Too little too late

I mean that title about this post really. Mainly because I'm going to talk about Halloween to begin with then onto more current events. I had a whole thing written up about Halloween already, but since Apple sucks a slippery one, I lost it. It was good too. So rather try and recreate it, I decided I should give it some time and try again so it didn't feel forced. Like a Stephen King novel or Will and Jaden Smith film.

So for Halloween I finally convinced my red headed son to be Tin Tin so I could be Captain Haddock with the sweet beard I've been harboring. (I say harboring because it is like a terrorist. Albeit a sexy one. A sexy hairy terrorist.) and my daughter got some princess of the forest thing going on because the original costume I had planned at the last moment decided to take a giant wet fart and it's what we cobbled together. In the end it turned out quite good. Now don't get me wrong, I like Halloween like everyone else, but some people are way too liberal with the fact that Halloween night is the one night of the year that scaring children is not only okay, but encouraged. (Although some people do scare children throughout the year, but to be fair the burn ward did do all they could.) We got Liam a blue sweater, white shirt, and made some knickers for him. Even got a small Snowiest dog doll. I had a black suit, a turtleneck sweater and I put black mascara in my red beard and slapped on a sailor hat. We looked great. Per example

 

And also

So we were ready. We went out and started to get some candy. Vickie, in a true testament of the desire to be a good mother, went out with us. She brought a large coat, a hat and everything you would want to keep warm. She still ended up cold. We got to the first street and it was dead as a door nail. I mean nobody on the streets and less in the houses. Then the over zealousness all started. We got to a house where the owner was staked out in front in the most realistic horrifying witch outfit. I mean it was a witch meets venom meets an annoyed demon spawn. Scared the shit out of the kids. Wouldn't go near her. Wouldn't go near the next house either, but eventually a woman sitting outside her house in normal clothes coaxed them back to the fold. Then no sooner than fifteen minutes later, some dude with the scariest clown mask I've ever seen did worse damage. It was like Pennywise was possessed by Satan's crotch sweat. 

Then my favorite was the cop who dressed up as a head wound victim, a head wound by meat cleaver, covered in blood on the ground, a speaker blaring stating to take some candy and get away from the body. Then as you got close he would twitch and start to convulse as you reached for a blood soaked sour patch licorice. 

What is wrong with these people? So we spend to hours out and got a decent haul for the kids. It was all fine until the next day when Vickie started to run a fever of 100.5. Now that doesn't seem that bad, but to her cancered self that equals 105. And that's quite bad. Luckily she didn't need to go to the ER like they said she would have to and I was off to get some antibiotics. Small price to spend some time with the kids. 

The last couple of weeks have been pretty much routine. We have been acclimated to a level of what needs to be and what has to be. I still get absolutely no sleep the night before Vickie goes in for a treatment. I still need to encourage her to do some of the more simple tasks of life and to get up for a bit, just to feel the floor under her feet and walk around a little. It gets daunting after while to be honest.

Where we are at now is we are down to the last treatment. Vickie got the harsher treatment this last Tuesday. Still in bed from it, but in higher spirits because in a week and some days she has one last dosage. (I say that, but last night she was not wanting one last treatment, begged me not to take her. Poor girl.) After all that we are on the road to recovery from there. But I have to tell you, this last stint is so incredibly hard to get through. It is being tortured. But, worse yet, you are being tortured but you don't have any information. They think you do, but you don't. So they keep on giving you dose after dose of pain. Or better yet, you have to sit there and watch. Watch as your loved one withers away. Watch as her strength is being sucked from her. As her life is being smashed by dulling soul breaking aches and horrifying muscle spasms that make her writhe and wince and pray for it to end. It's about as disgusting endeavor as you could ask.

But it all comes to end soon. Soon it will Vickie will be released from all of this and we can slowly regain our lives back.

Soon...

Not to get all Mormo on everyone...

... but the overflow is a bitch. I'm usually not late to church, but today I was. In fact, I'm here now and it's hell. 

The overflow at an LDS church is the peanut gallery of evangelical posturing. It's where the parents with 8-10 kids under the age of 5 go so their kids can run, yell, and drool all over the basketball court while someone at the pulpit is blubbering through some nephite reader's digest about how some mo-tard gained acceptance by being kind. (Even though everyone was nice to them afterwards, they were being patronizing and we all know it.)

It's where to go to stare at your phone or iPad without judgement. Where mothers and fathers hold crying children rather than taking the little shit out into the foyer. Where the newlywed couple goes to grope each other or fight quietly about towels or some other "problem", like how he forgot to say good night the night before or some other idiotic, fool hardy errand. It's where the outcast go to be weird and the late comers walk to be unnoticed. Well, they are noticed but only by the weirdos in the overflow. No harm, no foul. 

Geez, just saw a young toddler with a short skirt and thigh high socks. She looks like the most adorable whore. Good going, Mom!

I'm usually not this late, usually I can get a place to sit near my parents. My entrance today, however, was very much late and left no recluse with family. 

Three children, one after another, just fell. All around me. Each child's cry more loud and annoying than the last.

It's a battlefield here and the battle is not to say anything about someone else's awful parenting. Because you certainly wouldn't want to do that. That would be rude. 

It's been a rough week with a weekend that was full up with family staying from out of town. Yay. I had been running around doing a bunch of stuff to the extent that as I as trying to get to bed last night, my back was in such dire straits I could hardly breath without struggling in pain. Now I know back pain, after being in the construction trade for 10 years. It wasn't a slipped disc, this was too high. It wasn't physical damage, the pain wasn't constant. No, this was just a simple pinched nerve, but it was a bad one. Quite painful but nothing a hot shower and a quick neck pop couldn't fix. Although it did fix it, I was left with an incredibly sore back from the pinch in the middle of my back. So Vickie, being full of medication herself, offered me a pain killer. I didn't want the two she offered so I just took one and it knocked my ass to the floor. I didn't wake up until about 15 minutes before church started. Which is fine by myself, but with two little kids who hate getting ready for church is a freaking chore. So here I am. In the back of the church. 

Of course the reason for the back pinch really wasn't because of running around. It's just a stressful time. So close to the end, just three more treatments and it seems almost torturous to be so close and have so much more to go. 

Oh well, that's the way it goes. 

Oh good, the speaker is done. I do have to say I am pretty impressed with the way he could 'liken' (I hate that term, ugh) the story about a kid being bullied and how his older brother made him feel better by talking about it, so some great service was given. Yeah, because talking about stuff solves everything. Bullies love nothing more than words. Buh.

The unrelenting poison

Chemo is indeed poison. It is a poison that kills you just enough. It is introduced to the body in an intravenously way and makes its way through the blood stream. It attacks all in its path, hopefully the mutated cells that make up the cancer, then backs off enough to let you live. You know, with no immune system, in bed in pain, taking an assortment of pain killers and anti-nausea pills and generally feeling quite awful. Like after listening to a Coldplay album. 

It gets worse after time. The body can take the poison all right for awhile, but there is a breaking point where the body throws its arms in the air and waves the white flag of surrender. Writing this it seems like chemotherapy is less of a medical remedy and more like a dare concocted at a trailer park. Vickie has been taking in the chemo "medicine" every other week. She would feel pretty awful until the next Sunday after a treatment and by then she could function a bit more. One week bad, the next week tolerable. But it doesn't do that anymore. Now it's just two weeks of feeling like you've just attended a Brad Pitt film festival. (I know a lot of you might think that wouldn't be a bad time, but come on, when was the last time you actually wanted to see one of his movies? Like a thousand years and counting) It has made life different, as you would guess. 

I feel that now I'm more of a caregiver than a husband. More of a babysitter than a father. And worse yet, I feel like a Mexican washer woman down at the creek washing a load of clothes for a few pesos each, only to come home to a dead beat, drunken husband. The man who takes those few pesos physically from me to go down to the bar for some tortilla soup and tequila shots, just to come home late and drunk, smelling like another woman's perfume. I won't take it Carlos! I won't!

Okay that went to a weird place, but nevertheless the sentiment is still there. 

We are getting a lot of help though. From our church, from our family, from friends, from the cancer center. The list is plentiful and willing. It has been very nice, but does seem sometimes we are out welcoming our stay a bit. Trust me, I wish we weren't. I would give anything not to have to lean on so many, but all I can be is grateful and all I can do is reciprocate the service in some capacity later on in life.

Still, there's fun you can have with is all. Every time Vickie does anything I always tell her how 'inspiring' she's being. When people ask how she is I get to say "she's dying inside, OKAY." Then act all indignant and huff away. The other day I told someone that my wife having cancer was the best thing that happened to our sex life, just to see what they would do. They ended up saying nothing and walked away. I laughed until I about pitched up a lung. 

Time keeps on slipping.

It seems there is no time for anything anymore. Time for the kids, time to go grocery shopping, time to wash clothes, time to sleep. The culprit? Work. Luckily and very unluckily school starts this week. Luckily because it means all the work I've been doing is coming to a close. Most of the jobs are done or close to done and we are supposed to be cutting back hours. That's good. But now my kids are going back to school. Bella to first grade and Liam still gets to do some pre schooling. I had no time to take them anywhere or do anything extraordinary this summer. That is what the summer is for. To explore, to get away, to get out of dodge, baby. I didn't have that opportunity this summer. This was the summer of 60 hour work weeks. Of working seven Saturdays in a row. Of being so tired I couldn't even function as a parent. 

The last one was the worst because I already have a wife who trying her damnedest not to be a nonfunctioning parent but has no choice. I had a choice and mostly took the correct route but very regrettably didn't take it as much as I would have liked. Fatigue can do strange things to a person. It is a monster that takes away your personality. In some cases, your sanity. It takes away the things you enjoy the most. Interests you once loved are now a burden. Loved ones are just annoying bags of flesh that do nothing but irritate you no end. Fatigue robs you of yourself. 

But that's now over. I have two days before school starts. That means only two more days for long hours and then it's done. Back to normal hours. Back to normal life... Wait. That's not true. Not normal life but the life we accept until mid December when the chemo is done and over with when I have my wife back and healthy. Right. I'll be going back to a life with a cancer patient going through agonizing cramps coupled with dull soul crushing pain, but at least with proper sleep and more time to care of everybody a lot better. So it's a bit of a win. 

Tired. Oh, so tired.

It's been exhausting lately. Much more exhausting than it should be at least. I've been working a lot as of late and then I come home to juggle my new responsibilities as "parent who can move around." Don't get wrong, Vickie isn't comatose or anything, so she still carries out a vital role giving the moral and administrative support that I need. Also, this only happens for a week or so before she starts recovering. It's when she begins feeling well and she can move around and do more when we know its time for her to go back in for another round of magic stuff. 

But back to me for a second. (Narcissist, isn't it?) Usually during the summer we are busy at work. It's the time when the school district let's have the summer break to fix or upgrade the schools in the area. It's good work but the only drawback is we only get the summer to begin and finish, sometimes, very involved projects. This year is no different, except this year they had more than 75 different projects. Almost three times as much than the previous years and some of the work is on big projects. We have a good number of projects this year alongside a fast track elementary school we have been trying to finish in 8 months. You know, before the new school year starts in 2 weeks. We are almost finished but it does mean that I've been pulling down 55+ hours a week for the last month. A labor intensive week for that long can demoralize and exhaust a man quick. That's exactly what has happened to me. 

Usually you get breaks during the day. I don't really have that. Being ahead of the work for our contractor, I'm usually bombarded with questions so much that to make up for lost time I need to work my way through. Most guys break hard during lunch anyway, lounge around slowly eating, that sort of thing. Well, again, I don't. My work has been close to home. As in, a block from home, so I go home for lunch. I do this for a couple of reasons. 1 to save money. 2 to see my family. And 3 to feed my family. If I don't come home for lunch each day it's not a totally sure they will eat. That includes my wife. So I go home, make lunch for Vickie, Bella and Liam and if I have time, get myself something. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. It usually does though. 

But wait. Didn't I tell you how tired I've been lately? Yes, sleep. Our old friend. Our good ol' buddy. He can give you the kiss of life in one second or turn around and knee you in the balls the next. He's been kneeing my fleshy klackers a lot lately and it's been in such dire straits that I found myself setting a timer on my phone for ten minutes and sleeping on the laundry room floor for the last ten minutes of my lunch break after making sure my family was fed. It wasn't so bad. There was a dirty pillow I could use and it was pretty cold in there. Awesome. Now that I write that down it seems much more pathetic than when it happened. When it happened it felt great. Until I had to wake up. Then it turned into a fight to the death to keep my eyes open. I desperately wanted to find the contraption from 'A Clockwork Orange' to get through the next 5 hours. 

When I get home it's pretty much the same. Drag my carcass up the stairs, shower and find the sheer will power to do dishes, see if Vickie needs anything, make dinner, do more dishes, see if Vickie needs anything, perhaps some laundry, play with the kids, see if Vickie needs anything, read them a story, put them to bed, see if Vickie needs anything and then go to bed. 

But it's all worth it. The checks have been pretty good, my family is being taken care of and my work is flourishing. In a couple of weeks it won't be incredibly insane and hopefully I will go back to 8 hour days and sob at my paycheck again. Until then however, I will sit here having to constantly backspace, re-type every other sentence and re-read everything three times so I don't sound like I have a severe learning disability. (Well that I do have)

Not part three

I know I said I'd do this in three parts, but I'm a filthy liar. It's a well known fact, just ask my kids. Most of the time I'm telling them either we are going somewhere (movies, bookstore, ice cream) but its all a lie to shut them up. We all do it, it's fine.

In the last post you will notice that I held back quite a bit. The effects and affects of that first treatment were horrific beyond print. It's psychological sting ran too deep for mere splattering of words onto digital canvas and too extensive for the casual reader. I'm sure those dark thoughts will be locked into a dungeon within the folds of lard that make up most of my brain. Not most of brain, that'd be an understatement. So be honest, most of my senses also are mainly lard based, but I guess that isn't for here... Yet. 

We are a month in and two treatments down. After next Tuesday, we will be in the single digits for how many treatments left and mentally that's a relief. Chemotherapy is a head game, and for awhile there we were losing that game. I don't know if you know this, but cancer? Well, he's a real jerk. And you know chemo? Well he's an awful friend who does you ONE favor and after that he just walks all over you. Borrows money, hits on your girlfriend, grabs your sisters ass, and every time you tell him to knock it off he just brings up how he bailed you out that one time. That one time. Remember kids, Chemo, not even once. 

Well that somewhat fragile relationship gets strained easily. The symbiotic link between patient and chemo quickly goes from grateful to regret in a split second and it's as painful to watch as it is to live. As a bystander the only hope is the fact that most people talk about the time afterwards as though it went quicker than they thought it would. I do hope that is the case, otherwise the strain both mentally and physically could too much to bear. Although, to be fair, it is the summer and that means a lot of school work for me to be done before the school year starts. Which means I'm pulling down 60 hour work weeks until Aug 14th. Yay. It also means that I am so tired that I can't help out as much as I would like to. I am so. Damn. Tired. I don't wish these grueling hours in the southern utah heat like this. The checks may be nice, but I'm not impressed. I'd rather have the ability to help Vickie with her day. Carry on, however, carry on.

As for now, I await Tuesday, another round of treatment and a long week of work. 

Yay.

The Big Update. Part 2

It took awhile to wrap my head around the first dose of chemo before I could write about it. After the first week of treatment was over, it felt as though six months of my life had been taken away. Like I had been put into the torture device from The Princess Bride and Christopher Guest was just leaning over me saying "I have just taken a year from your life, tell me how you feel."

After the first day Vickie was fine. It seemed like maybe this wouldn't be so bad, that we could manage this pretty easy. The next day after Vickie felt the same and she was up doing things, feeling tired but okay. The day after that it began. The pain started creeping up on her slowly, like a mountain lion stalking a hiker with three loud children covered in bits of trail mix. Luckily she had plenty of pain medication, right? Well yes, she had a lot of anti-nausea and a pain killer that took the edge off, but never really alleviating any pain. So as Vickie didn't really rest as much as she should have, thinking it wasn't going to get her down, the pain came slowly but when it arrived it took hold and didn't let up, like an extra from Reefer Madness.

Vickie got her first dose on a Tuesday. Thursday the pain started and by Friday at lunch I came home from work to find her sobbing in bed from the pain. What the hell do you do? You can't shout at the damn cancer. You cant fight it. You have to learn to deal with it. Well we were failing at dealing with it, so we needed to do something different. By the time we realized that the pain killers weren't pain killing Vickie was in dire straights. She called about getting a change in medication but by the time we changed it up the pain had taken over. The new pain medication was no match for the mountain it needed to overcome. On Sunday night I had taken my kids over to my grandfathers community pool. I usually don't go swimming on Sunday but when it's over 103 degrees outside, well all bets are off. When I was driving home I got a call that my Mother was driving Vickie to the ER. I dropped off the kids as quick as I could and drove out there to relieve my mom. We ended up at the ER because Vickie was not only in pain, but a fever had flared up. When you have a fever while on chemo a 100.5 degree fever in actuality is a 105 degree fever. I got there and Vickie was already in a room, in pain. The Doctors had to wait until they did a bunch of tests before they would give her any heavier medicine. Luckily that only took around 4 hours. It was 4 hours of massive back pain for Vickie and hours of getting whatever I could for her. Or at least getting the nurses to get her whatever they could. FInally after hours of waiting the tests were in and she got the pain meds she needed to get the back spasms to go away.

It seemed like a nasty government psychological test to see how much the human brain can withstand before it turns on itself. 

The next day we got Vickie a full body massage and a neck adjustment. That seemed to do the trick. But we were still kind of perplexed to why she had such a bad reaction to the chemo. It seemed more harsh than what the doctors told us it would be. After her massage the dude said she has quite a few knots and perhaps the chemo made her nerve endings more sensitive. This sensitivity made them ache with immense pain. Or whatever. Who knows? The doctors also said it may be that Vickie had "fallen to the communists" and it was wreaking havoc in the inside of her. Makes sense. During that time women's hormones and body chemistry are going mental, take that with the chemicals of chemotherapy and that can only be a cocktail of disaster. 

Now it's over. the first dosage I mean. She's gone through a second dose with not nearly as bad of a result. Time will tell how nasty it will get...

The great big update. Part 1.

So many things have happened since the last post that I have to break it down into three separate parts. Part one is titled 'Chemo and your kids: what happens when they overhear you call chemo poison and then think their mother is going to die.' It's more of a working title. 

So Isabella, the six year old, over heard me talk about chemo in a very disparaging way. She caught just a few things, one of which accurately describing chemo as a poison that just kills you enough but not all the way to get rid of the cancer. Well that didn't 'sit well' with Bella and we saw a change within very core. We didn't really realize what was happening with her, we just knew she started acting out.

Now I noticed an uprising of tantrums and fits. She basically froke out over any little thing that wasn't going right. I mean, any time something wasn't going 100% right. So that narrows it down to 98% of the time things are shitty so 98% of the time Bella is crying or yelling. The other 2% usually invoked what you do in the bathroom. We  thought she realized that Vickie was sick and she was regressing to another time life was stressful, back in a black mold infested home. It was bad enough that Vickie and I were trying to get our heads together we didn't need our daughter joining in. She didn't deserve any of that.  It got so bad that we were talking about getting her professional help. I really didn't want to do that to a six year old who just wanted to have fun and be happy. I didn't want her to need such serious meetings so young. Instead I just sat her down and asked her what was wrong. She started to tell me about the toy she wanted and couldn't find so I had to dig deeper.

    "Are you worried about anything?" I asked her. She just nodded her head slightly. "What are you so worried about?"

    "I'm worried that the poison is going to kill Mom." She said in a quiet tone. 

Man, that ripped my heart in two. For two reasons. One, she understood and knows how sick Vickie is and two, it was my fault that she thought that way because she overheard something that I had said. Vickie took over and explained that it wasn't poison but magic stuff that is going to help get mom better. The magic stuff is really good for her, but leaves her really tired and we have to be extra clean so it doesn't make mom sicker. 

This worked for awhile. Bella became herself once more and all was right again, but soon after she would act out and throw fits and argue and yell. Luckily, all we had to do was sit her down, ask her what she was worried about and remind her that the magic stuff is her to help and to trust that it will. Now she doesn't worry anymore. Now she just has fits normally (you know when something really goes wrong like the rest ofus not  wanting  to watch 'the littlest pet shop' or some other show where nothing is spoken but rather screamed towards one to another. 

It is easy to not realize what we say can effect those around us when you are trying to come to grips with the crap life deals you. So be careful. 

Up next, part two. The first chemo session.

I believe the term is "pre-post traumatic stress syndrome"

The only term I've made up is 'pre-post traumatic stress syndrome.' It's not much but it's the only one I lay claim to. It is a reference of how my brother in law acted before he went off to Afghanistan with the Army Reserve for the first time. Watching Black Hawk Down with him was damn near unbearable. But now I look back at it and I can't help but think "Oh, the irony."

So we were waiting to find out if the growth was the same as before and surprisingly enough it was a blockage of cells that had gathered for a poker game in two or three lymph nodes, when a fight broke out when one of the cells had a king up its sleeve and they all brandished Mexican made machetes and started to tear into each others delicate celly flesh, and no, it was the same. Who's to say it was there before but just in such a small form that it couldn't be detected until now or if the cancer travelled just as the radiation was being administered? No one knows, no one cares. All they care about is death to the infidel mutated cancer cells. Death to them all. But how, exactly?

There were a few options that were being offered. Behind door number 1 (imagine 'Spanish Flea' playing on the background) we have 3 months of chemo and 3 months of radiation! (The crowd gives an applause that is way too enthusiastic as the curtain opens to reveal a small barrel of radiation, which you would think would be a huge OSHA violation having a barrel of radiation so close to a studio audience and a small pile of IV bags full of chemo drugs) Behind door number 2, we have 6 fabulous months of life draining CHEMO! (The crowd retardedly slap their meaty hands together to make sound as the smiling model opens a curtain with a small cache of bags full of poison.) Or whatever is behind door number 3! (The crowd goes berserk and as curtain opens the sound of clapping is replaced by the sound of heavy, smelly fists hitting each other as a brawl breaks out because no one can contain their excitement) So you pick door number 4 hoping for a big prize and it's just the stage manager riding a donkey. But I would not go for door number 4 because contrary to previous beliefs, donkeys don't make the best administrators of oncology.

So we were hoping for the 3 months of chemo and the 3 months of radiation, obviously. It was the least invasive and less horrible in so many ways, so we decided that would be best. Unfortunately, it wasn't the best according to our doctor, Doctor Lin. Now Doctor Lin is a very smart and pretty Asian gal who has the stomach and taste buds of a southern soul sister. It's quite strange. But hopefully I can repay her in a small way in my super fantastic ribs. I mean, besides the enormous hospital bill, but it's mostly paid for by my electrical unions health insurance, GO LOCAL IBEW 354!!! Sorry, but I just added it all up the other day and I would totally be boned without it.

Vickie and I went to Dr. Lin's office to have the big pow wow on how we were going to fight the cancer. We were waved in and sat in a patient room and we waited and waited. We waited so long that it started to seem like something very ominous was happening behind the closed door. Dr. Lin came in sat down and gave us the grave news that it would, in fact, be six months of chemotherapy. She wanted the split of radiation and chemo but after talking to a fellow oncologist, she knew it should be the 6 months of chemo. Just get rid of the damn cancer and not worry about a few months later if it came back. If that were to happen it would be transplant time and that would be way worse than the 6 months of chemo. They both aren't great, but between the cancer being gone forever or it being easier with a chance of it coming back, it's easy to choose. 

When that meeting was done I had a reaction I didn't expect. As we were leaving the meeting we stopped by the receptionist in the front and started to make the appointments to get her heart, lungs, and blood tested up. Go to a chemo 101 class to learn about everything that will go on there. Get a port in, which is a tube that's directly linked up to an artery with a plastic stop and small place to put in a needle. It's basically a small matrix style hook up for the chemo drugs, except under the skin. And then the chemo itself will start. The thing was all of this was going to happening in the next two weeks. And sitting there scheduling out everything that needed to be done it all hit. How real this was, how worried I really was, the anger, the disappointment, the sadness, and anxiety, I excused myself from the desk and found a bathroom. I threw up like a champ, friend. I threw up with all the force and effort I wanted to put into finding the cancer and killing it myself. Then going after the cancers family and friends, burning down their houses while they cradled their loved ones as they slowly cooked and laughing as they turned slowly to briquettes. And then making s'mores with the red hot coals that once was was my sworn enemy. Extreme? Oh, yes. But that's how it manifested in me and I for one was surprised. Not worried, just surprised. 

Probably the cruelest thing to happen was after Vickie went to a follow up with her radiologist and he thought maybe the growth was there the entire time and maybe they just didn't catch it in the first time and maybe this is just was an extension of the first cancer. This meant that maybe Vickie would only need some more radiation and not need chemo. Yeah, ever heard of too good to be true? Let's see, six months of poison or six weeks of radiation? What would you do? What we did was fight heavily for the radiation and for a few days there we thought perhaps we could bypass the entire pain and harrowing experience of chemotherapy.

This was not going to happen for us. In the end the more intellegent desicion was and is chemo. Hitting this growth with more radiation would damage the lymph node system more than it really needs and just bad, bad, bad. It kind felt like being shown how lovely the table was for dinner that night. The nice china, the silverware being laid out alongside the crystal cups. Then being slowly escorted to the kids table. The crudely set up wobbly card table with an old bedspread thown on top of it. The paper plates and cups with plastic utensils. You know, what cavemen used while they ate dinosaur balls in sweat lodges surrounded by tar pits of star dust. Something like that, I didn't really pay much attention in history class.

Now I'm here. waiting. In two days Vickie gets her first surge of chemo and only then we will realize how either easy or hard this is going to really be. Until then.

The BBQ is cancelled.

I haven't posted anything for a long time. The reason I haven't is because I was done with it all. The radiation, the exhaustion, the fatigue, and the stress. The treatment was over, Vic's swollen neck had disappeared and we had survived the mass blasts of radiation soaring through her neck and came out unscathed, (also, disappointedly, without any super powers,) with the exception of a small bit of hair by her neck that was now gone, but also easily hidden. I always had the intention of leaving a last message of celebration but never got around to it. I guess that's what you would call foreshadowing. 

The very last step was to get Vic a PET scan that would show the cancer had been eradicated and she would be awarded with a clean bill of health. (I say that, but I should mention the frequent visit to the doctor for the rest of her life to make sure the bastard stays gone) That is exactly what we did two Tuesdays ago. Vic got in a large machine and it took pictures of her insides after swallowing glowy stuff and presto! A week later Vic went to her doctors appointment and got me on the phone as she was called in to meet with the doctor. I clocked out of work and waited with her in a quiet room as we waited for the doctor to arrive. He didn't for some time, so we made idle chit chat about nothing in particular until the doctor burst I and said "it's not good news" to which Vic said to me "it's not good, I'll call you back!" Now I don't know if you've had the pleasure of a loved one hanging up on you as a doctor has told them to pucker up because this isn't going to feel good, but it's like having your testicles jump up through your nostrils and hang there like a fleshy and sadistic clacker toy.

It was so long until she called me back that I clocked back in and went back to work. It wasn't until I was on my way home, which wasn't that long really, when I got a call back from her. It wasn't good. The cancer traveled from the left side of her lymph nodes in her neck to the right. The black mass was small still but we were back at square one.  We didn't know if it was cancer (it probably is,) what treatment there would be (most likely chemotherapy,) and how long that treatment would be (enough to cry like a little girl.) The doctor did give a few treatment options since he was sure the mass was cancer. It's some chemotherapy with radiation or straight up chemotherapy for a longer time, as in 6 months. Yay.

Vic didn't react the way they wanted her to. She didn't break down and heave sobs into her hands or punch through the walls of the doctors office. She didn't even wince. That troubled the nurses and they sent for the social worker, because we just need to make sure our "feelings" are in check now. The real reason she didn't cry was because she didn't want to show at level of emotion to acquaintances, strangers really. She wanted to go home and have a good cry on her pillow or on my shoulder (ugh) or whatever. They basically made her cry there so that they knew she was 'coping' correctly and purely by the book. 

At this time I was at home waiting patiently (heh yeah, right) until I got a call about what was happening. The next thing I know is my mother-in-law calls me to say she's in town so they are coming to get the kids and that needed to get to Victoria right away. Uh, okay. So I get the kids ready, probably a bit more rough than usual as I'm more panicky by now, and go outside to await my in-laws to arrive. After the trade off I race to the doctors to find my wife being consoled by a social worker wearing an outfit she borrowed from the wardrobe department of "A Different World."

"It's okay to feel a little down but that's why we're here. We can get you antidepressants. Zoloft has a nice buzz to it but I think it makes my teeth itchy. Celexa is great if you don't mind fighting the large spider that lives in your brain. Prozac is old school, but it's so unhip. Oh, oh, oh Paxil will be perfect! Not too heavy and goes down really smooth with a couple of fingers of Jack. And if you're not into that we can easily get some OxyContin, weed, or even heroin, whatever it takes"

That conversation may or may not have happened exactly like that, but drugs were being pushed quite heavily. I mean, the reason I felt I had to get to the cancer center with such a furor was because, I thought, Vic was dying right then and there (I mean more quickly than right now) but they just wanted me to drive her home because she was possibly not capable to drive after getting the news. That her brain was just too feeble to take in the information, make any reasonable decisions and quite possibly swerve her car violently to the left into oncoming traffic, thus ending the whole sordid ordeal in a flash. What a load of horse shit. I wish our society didn't think that the collective herd was entirely too pussy to process bad news.

Now, I was distraught for sure. Not because the cancer wasn't gone or because we had to go through more treatments. We have done that before, it's not that hard, just time consuming and you do have to give up a lot of your time for it, especially with kids. Which is quite terrible, if you don't like your kids, luckily my kids are rad. No, that wasn't my ailment. I had the next six months planned, things we were going to accomplish and it was incredibly hopeful. Just a few months of medical bills left then we would start looking for an apartment and get out of my parents attic. All was right in the world. The thing that really took us down (more me than than her) was to take that hope, which we now know it was one that was filled with lies, and throw it against the wall like it was a puppy in a burlap sack.

Before we can get the fun of treatment, we need to know what the hell is in her neck. Unfortunately, there's only one way to find out and that is more surgery to remove a lymph node and test it up. That's what happened a week ago. Last Friday afternoon she went under the knife, again, and now has a scar on her neck, again. This time it looked like she was roughed up a bit more. It took her longer to come to, she looked like she was in a lot more pain and she wasn't as responsive as I would have liked.  But she was fine. She got home and drooled her way through the afternoon. I'm kidding. She got home to bed and tried to get the knock out drugs out of her system. She really is way more resilient and incredibly tough than I ever think she is. It's nice to be married to a cool chick who looks good made up and can also kick my ass at Mario Kart. (You know what I'm saying, fellas) And now we wait. It's been a week and we still don't know what is in her neck. Inconclusive they tell us, need to take it to a specialist in New Mexico we were informed. So now we try and become more patient. Which is getting really tiresome to be honest.

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

Edgar Allan Poe

And in the end....

There is a simple sort of relief when treatment is over. It's the same relief after seeing a rich relative finally die. You wait and act nice, hoping for a payout if you give them good conversation or if you wipe them enough. They finally die peacefully in the night (with or without the help from a down comforter pillow) and you might gain half of the estate or end up with your aunt's favorite bedpan. The same way with cancer. Will the treatment be worth it? Is remission in your future or with it be painfully drawn out?
As you may or may not contemplate the reality of a life full of doctors visits, MRI's and fun runs, you may also be thinking of one other aspect in life. How much can I milk this?
Everyone loves a good cancer patient to make them think that their shallow and meaningless lives somehow will start to have some semblance of meaning. Allowing these monsters see some civility can change the Scrooge (McDuck?) in their hearts and shell out, brother. We have gotten free desserts, discounts of all kinds, and the fakest of interest and sympathy, you wouldn't even begin to believe it. (I'm sure some which really was sincere). Which is fine, but those also are the kind of people you can get to sign up for things and generally guilt into donate time or money. I'm not saying this is a bad thing.
Most people wouldn't give anything if they weren't guilty about how good they have it because let's be totally honest, we have it pretty damn sweet. Between hi speed internet, smart phones and car washes that will make everyone wait for some fat woman in a windstar minivan to get the three large cokes through a small drive thru window before she drives her car through an automatic car washing machine, not even having the fortitude to get her fat ass out of the mini van to go inside and get the cokes, the little movement she might have had in the day, instead just letting the bed sores fester awhile longer, I think it's safe to say we don't have many of the ailments that the second or third world faces today.
I wouldn't go out and do much of anything for others if I wasn't the least bit grateful for what has graced my life. From my wife and kids to my job to a decent place to stay, and a clean bill of health (pending) its hard to not have a little bit of a desire to want to help out.
That being said my wife is going to have a party in two weeks that is going to help out in two ways. (Ha! You didn't think I wasn't leading up to this, did you?) the first is the relieve us of our medical burdens a little bit, because as the cancer leaves, the bills remain. And the second is to buy and donate books to our local school district. The books will help children who have a parent who are going through cancer treatment. The books will teach the children to know that what their parent is going through isn't their fault and also they are not going through it alone. During this whole ordeal the school district psychiatrist was very kind to our daughter and updated us about how she was doing and if there were any signs of stress. She was so on the ball that we very grateful and wish to give some back.
The open house will help to sell spa wraps that are usually very expensive in spas but are only $25. The wraps are used to help take inches off of your waist or thighs or wherever. I used it, and it does work really well. I would appreciate it greatly if you could buy one or two to help offset the medical bills and also buy supplies for the local school district. You can come to the open house if you are in or around St. George Utah. If not you can buy them directly from my wife. Just email her at vlwillard@gmail.com. If you are interested in coming to the open house on April 13th 2013, and want to know where to go, just use the same email address.
Help me out. Please. The bills are crazy huge and the side work is drying up.

Thanks.

It's not all that bad, dude.

It isn't really all that bad. There is more stress in the unknown than there is in the doing. As we are now in the dead center of the treatment it is obvious now that all the sleepless nights, all of the fights, all of the loss of appetite and certainly all of the looking over the finances to hope to pay for all of the treatment was in vain.
The drama that was inflicted was purely artificial. Knowing now what we have seen and more importantly what we understand we could have avoided much stupidity. Ignorance is not bliss, it causes an abnormal amount of heart ache. Walking around without the knowledge of the world around you is not the happiest way to live. You get conned, taken advantage of and normally become friends with other idiots who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and alienate everybody around them.
With gusto, an example of such. Years ago Vickie and I were going to Costco, which is a harrowing endeavor in it's own right, but we were confronted with such idiocy I couldn't hardly believe it. It was during the time that Warren Jeffs the polygamist leader was arrested but before he went to trial. Now around the area where I live there are many large groups of polygamists that are about a 40 minute drive from my home. If you'v never been up there you absolutely should. I spent one Sunday at their church service and it was pretty cool, I must admit. Anyway, we were in the parking lot of Costco and there was a huge couple in front of us, I mean it looked like there were two large king penguins waddling towards the feed hole of Costco and to the left of the both of us where a group of polygamists. When the first large hippo saw the group he started to throw insults at them. "HEY! How's about your leader in jail?!" bellowed Shamu. Then his lady next to him, a woman I can only describe as bulbous, also screeched, "Yeah, I hope he's having a great time with the other inmates!" Now look, I don't care if you want to rub it in some polyg's faces that the man who married 13 year old's to their uncles is a bad thing, but these two fleshy white blobs of meat weren't abusing a group of polygamist adults, oh no. They were yelling at a group of children. A group of polygamist children, or polyglets if you will. I mean they were just at their truck playing and these two large buffet destroyers came and started to verbally bash in their skulls.
I wasn't having it. My wife knowing the look on my face took action first. She knew the world of hurt I was capable of and it could have got us in a bind, so she took lead so I didn't get too nasty, too quickly. "Hey, why don't you make fun of them next." She said to the two piles of man flesh as two large muscle bound polygamist men came walking out of the wholesaler. Immediately they desperately justified their mostly hot pocket existence. "They rape kids!" To which my wife retorted "If they sexually abuse kids, why did you think it was okay to verbally abuse them as well?" The wife/girlfriend/growth that the man was with spoke up with a voice that sounded like it was clogged with cream cheese, "You agree with what they do then? when they rape kids?" Even I didn't know what to say to that level of idiocy. I felt like I was arguing with two people with a form of high functioning Down syndrome of some sort when my wife went on. "What I don't agree with is you yelling at children like cowards." "Whatever," the woman gurgled at us. When my wife had got them in her web of logic I just sort of threw in "Is there an asshole convention in town, or is it just you two?" Which isn't very clever, I admit, but I wanted to call these mutated sea slugs assholes. So I did.
That is true ignorance. They were not ignorant about issues, but ignorance about acting like a human being and how to treat your fellow human beings. Even if they yelled at some adult polygamists, what was accomplished? They wouldn't have won any argument, they wouldn't have made any point, they would have just been what I thought of them, two fat, ugly, semi-retarded, walking butt logs.
I have been thinking a lot about that sort of thing lately. Not being a total butt log, but treatment of others and it's effects. Obviously I'm treating my wife correctly. At least I hope (Guilt!). I remember sitting at church and a man came up to us to say how well Vickie looked even during the treatment "Well, you look great!" to which I sarcastically added, "Yet, she's slowly dying inside." with a wry smile. By making the cancer a joke, I take it's power, as I've said before. But this guy had a look on his face like I had just bitten into a kitten. You can't win them all I guess. That's the thing though, I do that with everybody, because that's how I treat my friends and I firmly believe that no matter how long I've known you, unless there has been some sort of altercation between us, we are automatically friends and I start to joke like that. I don't know if it's wires crossed in my brains from when my sisters cracked my skull open when I was six. I'm not sure if it's just my ego speaking to me saying, "Who wouldn't love you, baby?!" I'm not sure, but I do know that my jokes do not come from a malicious place and for the most part I treat people quite well or at least try.
At work I have a lot of conversations with other construction guys about religion. Never fails that it will always come up, but I like that because you don't have to beat around the bush with these guys, they are very salt of the Earth. I dig that about them. In a heavy Mormon populated area, they tell me that they have been told that they need to become Mormons because "Only mormons go to heaven." Pure BS that is. Anyone who tell you that is full of it. Heaven, if you choose to believe in it, if achieved, is by how you treated your neighbors. I don't care what you have done in your religion to get in God's good graces, if you treated the waiter at the restaurant like he was less of a human being because he's "lower" than you in society, you don't get in. If you are in good standings on Sunday at church with the people who witness you worshiping for a short time in the day and at home your family is scared of what you're capable of and they hate everything you are, you're not getting in. It doesn't matter. If you treat a gay guy differently because you are so uncomfortable with your own self that seeing someone embrace what they are makes you disgusted or angry, that's on you, man.
I don't really want to get religious with anyone, like ever, but Jesus said there were only two commandments, love God and love your neighbor. That is it. You want in heaven, start treating the people around you like you are brothers and sisters, because you are. I understand there's a lot of people angry with God out there (which is absurd, all he'll do is forgive you) but how can they be happy with Him when the people around them treat them so badly. You cannot have respect for any sort of deity when the people who claim to be created by them are treating anyone who doesn't think or believe like they do, like self-righteous zealots who have a huge capacity for alienating. It seems ridiculously simple but it's an enormous problem.
Also as I see it, the treatment of your fellow man reflects on the treatment of yourself. You can toss any sort of theological argument out there if you like, but you can't argue that if you are cool with yourself you'll be cool with everyone else. Don't ever forget how entwined we are. As family, as neighbors, as a community, as a nation and as a world. I don't really mean to get all Polyanna on everybody, but I know that the good feelings and attitudes that my wife and I have projected has a huge effect on how well she's healing. Our bodies are amazing things and have a huge capacity for healing itself and with the correct medicine it can heal even faster. For now it's Vickie 1, Cancer 0. Remember, it's not all that bad, dude.

Guilt. Your new best friend.

There's nothing you can do and nowhere you can go, the guilt will swallow you whole.

When your loved one is in the throng of a cancer war you can do everything they ask. Go out and get some food from the restaurant in the middle of town because that's what they feel like. Take on every parenting duty that you can while at home, including feeding, washing and putting to bed children. Lay down in your bed after an exhausting day and listen, at length, of your loved ones day, in real time. However, even if you do all those things (which I have), if you take even one second for yourself you feel like you've just mashed a sack full of potatoes with a baseball bat with a nail through it, only to find out the sack of potatoes was actually a sack full of puppies. The guilt is outrageous. It's the same kind of guilt that Chris Brown didn't have after he beat Rhianna and then got her beaten face tattoo'd on his slimy neck. You know, a lot.
I normally do a podcast with my brothers just shooting the bull, talk about news and whatnot. It's not a huge deal but it really helps to let out the creative energy in a conversation where I get to tell stories about my brothers and make them out to be huge morons in the process. Last week as I was recording I had the pains of guilt. Did I do enough before I started recording? Did the wife need anything right now? Why aren't you doing things RIGHT NOW YOU FOOL!?
Sure it's an overreaction. A very huge overreaction, but fitting in a way. Luckily my wife only has Lymphoma. Which sounds worse than it actually is. In the cancer world it's taking a knife to a gun fight. Imagine bald Sean Connery in a track suit and a knitted cap walking slowly to a mafioso henchman towards an open balcony.
I know it sounds paranoid and stupid, but there's not enough you can do. There will never be enough you will do. You push though all that though, because if you didn't you could stress yourself into being incapable of doing anything. Throwing yourself into a depression at the situation.
But that's an absurd reaction. Shutting down is not an option because there's just too much to do. There's children to take care of, a job to go to and a wife to comfort. You shutting down will crumble the building that is your entire life. Your job is to cheer up. It's to keep spirits up and make cancer look like an idiot. Make it your bitch. I actively don't refer to the cancer in conversation. It's just an inconvenience that has happened. To name it would give it too much respect. I don't respect cancer, I don't even know it's last name. Long story short (too late), I feel guilty for not doing some, but not enough.
This week Vickie got her first taste of the side effects from her treatment. I use the word "taste" ironically as she has lost her sense of it in the last few days. How awful would that be? It's a well known fact that tasty things taste good. Top scientists have proven that. To lose such a fantastic part of your life would be horrifying. Plus, tasting things is one of the only things I'm really really good at. I couldn't imagine not tasting a well cooked steak, cheesy nachos or spicy chicken. If I had to give up one sense, it wouldn't be taste. I'd rather be blind or deaf than not being able to taste. That being said, I feel guilty that I can taste and my wife can't.
Also this week Vickie's hair started to come out. It's really slowly being lost, but those first strands were painful to witness. Talk about crap. I mean, the only good thing about losing hair is Curly impressions and I hate the Three Stooges. Also, I feel guilty that my hair is fine and seriously looks great.
I don't really feel guilty though. That's a lie I tell myself because it's an easy excuse. Like all those times I blame the smell of my living space on my children, when it was the crispy tacos I had for lunch. What I'm feeling right now is horrible for my wife. Pure and simple. I feel horrible for her place in life at this moment, being faced with this disease. I feel horrible for my children who are getting a little more discipline from us that isn't needed. They are just acting like a 3 and 5 year old, not acting bad. It's our stress that is being projected onto them. Hopefully they aren't really getting the business that badly, it's just my warped sense of direction right now. And I guess I'm feeling a little horrible for myself only because I feel so much older than I did a few months ago. Older in age and much more in becoming that thing people get when they do good in bad situations. What is it? Oh yeah, more grown up. It feels like being sentenced time at San Quentin for a crime I didn't commit. With a little bit of luck I'll be able to shake it off in a few more months.
The great thing is, as I've said before, we live in 2013. Today, cancer is a total pain in the rear end, but it's not a death sentence. It is some hair loss, some weakness and sickness. It is not a full body poison cure that does more damage than good. Times may be tough, but they are certainly are not bruising us that badly.

First off, on the subject of men.

There are so many things that can define a man and more importantly a husband. Some people will go with the Hallmark answer of loving, caring and giving, but let's start with reality for a second, if you don't mind. Some might say selfish. Others could drift over to closed off and emotionally void. There is another group that would say "oh, he's just a man" or just simply state a man is a pig. Of course the latter are probably intolerable specimens of the female influence who have mullets and own a carabiner to clip their keys onto their belt loop. But to accurately portray a man is to call him a self-loather.
Men have an incredible capacity for self-loathing. This is why in the sixties and seventies there was a massive backlash to feminism and it wasn't because we thought that women weren't equal. It was because we as men already knew and still know what pigs we are. Of course we do. We knew it from day one. We knew it when we were on our nap mats in elementary school and tried to look up the teachers skirt. It happened ladies. It was the eighties, those flowing summer skirts were in style and it showed us everything. We know what slobbishness we are capable of. And by the way, women aren't equal to us, they are way better. That's why they shouldn't have to slave at a shit job that eats at their soul every damn day of their miserable life. It has nothing to do with some silly notion of superiority (refer to the self-loathing mentioned earlier.)
Do you know what we saw when you ladies started screeching at us about equality? We saw a huge nagging, ugly mother. Just a giant bitch we all wanted to strangle. Do you know what I read the other day? A man who was married for seventy years, at the age of ninety-four, stabbed and killed his wife and then tried to kill himself. Didn't accomplish killing himself, but afterward said "she screamed and complained at me every night and I couldn't take it anymore!" I know that for about .000001 second I thought that he was a monster or a psychopath. Then I thought, after that small flash of nothing, "Yeah, I get it. I don't agree with what you did sir, but I certainly understand." Some of you might be shaking your head in disgust, but the majority of the men who read this just nodded their heads in agreement. So ladies, you're not telling us anything new.
Contrary to that, you read about great men. Men who gave their lives for freedom, leaders who led countries to greatness, successful and powerful men of integrity and they all have the same things to say. I wish I was better husband, father, and man. The one that hits at home the most are fallen soldiers; the armed who stormed the beach at Normandy, the long lines of Gettysburg, or the pin point accurate modern soldier at Fallujah. Read their journals and they all wish to be better. We all wish to be better, but we know what we are. We are glorious, horrific, inventive, great, awful, and self-loathing men.
That having been said, I am one of those inner-psyche torn men. The only difference from me and other men is I have to work a little harder because my wife was diagnosed with cancer this last Christmas. Unless of course your wife has cancer, but not necessarily around Christmas time.
Let me start a some time back. About a year ago my wife's lymph nodes started swelling up. We thought that this occurred because there was some black mold in the basement were she spent time doing the laundry. We combated the black mold, stopped it from spreading but my wife's node stayed swollen. We got a test done and nothing came of it. So we just put a heat pad on it and dredged her with vitamin C. It would then fluctuate from not being swollen to Dizzy Gillespie neck. Some months later the foundation to our house started to sink (our home was very old, about 80 years) and water poured in from the summer rain. Life was brought back to the black mold and it was out of control. It got so bad so quickly that we moved out of the place in about a week's time after we saw how severe it was. Luckily my parents have a large house and we could (and currently do) occupy the third floor without much difficulty, I mean besides being torn away from a house we had been living in for six years. Basically the last few months my life has turned into a country song; I lost my house, had to give away my dog, went bankrupt over the house, lost a job I wanted and my wife got cancer. I'm basically an incest incident away from winning an award at the CMA's.
So now, as my wife is going through the treatments, I have been faced with an old adversary, my feelings. Ugh, that felt gay just typing it out. More specifically the feeling of being totally helpless. Within that array of things a man is (self-loathing fart factory) there is another trait that is simply overwhelming, the intense need to protect. We men protect our family in various ways. Bringing home a paycheck for food, shelter and clothing comes to mind. Also steering the children away from the weird uncle is on the list. This need to protect is so ingrained in our heads that we can at any moment lose control on anyone that poses a real threat. The problem with cancer is that doesn't apply. If it were possible, every husband, father, and brother would shrink down to the size of, oh I don't know, of Dennis Quaid in "Innerspace" and enter the body of their loved one, armed to the gill with weaponry and wreak havoc all over that cancer like we were packing heat in a small theater with no exits, no A/C and "Good Luck Chuck" is playing on repeat with Dane Cooke sitting on a stool next to the screen giving commentary. You would go ballistic.
But in the real world (so boring) that doesn't happen. You sit there unable to do anything. The first time I heard it might be cancer I didn't make a joke. As you can tell from reading this, that's how I deal with every scenario in life, a fact that has earned praise from some but way more disliking from others. When I didn't make a joke, my wife cried. She knew I wasn't doing well with the whole situation because I didn't deal with it through humor. I have since, obviously. In fact during Christmas time I sang "Vickie's getting Chemo for Christmas!" to the tune of "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas." Luckily she didn't cry at the bad joke.
The hardest part of the whole ordeal is you don't really get to do anything about the cancer except do more around the house than usual. That's it. Go to work, keep up the the health insurance, come home, make the dinner, clean the dishes, put the kids to bed, and repeat. For this to be the absolute most you can do during such an awful time in a marriage is brutal. There are times I feel as though my wife is being held hostage and I have to wait for the negotiator to get her out alive. The doctors essentially being the negotiators in this analogy. Other times it's fine and we have a good laugh at what is now, because of the miracles of modern medicine, a mere inconvenience. I will wait and see how things turn out. Luckily the odds, at the moment, are in our favor.