even though it is dark outside, windy and wet.  And even though I am struggling to shrug off a persistent virus that drains my energies.  Even so I will continue tilting at windmills…

A couple of new bloggers have contacted me recently.  We passed the 150,000 visits mark almost unnoticed.  RoniLynn writes about her mother’s battle with lung cancer at optimism and me.  Not too many lung cancer bloggers around.  I have excerpted from a recent post below.

Removing The Stigma

Being diagnosed with lung cancer doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t mean you’re awful or mean or irresponsible.  Being diagnosed with lung cancer shouldn’t make you a piranha. Lung cancer patients are loving mothers and fathers, dedicated teachers and giving spouses.  Smokers, even former smokers, who get lung cancer, are treated like the scum of the earth.  The difficulty in changing minds and building tolerance is that there are two different ‘groups’ affected by lung cancer…non-smokers and smokers.  Between those two groups, though they suffer from the SAME disease, one group sees the other group as ‘different.  One group feels they are different because they got lung cancer in a different way (even if they don’t know HOW they got it).  What saddens me is that the end result is the same, yet no one seems to focus on changing that outcome.

Each day I see signs of discrimination against smokers and non-smokers who have lung cancer. It’s not only discouraging, but it’s sad.  Some individuals make decisions based on their dislike for smokers and smoking.  None of us like being around smoke-filled environments, but we don’t know each person’s story.  The blatant discrimination is why there isn’t as much funding, awareness or research being conducted on lung cancer compared to other types of cancer, despite the fact that lung cancer ranks number 1 in cancer deaths.  No one seems to understand how addictive cigarettes are and how hard it is for many smokers to quit.  Granted, there are some smokers who choose not to quit and haven’t tried.  I suppose that’s no different than those who choose to have unprotected sex despite the warnings that doing so could possibly expose them to sexually transmitted diseases and even worse, HIV.  Some people you just can’t reach, no matter how dire the consequences.

Having said all that, let’s not shame or ignore those smokers and former smokers who have had a hard time trying to quit.  I’ve seen what lung cancer can do.  I don’t know how much longer my mom has or how much fight she has left in her. But what I do know is that I plan to do all I can to help remove the stigma surrounding lung cancer so that those who suffer from it don’t have to die premature and painful deaths.

~ optimism and me

I was just looking through my blog stats when I came across this remarkable post from my nursing colleague’s blog oncRN.  I don’t know how I missed it last year.  I hope my fellow nurses at the medical center will have an opportunity to read it.

hope

hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul …
emily dickinson

…and in the pleading eyes of your patient that look to you to make something positive out of their bleak circumstances. i can tell him what the physician already has – that the medicines we’re trying aren’t working, that we don’t know of any that will, that we will support him in any way we can, that we wish it could be different. i will tell him all of that and he’ll still say, “but you’re not giving up hope are you?” and i’ll wonder if i’m any better than a politician when i talk my way around that very difficult question. because i do hope for you, kind soul,
that you get to your grandson’s school play
that you’re given a respite from nausea this weekend
that you don’t need to stay for transfusions on tuesday
that the snow doesn’t keep your sister from coming to visit
that your blood counts look a little better today
that your football team wins

i hope for a lot. and, no, i’m not giving up.

he is in leukemia limbo hell where you’re not dying, but you’re something short of really living. where your blood counts keep you tethered to the hospital with bleeding and infection and transfusion needs lurking around every corner. where, medically, there’s very little to do except react to a variety of flares the body throws up. where, as providers, you’ll be saddened but not surprised when things take a turn for the worse.

it is in just such periods where physicians can be rendered impotent from lack of things to ‘do’, that nursing care moves to the front lines. and as sad and exhausting as it can be some days, it’s a gift to be connected to people in this way. a gift that i’d like to take back some days and exchange for something a little funner or slightly less gut wrenching. because they count on us so much – for conversation on long days, for encouragement, for helping them navigate increasingly difficult terrain. they need us to ask them about how they’re feeling and to sit and listen to the answer. they need us to help them process what they’re hearing from their doctors, what they’re seeing happen to their bodies, and what they can expect in the weeks to come.

passing by my colleague’s desks i see that december’s cookies and chocolates have been replaced with january’s power drinks and protein bars. trying to start anew…to get stronger…to purify. or maybe they’re just trying to lose 5 lbs. we here at OncRN choose to ascribe deep philosophical meaning to ev.ry.thing. that’s just how we roll.

and we do, each of us, need to find ways to stay strong in body and spirit, because some days it’s really just a job – like any other – full of hassles – where the printer won’t work and people can’t seem to agree on the details of your job description and there’s more work to do than hours in your day. but what makes it unique is that each day holds the possibility of something unfolding in front of you
that makes you confront your own mortality
and everyone else’s.
and makes you ponder the meaning of life
and specifically, the meaning of yours.

and it can rock your world – with sadness, yes occasionally. but more often than not it’s hope rising out of the physical rubble left in cancer’s wake that makes me catch my breath.

it is that hope perched so delicately in the souls of patients that guides and humbles and sometimes saves those of us entrusted to care for them.

~ oncRN