Tag: Cancer Journey

Short Story: Love is For Everyone

I love writing and wish I could do it more. Writing is also really hard work. So it kind of rots when you submit something and don’t even hear back from a publisher or magazine or journal. That’s what happened with the following story, which I offered to a well known magazine early last year. Actually getting chosen for publication was a long shot, but receiving a rejection letter is always better than silence. Their loss is my blog’s gain.

When I sat down to write, I had been pondering the question is love for everyone? Even someone who is living with a death sentence? According to me, apparently so. Please enjoy “Love is For Everyone,” and tell me what you think either way!

LOVE IS FOR EVERYONE

              “Mom, stop thinking like that,” Nellie’s daughter Emma scolded lightly as they pushed through the door of the infusion clinic.

              “Emma, cancer just changes everything. The last thing I want to do is give up on love, but it seems like such a longshot now. I mean, Paul…” Nellie’s voice drifted off as she thought about how her longtime companion had moved away shortly after her diagnosis. They still talked occasionally, but he seemed to like his new life in Florida and wouldn’t be returning to Illinois anytime soon.

              “Mom, cancer has changed a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed everything. You’re still human and you’re still worthy,” Emma reminded her.

              “And this is it, hon. Last treatment.” Nellie shivered as Kathy, the familiar infusion nurse, appeared to greet them.

              “Nellie, you look more and more gorgeous every time I see you!” Kathy bubbled.

              “I agree,” Emma chimed in, tucking her arm inside Nellie’s.

              Nellie’s hand drifted up to the black headwrap she had learned to feel comfortable wearing as her chocolate brown hair thinned from her treatments. She felt attractive in a different and unexpected way now, like she had the beauty of strength, of surviving. She lightly squeezed Emma’s warm arm in return.

              “Thank you. I’m ready to get this done.” Nellie took a deep breath and looked toward the infusion area with its comfortable brown chairs and hospital curtains that many patients left open so they could chat. Her appointments were always early, so only a solitary man with slumped shoulders sat in one of the chairs, staring at the floor.

              “Another first timer?” Nellie asked Kathy.

              Kathy’s eyes pleaded with her for help. Nellie knew what Kathy wanted. Nellie would frequently offer a compassionate ear to patients who were there for the first time. Nellie loved to assist.

              Nellie wondered where the man’s support system was. He appeared to be alone. She moved toward him. The man looked frightened. When he lifted his head, she saw that he was also very handsome.

              “Hi, I’m Nellie,” she said, in an upbeat tone.

              “Hello, Nellie.” The man’s kind almond brown orbs drifted over her headwrap, her eyes, her smile, back to her eyes. “I’m Ed, and well, I’m terrified of chemo.”

              “Take my word, I know exactly how you feel. I was in your shoes eight months ago. And do you know what? Today is my last treatment. So, if I can do it, I know you can, too.”

              “You’re a lot braver than me! And it’s nice that you have family to be with you. I’m just a lonely old guy with no one around.” Ed lowered his eyes again.

              “Guess what, Ed? Forget about lonely! You’re stuck with me now! Emma has to run a few errands, so it’s just you and me!”

              Emma lifted her eyebrows to Nellie in surprise, because she always stayed for the infusions. But she gave Nellie a quick peck on the cheek and disappeared with a knowing wink.

              “I’ve had worse things happen to me!” Ed joked.

              “Kathy, I think we’re ready!” Nellie called, as she sat down in the chair next to Ed.

              His shoulders lifted and he leaned back, looking a little more relaxed.

              Nurse Kathy began to set up their infusions.

              “I admire your positive attitude, Nellie! How do you do it?” Ed asked.

              “Well, in this business, it pays to be positive, doesn’t it? Where would we be if we weren’t? This stuff is hard enough without being down in the dumps!” Nellie answered.

              “You’re right about that. But it sure is tough when you lose your wife, your kids live on the other side of the country, and you get cancer.” Ed shook his head.

              “I’m sorry, Ed.” Nellie sensed that Ed wanted to talk about his life.

              “I lost my Peggy three years ago. Cancer again. Took care of her for a year. And now here I am…” Ed’s voice drifted off as his eyes misted over.

              Nellie reached out and touched the top of his hand briefly before Kathy came over with his infusion bag clipped to a medical stand. “You’re going to do great,” Nellie assured him.

              She saw Ed tense up as Kathy asked if he was ready for her to access the port above his heart.

              “I’ll be good with you here, Nellie. But it sure will be harder after today! You’ll be off celebrating your last treatment and living life!”

              “How about we go get a coffee and a piece of pie once we’re done? You, me, and Emma will celebrate your first and my last!” Nellie gushed.

              “That’s something to look forward to!” Ed agreed.

              “Ready, Ed?” Kathy asked gently, about to start Ed’s first infusion.

              “As ready as I’ll ever be, thanks to this lady,” Ed beamed.

Coming Clean, Round 1

Here we are again, heading into the autumn season. At one time, this is when I’d be mourning summer, reminiscing about the road trips I’d just taken, and dreaming of the next years’s road trips. Almost unbelievably, I’m still doing all that, but for the past two years, September is also when I’m faced with memories of the beginning of my cancer journey. Yes, I’m coming up on my second cancerversary with Stage IV Lung Cancer, a diagnosis that few are lucky enough to survive. So I have to be prepared when I look at my Facebook memories, because chances are 100% that I’ll be seeing myself with a tumor growing in my sternum, the first sign that there was something not completely right in my world.

To “celebrate” the upcoming anniversary of my diagnosis, I will “come clean” with the many details of my journey of staying one step ahead of death, sometimes not even that. And because I know that I’ll need more than one post, I’m calling this Round 1.

I saw the lump in my sternum in late August of 2019. Felt it before then, a strange pulling feeling in my neck. And I was exhausted. But the summer was great. I had amazing road trips in the southern U.S. and southwestern U.S., and an incredible journey to Sri Lanka. Other than being really tired at the end of the day, I had no other sign of what was coming. I hiked hundreds of miles a month, and kept up my crazy schedule otherwise. Frequently I proclaimed myself a “lucky girl” for the life I was leading.

The 2019-2020 school year started well, my sixteenth year as a Special Ed teacher. Two weeks in, however, I began to feel intense pain in my neck and head, so bad that one day I had to leave and go to the ER. I also had the school nurse look at the lump in my sternum. She measured it at one centimeter and suggested I get it checked out. I didn’t pay much attention to it until I started to ache from the waist up, so badly I couldn’t think straight.

Thus started a string of doctor appointments, ER visits, and scans. An X-ray showed something happening in my lung. A CT scan was next. I sat on pins and needles while awaiting results, trying to function correctly while trying to convince myself that my life wasn’t falling apart. It couldn’t! I was a lucky girl, traveling and doing so many things I love to do!

My primary care doctor soon uttered the word “oncologist,” not because she thought I had cancer, but because she wanted to be sure I didn’t have cancer. And so, I entered the world of “the Big C”and oncology, hopefully for only one visit. That was not to be. After an overnight hospital visit, a series of scans including the all-powerful (and expensive) PET scan, and a ton of misinformation, I was told in one of my now-frequent ER visits, that I indeed had cancer. An “incidental finding” from a brain MRI also showed a tiny tumor, usually benign, called a meningioma. I have not revealed this until now, because I feared brain cancer. Over the past two years my little buddy has proven thus far to be unchanged and something that has likely been there for some time. Meningiomas are actually quite common. But at the time, it was more devastating news that would get worse before it would get better.

Two draining months went by as I ran from doctor to surgeon to specialist to radiologist and back to oncologist. The road trip I never wanted to take. The news was grim: Stage 3b non small cell lung cancer, (NSCLC) with radiation and chemotherapy in my foreseeable future. My team of local oncologist and radiation oncologist were hoping for “cure” but also sent out the biopsy tissue from my tumors for what is called biomarker testing, which could change the entire course of my treatment, if I was “lucky” enough to have one of the eight biomarkers in lung cancer. It could be the difference between taking a pill to kill cancer (what???!!!) by targeting a mutation in my tumors, or going through the common course of treatment, chemo and radiation. While we awaited results, a node on the side of my neck started to grow, and the tumors in my sternum and lung continued to get larger. I also had to have a biopsy on a growth in my throat that turned out to be benign, but that held up treatment by a couple of weeks. My dentist even chimed in with the possibility of a tumor in my gum. All arrows seemed to be pointing to death. Metastatic cancer. Everywhere!

The truth was that I had active and growing cancer in three places: lung, sternum, and neck node. The local team stuck with the 3b designation. Behind the scenes, I was considering a trip into Boston, about 75 miles from my Western Massachusetts home, or at least getting an online second opinion. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is consistently in the top five cancer centers in the country, and friends were telling me that I needed to go there. Admittedly, I dragged my feet, because I thought I was doing okay with the local hospital. But I had the good sense to talk to my oncologist about it, who sent a referral. His staff set up an appointment for me, which was after I had already started radiation, but was the very day before I was set to start chemo. How’s that for timing?

Starting treatment was at least going in the right direction, or so it seemed, but the worst news of all came through: seven out of eight biomarkers came through as negative, so there would be no pills for me. So much for being a “lucky girl.” Bring on the chemo!

November 13, 2019 is a day that lives in infamy for me, for it’s the day that I went to Boston for my appointment at Dana-Farber. It’s the day that I found out that I was in Stage IV, but that I indeed had a biomarker, the eighth one, ROS1, and that I could stop radiation, cancel chemo, and swallow a pill! Two weeks later I started a drug called Rozlytrek (entrectinib) that by some miracle shrank all three of my tumors. The one in my sternum went away altogether. The other two shrank enough that I could have consolidative radiation therapy, that had the possible promise of a long life restored!

For most of 2020, things were moving steadily in that direction, even through COVID19. I had radiation on my lung tumor, and later, my neck node was radiated. Whew, what a cancer ride! This looked like the end of it for me! Had I ever lucked out! Imagine, possibly cured of Stage IV Lung Cancer!

I had lucked out. But it wasn’t over. I wasn’t quite that lucky.

Before I could even enjoy winning round one, round two was ready to take me to the mat.

Me, one year after diagnosis, road tripping between rounds one and two