Do you ever wonder why we do what we do? We get up every morning. Go to work. Come home. Rinse. Repeat. For what? Is it a sense of pride? Duty? Faith? Why do we feel that we have to do all of these things just to clarify our existence?
I have been relatively lucky in my life. I have no major health problems. My wife and child are healthy. My family is fine. Yet, I get that “Why me?” mentality over something stupid like traffic being backed up because people choose to gawk at an accident on the opposite side of the road. Some are not so lucky.
My next door neighbor’s grandson, all of a whopping 15, just got an expiration date. He has Huntington’s Disease. His mother had it and died when he was five, about two years before we moved in next door. As a child of someone with HD, he has a 50% chance of being diagnosed with it and there is no cure. Most people with HD die of pneumonia while some die of heart disease and some by suicide. Either they choose to take their own life, rather than suffer the terminal effects, or the psychiatric symptoms lead to suicidal tendencies. To this end, this boy has about 15 years left according to a timeline established by doctors who diagnosed him. His life is half over in other words.
To make matters, worse he is currently in a facility for juvenile offenders. His life has not been the greatest, prior to being diagnosed with HD. Trouble with anger, authority, drugs, and vandalism have led him to be a risk to others and being in this facility mandates that he be treated for whatever he’s going through. I don’t know much about that situation but from what I was told, he refused treatment while he was still living at home because of the effects.
Think about it. This kid is in a correctional facility, probably until he turns 18 and pretty much has no plans to walk the straight and narrow after that. He’ll most likely end up back in the system for a majority of his life. I’m not even sure if he knows his life expectancy, yet. Would you want to know?
If you were given five years to live and your life is pretty much screwed anyway, given your history, what would you do? Get a job? Pay taxes? Obey the rules? What’s to say you don’t just decide to go balls deep and rob a bank with a year left to live. Go somewhere and just live out the last year with nothing but id satisfying actions. Why not?
And people wonder why I question things the way I do.
I’ve seen an 11 year old girl fight with everything she has to beat bone cancer, only to die a year later when it came back to knock her ass to the mat.
I’ve seen my mother-in-law endure 12 years of renal cell cancer survival, have a brain tumor removed, part of her pancreas, reproductive system, and go through chemo therapy to beat cancer. Then die of a brain hemorrhage a month after she was given a clean bill of health.
And now this. And I’m not going to get all prolific and prophetic about Rocky Mountain climbing and going 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu. What’s the point of that? Not everyone wants to be cheery and Zen about dying. Some want to be bitter and angry and self satisfying. And you know what? They have every right to feel that way. Do I think they should do whatever they want at the expense of others’ safety and quality of life? No. If you want to feel that way, fine. Stick to your own path. I would. It serves no purpose to drag everyone else down with you but by all means, I totally agree with the sentiment of feeling lost and betrayed by some sort of higher power.
To those that say, “This is a test” or “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, I say, “This WILL kill me, so why bother fighting the way you want me to fight.” There’s no faith or belief strong enough to justify, in my mind, that this is something that is planned or expected. This is flat out life being a dick.
At 15 he has no hope to have a family. They usually discourage people with HD from having kids because of the 50/50 shot of passing it to a child. He has two half siblings, one of which has it, full blown. I couldn’t imagine my life without my kid in it, but to think that I could be responsible for passing a debilitating and terminal illness to them is horrific.
But I still have a shot. I’m a big coward that values life too much. Of course, it doesn’t help when you push almost 280lbs at 37. I’m trying. When your kid draws a picture of your family and you take up half the drawing, you know it’s time to do something. Granted, I’m still lazy as f**k, so it’s slow going but I don’t plan on checking out anytime soon. I hope I never get to a point in my life where I say, “I welcome death. I’m ready.” If I have to tangle with Death, I hope he plans on a fight. He’ll be a couple of bones short when he gets done with me. I’m making him work for my soul. Count on that, the Reaper ought to fear me.
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Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Reason #296 For Why I Will Not Get Into Heaven
I am, by no means, a very religious person. If that bothers you, then you need to stop reading right now and go find another blog in which to waste your lunch hour. If you are still reading then you might actually get a kick out of this story.
Like I said, I am not religious. For my daughter’s sake I go through all the necessary steps to ensure that she believes the everyday stuff that my wife believes. She is a born and raised Methodist and I can swing with them because they aren’t as stuffy as my upbringing, Byzantine Catholics, or what we usually called Greek Catholic. Now, Byz. Caths. are not as strict as your garden variety Roman ones. Our priests could marry, for one, and we didn’t have to do that whole Confirmation and CCD classes thing. I did attend Catechism classes and made my first Holy Communion when I was five. It wasn’t too bad and was kind of fun. It helped that our priest was pretty cool. My earliest memories of Father Marco was that of a man walking around in the floor length black priest attire, with black, horn rimmed glasses, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a cigarette, dangling out of his mouth. I loved that guy. He was a total trip.
Apart from Catechism classes, I did regularly attend church on Sundays, with my family. For a five year old, it was rather boring. Even if the service was done with some tonal inflection [read: sing-songy], an hour can seem like days. We attended Sunday morning mass which was either something like 10:00AM and 11:00AM. God help me if I would have had to attend the masses that were done in all Slovak. As it was, I spent a lot of that hour in church, thumbing through the books, trying to read the Slovak pages instead of paying attention to the English side. Basically, all you really needed to remember was when to kneel, sit, stand, and FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
This usually occurred when I was not sitting directly next to or between my brother and sister. If I was, then there were usually snickers and suppressed chortles sneaking out of us as we screwed around in the pews. The smartest kid would always sit furthest away from our parents, out of striking distance. I imagine that the “Let us pray” request, coming from the priest, should not be followed by the muffled snorts of a ill behaved child in a very acoustically endowed room.
Hallelujah hi-jinks, aside, all was well with our experience. Eventually, however, Father Marco died and my parents were a bit put off by his successor, Father Mike. He was a bit of an old school priest with a lot to say for members of the church who didn’t believe in tithing, in any amount. We began to attend in less frequency, going only on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, before completely leaving the church, all together. Of course, as a child, I didn’t mind. I was getting to sleep in on Sundays. I took my weekend sleeping very seriously, as you can tell. Something I don’t get to enjoy at all anymore with a three year old. A three year old who gets up at 8:30AM, on the weekends, in great regularity, that is.
Now, I have said, with the utmost certainty, that the reason my parents decided to stop going to church was based solely on the attitude and actions of the newer priest, Father Mike. But, what I’ve come to realize, as I get older, is that parents answer one question in a certain way to avoid the issue cascading into 300 other questions. I’ve learned this as a parent. I always want to give the truthful explanation to any question my child has, because I am a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie who likes to have the answer. Yet, the answer I give is usually the predecessor to more questions which always end up in redundancy on my part. So, I give a short answer of “yes” or “no” or “ask your mother” to avoid such inquisitions. So, when I asked my parents why they stopped going to church they gave me the universally accepted answer of “Father Mike did ‘this’” or “We felt Father Mike was being ‘this.’” However, I have pieced together, from experiencing my own line of questioning, as a parent, that a deeper conspiracy may have resulted in our expulsion from the church. In all likelihood, it was my fault.
I have not done all the required research and could be speculating, A LOT, but I think my parents were forced to stop attending church because of something I did. If you were hoping I would elaborate into a three hour rant, you’re in luck. We’re already an hour in by this paragraph.
Like I said, I have fond memories of Father Marco, and scant memories of Father Mike. But, my last memory of going to church was on a snowy Christmas Eve. We had gone to an evening mass, probably so my mother could continue wrapping presents from “Santa.” She was not Catholic, so her excusing herself from certain church related activities was not suspicious in the least to me. I mean, there could not possibly be any mythical holiday figure related activities in place of another, in other words. So, my father loaded us kids into our Jeep Cherokee, with optional snow plow, and headed up the road a bit to church.
I had made the classic blunder like all kids that night. Even my kid makes it all the time, now. When parents ask you if you have to go to the bathroom, before leaving, you should say yes. The same goes for adults in their late 30s and up. You always go before you leave. That's the rule. I don't care if you think you are fine. You go. We are forever having to take our daughter to the bathroom whenever it is the least convenient to everyone. Well, I was just as bad as a child. I had just eaten dinner, accompanied by two glasses of iced tea, and then informed my father, with the upmost certainty that “I did not have to go.” He accepted my third repetition of that answer and off we went.
I felt the urge to pee about five minutes into our drive but kept my mouth shut. Upon reaching the church, I informed my father that I had to go and he gave me that “I thought you didn’t have to go” speech followed by my response of, “I didn’t have to go, THEN.” He told me to hold it and we went into the service which was beginning to start. The last half hour was pretty unbearable as I repeatedly said, in a whisper, “I have to go.” Of course, the church being rather on the empty side elevated that whisper into a mild roar. I guess it could have been worse. My child will inform an entire restaurant that she “Has to go poop.” And, just in case anyone didn’t hear her, she will repeat that statement again in five seconds at a louder volume.
After the service, my eyes were literally watering. I was ready to burst. In a totally related context, I don’t think the Spanish Inquisition employed such torture as my father, continually telling me to hold it. By the time we made it back to the Jeep, which was parked on the street next to the wall that ran along the front of the Rectory, I was in dire straits. Home was only a five minute drive, at most, but I wasn’t going to make it out of the parking lot.
I pleaded with my father, one last time, and he caved. “Fine. Come here.” I expected him to locate a bathroom, somewhere inside the church, out of the cold darkness that was Christmas Eve in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Instead, he directed me around the driver’s side of the Jeep and said to go there.
“But, I’m outside.” I said.
“Just go.” He said.
“Someone will see me.” I said.
“No one will see you.” He said.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Do you have to go or not?” He said.
I went.
Tucked away along the side of the big honking Jeep Cherokee, with optional snow plow, I let out a pee that could have put out the fires of Rome. Moses could have parted it and led his people to freedom. It was the most relief I had ever felt in my short time on this Earth. My father, brother and sister stood watch, on either side of the Jeep, shivering as I continued to pee for what seemed like hours. I stood there, in a church parking lot, reaffirming myself that “No one could see me,” over and over. I did this and then looked up to the sky, as most men do when they relieve themselves with great elation. I looked up into the night sky, with all its wonder. The twinkling of the stars were the only source of light that cold night. I stood there and looked to the… heavens. “Uh, oh.” I thought.
The following events are of my own speculation. I have no proof other than a gut feeling that serves to bring this story to some kind of conclusion as you are probably ready to collect social security, by now.
That night while I slept, anxiously awaiting Christmas morning and lots of Star Wars action figure type presents, I believe that some ethereal communication network informed Father Mike of my desecration of church property. Perhaps even God, himself, got on the horn and rang up Father Mike through some kind of sophisticated communication system, hidden behind a book case, in his office. I imagine him moving a statue of the Virgin Mary, triggering a switch that opened the wall revealing an ornate device with lots of blinking lights and buttons, along with a big microphone and headphones. A flashing light, indicating an incoming message, catches his attention and he sits down and dons the holy headphones, answering the call.
“My son. That boy has peed on my land. Banish his family. It is Christmas and I am trying not to smite too many people.”
"It shall be done, O Holy Father."
I imagine that a few days go by and Father Mike has a lengthy conference with my parents, informing them that I was seen, writing my name in pee on the Rectory wall. We were to be excommunicated and possibly barred from entering heaven at the time of our death no matter how many good deeds we may have done byt then.
I could be WAY OFF in this assessment of what really happened. What my parents told me, as a child, could be totally true. But, if you expect me to believe that there is a deity that can be everywhere and see everything, then how can I expect there not to be some form of punishment for whizzing on a wall outside of church. In any case, I guess I won’t know whether or not my theory is true until I die and go up to heaven. Whereupon, when I reach the Pearly Gates and find myself barred from entering I’ll know I was right. In that case, I will totally take a leak on the gate and gladly go to hell. It's a long trip and I've learned to go before leaving.
Like I said, I am not religious. For my daughter’s sake I go through all the necessary steps to ensure that she believes the everyday stuff that my wife believes. She is a born and raised Methodist and I can swing with them because they aren’t as stuffy as my upbringing, Byzantine Catholics, or what we usually called Greek Catholic. Now, Byz. Caths. are not as strict as your garden variety Roman ones. Our priests could marry, for one, and we didn’t have to do that whole Confirmation and CCD classes thing. I did attend Catechism classes and made my first Holy Communion when I was five. It wasn’t too bad and was kind of fun. It helped that our priest was pretty cool. My earliest memories of Father Marco was that of a man walking around in the floor length black priest attire, with black, horn rimmed glasses, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a cigarette, dangling out of his mouth. I loved that guy. He was a total trip.
Making my First Holy Communion
Apart from Catechism classes, I did regularly attend church on Sundays, with my family. For a five year old, it was rather boring. Even if the service was done with some tonal inflection [read: sing-songy], an hour can seem like days. We attended Sunday morning mass which was either something like 10:00AM and 11:00AM. God help me if I would have had to attend the masses that were done in all Slovak. As it was, I spent a lot of that hour in church, thumbing through the books, trying to read the Slovak pages instead of paying attention to the English side. Basically, all you really needed to remember was when to kneel, sit, stand, and FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
This usually occurred when I was not sitting directly next to or between my brother and sister. If I was, then there were usually snickers and suppressed chortles sneaking out of us as we screwed around in the pews. The smartest kid would always sit furthest away from our parents, out of striking distance. I imagine that the “Let us pray” request, coming from the priest, should not be followed by the muffled snorts of a ill behaved child in a very acoustically endowed room.
Hallelujah hi-jinks, aside, all was well with our experience. Eventually, however, Father Marco died and my parents were a bit put off by his successor, Father Mike. He was a bit of an old school priest with a lot to say for members of the church who didn’t believe in tithing, in any amount. We began to attend in less frequency, going only on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, before completely leaving the church, all together. Of course, as a child, I didn’t mind. I was getting to sleep in on Sundays. I took my weekend sleeping very seriously, as you can tell. Something I don’t get to enjoy at all anymore with a three year old. A three year old who gets up at 8:30AM, on the weekends, in great regularity, that is.
Now, I have said, with the utmost certainty, that the reason my parents decided to stop going to church was based solely on the attitude and actions of the newer priest, Father Mike. But, what I’ve come to realize, as I get older, is that parents answer one question in a certain way to avoid the issue cascading into 300 other questions. I’ve learned this as a parent. I always want to give the truthful explanation to any question my child has, because I am a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie who likes to have the answer. Yet, the answer I give is usually the predecessor to more questions which always end up in redundancy on my part. So, I give a short answer of “yes” or “no” or “ask your mother” to avoid such inquisitions. So, when I asked my parents why they stopped going to church they gave me the universally accepted answer of “Father Mike did ‘this’” or “We felt Father Mike was being ‘this.’” However, I have pieced together, from experiencing my own line of questioning, as a parent, that a deeper conspiracy may have resulted in our expulsion from the church. In all likelihood, it was my fault.
I have not done all the required research and could be speculating, A LOT, but I think my parents were forced to stop attending church because of something I did. If you were hoping I would elaborate into a three hour rant, you’re in luck. We’re already an hour in by this paragraph.
Like I said, I have fond memories of Father Marco, and scant memories of Father Mike. But, my last memory of going to church was on a snowy Christmas Eve. We had gone to an evening mass, probably so my mother could continue wrapping presents from “Santa.” She was not Catholic, so her excusing herself from certain church related activities was not suspicious in the least to me. I mean, there could not possibly be any mythical holiday figure related activities in place of another, in other words. So, my father loaded us kids into our Jeep Cherokee, with optional snow plow, and headed up the road a bit to church.
I had made the classic blunder like all kids that night. Even my kid makes it all the time, now. When parents ask you if you have to go to the bathroom, before leaving, you should say yes. The same goes for adults in their late 30s and up. You always go before you leave. That's the rule. I don't care if you think you are fine. You go. We are forever having to take our daughter to the bathroom whenever it is the least convenient to everyone. Well, I was just as bad as a child. I had just eaten dinner, accompanied by two glasses of iced tea, and then informed my father, with the upmost certainty that “I did not have to go.” He accepted my third repetition of that answer and off we went.
I felt the urge to pee about five minutes into our drive but kept my mouth shut. Upon reaching the church, I informed my father that I had to go and he gave me that “I thought you didn’t have to go” speech followed by my response of, “I didn’t have to go, THEN.” He told me to hold it and we went into the service which was beginning to start. The last half hour was pretty unbearable as I repeatedly said, in a whisper, “I have to go.” Of course, the church being rather on the empty side elevated that whisper into a mild roar. I guess it could have been worse. My child will inform an entire restaurant that she “Has to go poop.” And, just in case anyone didn’t hear her, she will repeat that statement again in five seconds at a louder volume.
After the service, my eyes were literally watering. I was ready to burst. In a totally related context, I don’t think the Spanish Inquisition employed such torture as my father, continually telling me to hold it. By the time we made it back to the Jeep, which was parked on the street next to the wall that ran along the front of the Rectory, I was in dire straits. Home was only a five minute drive, at most, but I wasn’t going to make it out of the parking lot.
I pleaded with my father, one last time, and he caved. “Fine. Come here.” I expected him to locate a bathroom, somewhere inside the church, out of the cold darkness that was Christmas Eve in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Instead, he directed me around the driver’s side of the Jeep and said to go there.
“But, I’m outside.” I said.
“Just go.” He said.
“Someone will see me.” I said.
“No one will see you.” He said.
“Dad?” I asked.
“Do you have to go or not?” He said.
I went.
Tucked away along the side of the big honking Jeep Cherokee, with optional snow plow, I let out a pee that could have put out the fires of Rome. Moses could have parted it and led his people to freedom. It was the most relief I had ever felt in my short time on this Earth. My father, brother and sister stood watch, on either side of the Jeep, shivering as I continued to pee for what seemed like hours. I stood there, in a church parking lot, reaffirming myself that “No one could see me,” over and over. I did this and then looked up to the sky, as most men do when they relieve themselves with great elation. I looked up into the night sky, with all its wonder. The twinkling of the stars were the only source of light that cold night. I stood there and looked to the… heavens. “Uh, oh.” I thought.
The Scene of the Crime
circa today via Google Street View
The following events are of my own speculation. I have no proof other than a gut feeling that serves to bring this story to some kind of conclusion as you are probably ready to collect social security, by now.
That night while I slept, anxiously awaiting Christmas morning and lots of Star Wars action figure type presents, I believe that some ethereal communication network informed Father Mike of my desecration of church property. Perhaps even God, himself, got on the horn and rang up Father Mike through some kind of sophisticated communication system, hidden behind a book case, in his office. I imagine him moving a statue of the Virgin Mary, triggering a switch that opened the wall revealing an ornate device with lots of blinking lights and buttons, along with a big microphone and headphones. A flashing light, indicating an incoming message, catches his attention and he sits down and dons the holy headphones, answering the call.
“My son. That boy has peed on my land. Banish his family. It is Christmas and I am trying not to smite too many people.”
"It shall be done, O Holy Father."
I imagine that a few days go by and Father Mike has a lengthy conference with my parents, informing them that I was seen, writing my name in pee on the Rectory wall. We were to be excommunicated and possibly barred from entering heaven at the time of our death no matter how many good deeds we may have done byt then.
I could be WAY OFF in this assessment of what really happened. What my parents told me, as a child, could be totally true. But, if you expect me to believe that there is a deity that can be everywhere and see everything, then how can I expect there not to be some form of punishment for whizzing on a wall outside of church. In any case, I guess I won’t know whether or not my theory is true until I die and go up to heaven. Whereupon, when I reach the Pearly Gates and find myself barred from entering I’ll know I was right. In that case, I will totally take a leak on the gate and gladly go to hell. It's a long trip and I've learned to go before leaving.
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Six Million Dollar Miracle
We can rebuild her – We have the technology.
That title is a bit of a misnomer. Not the miracle part, but the price tag associated with it. After all, in the 1970s, the operations that gave Steve Austin his bionic abilities may have cost around six million dollars, but in today’s terms, the actual cost attached to all of that hardware may put it closer to what the government gave AIG in TARP funds. However, to say that my Mother-in-Law was given, not only bionic parts, but a six million dollar cumulative price tag for all her surgeries is probably incorrect. In fact, they didn’t exactly add anything, more like they took pieces out. OK, I should have titled this “The Incredible Shrinking Woman.” Are these 70s and early 80s pop culture references doing anything for ya? Thought not. Well, then let’s just find the chase and cut to it.
I spoke before about my unwillingness to understand how someone can have faith in a higher power when all they’ve done is fight to keep death at bay. This time around, I think I’ll look a little more positive on the subject but I won’t give into too much praise of a higher being keeping her around. Here’s a quick rundown on what we’ve had so far.
In 1997 after a bout with a tricky case of pneumonia, she found out that she had a football sized tumor on her kidney. When they opened her up on the table, they wished that they hadn’t. RCC (Renal Cell Carcinoma) had metastasized into her lungs. They put her at stage IV and removed the tumor, along with the kidney, and an ovary. When I say “They wished they hadn’t” I mean that had they known what was going on inside her, they wouldn’t have bothered and told her to go home and be comfortable. But they didn’t. Instead, they put her into a study for an experimental treatment that would quite literally take her to death’s door in order to reboot her immune system. Consider it the Jurassic Park computer system method.
When I met her daughter, my future wife, she had already been through the treatments and come out with a clean bill of health, for now. All of the spots on her lungs had disappeared and she had been cancer free for a year. I have since learned that you are never really free from it, regardless of how well scans look.
Jump forward to 2006. For nearly 10 years, my M-I-L has had clean scans but a new spot showed up on her pancreas. Soon, the doom and gloom crept back into the thoughts of her family. Statistically speaking, for her to live past five years would have put her into a bracket of about 5%. I’m not exactly sure but I’ve heard various differences pushing her closer to a 1% bracket. But, now she had to endure more surgery.
After 12 hours on the table, the doctors in Pittsburgh removed part of her pancreas, and her spleen, making recovery a difficult process. She spent five days in recovery, more because of the lack of empty rooms than anything else, but she really didn’t look that good and being lumped together in that bullpen of other surgical patients didn’t do much for her recovery process. Still, she came out on the other side with no apparent tumors or other spots in her system. The pathology came back as renal cell cancer; her old nemesis had shot seeds into her system and found a new place to sleep.
The three years that followed gave her an opportunity to see the birth of another grandchild, my daughter. “Gammy,” as my little one refers to her, is pretty much an everyday fixture in her life as we only live a few minutes away and because of the renewed bond between mother and daughter, we see them often, if not every night. We even share the stomach flu as we all got hit with it on Valentine’s Day, providing more evidence that I should just skip holidays all together.
But then something happened. Gammy wasn’t bouncing back from the stomach flu like the rest of us. That missing spleen might have something to do with it, or it could be that something more sinister was going on in there. She began to have problems focusing. Headaches became an everyday occurrence. She started to seem confused and even stopped at a mailbox and drove through a red light. Something wasn’t right. My wife, ever the enforcer when it comes to medical issues started to harp on her about seeing a doctor and her coworkers even forced her to keep an appointment for an MRI in March of 2009. Before she made it back to her desk after the scan, the hospital had called her. She needed to go directly to the ER and consult with an oncologist and neurologist. She had a brain tumor. After the diagnosis, we all realized that these symptoms were noticed long before the stomach flu incident. At New Year’s she seemed distant.
On March 18th, she went in for surgery to remove the tumor. Considering her last surgery lasted 12 hours, we expected a long day ahead of us, but the doctors came out to see my wife and her dad after an hour and a half. What had gone wrong? Could they not operate? Was it really bad? After losing all color in the face, they were given the news. She’s out of surgery and they had already removed the entire tumor. The surgery was quick and she was out of the hospital in two days. A follow up treatment, of radiation to the area, provided extra defense in case they had missed something.
During her stay in the hospital, the announcement of her other daughter’s impeding nuptials provided a method for getting my in laws to go on vacation. In their 43 years of marriage, they had never taken one. So, in we decided to tag along with the newlyweds and get a house at the beach. It would be the first time my daughter and her Gammy would see the beach.
The trip almost got cancelled. My M-I-L started to feel shortness of breath and would get tired walking a small distance. She also developed a lump on her arm. While in the hospital to do additional scans of her abdomen, everything came together. Another mass was found and she was suffering from blood clots in her arm, legs, and lungs. She ended up back in the hospital over Mother’s Day weekend for treatment. An EKG showed a weakened heart and surgery was almost scrubbed because of her condition. If anything, vacation would be cut because of surgery to remove the mass that had now been found in her remaining ovary. Why she did not have a hysterectomy back in 1997 is beyond any of us. Soon, we had a new list of problems to address. Would she be strong enough for surgery? Is this renal cell or ovarian? Can her remaining kidney handle continued stress from the dye used in scans and another surgery?
Due to the EKG results, her surgery was being postponed for a month. The doctors did not feel that the tumor was dangerous enough to operate right now, so they felt they could wait. The blood clots were treated but they waffled on clearance for the trip. It was a 12 hour drive to the beach and she would have to keep her legs elevated and couldn’t sit for long periods of time. Having a two year old daughter would mean numerous stops along the way, so that wasn’t a problem. Also, thanks to my daughter, we needed to have a vehicle that could handle all of her things as well as ours, so we rented a Dodge Grand Caravan to make the trip. In a twist of fate, the blood clots nearly hampered but ultimately allowed for her to go on vacation. A trip, I feel, did wonders for her outlook and health. We had a three story house with lots of steps to climb, and a pool for her to exercise and relax in during the week. After we returned home, her multiple doctors all gave her a clean bill of health for surgery, citing that she was in better condition than she had been in months, perhaps years.
Skipping the Fourth of July was not an option my daughter shares a birthday with the adjoining day. A cookout/birthday party served as a celebration and feast before surgery. The following Thursday would be her latest date with the surgical blade. Because of the volatile nature of ovarian cancer, she could not be biopsied until after surgery. Running the risk of rupturing the tumor could escalate her into a higher stage. I had just learned that once you get classified as stage IV RCC, you keep that no matter how clean your scans are there was no sense in adding a high stage of ovarian cancer if it was possible.
After an hour and a half or surgery, she had been put into recovery. The gynecological oncologist sat with us in a room and discussed the procedure. He was used to see ovarian cancer on a regular basis and from what he saw, this was not it. There was a very condensed and compact area that was affected. There were no nodules or other infected tissue which suggested to him that this was indeed, renal cell cancer. Pathology could reverse that opinion but for now, we breathed a sigh of relief. When you have to root for one kind of cancer over another you start to feel like your rooting for one political candidate who is not as despicable as the other while still maintaining that they are both evil. When asked about the short length of surgery he said that it would have gone quicker, but they spent an hour cutting through a lot of scar tissue from previous surgeries in 1997 and 2006. At one point before surgery, my M-I-L wondered if they could just put a zipper in place instead of having to constantly cut her open since she’s becoming an old pro at this. I told her in recovery that the next time they ought to have it down to fifteen minutes. It could be like ordering a pizza. It’ll be done in 30 minutes or it’s free. Maybe you could start using a drive through for this. While trying not to pop a stitch from laughing at the lameness of my jokes, she said, “There won’t be another one.” I’m not sure if that means she hopes that this is the last time she’ll have to do this or that she feels that her luck has just about run out.
Think about it, while simultaneously keeping the Pittsburgh medical profession in business, she’s pared away about ever spare part you can imagine. How long before it’s something she can’t live without? She’s already a diabetic; she has OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea), hypertension, high blood pressure, and is prone to pulmonary emboli. She takes more drugs than the ballplayers listed on the Mitchell Report and the bands on Ozzfest. Sooner or later, she won’t be treatable. It’s not like she can take that amazing cocktail of drugs like she did in 1997. She was in perfect health back then. Now, she wouldn’t survive the extreme dosage needed when she first got diagnosed. Lesser doses may not be sufficient to rid her of more tumors.
Through all this, we have maintained that this is a chronic condition instead of a terminal one. Cancer has taken a heck of a lot of her body, but not her spirit. Approaching the back nine of her 60s has given her the frame of mind that she’s just playing with the house money and the deck has been getting colder as the time marches on. The Sword of Damocles is constantly hanging overhead waiting for her to exhale. One day, luck will run out and I hope that is well into her 90s or more as long as she can maintain a good quality of life. I know my wife will be devastated when the day comes and she wants every day she can get but she has to know that it’s not her choice and ultimately, there may come a time when she can’t fight. I’m just hoping that she goes twelve rounds with death before losing at Battleship, Clue, Electric Football, or Twister. Be that as it may, the fight rages on and she does not go gently into that good night. If there is a higher power, I think he’s just not ready for her. She is a force to be reckoned with say what you will about Mother-in-Laws; I think I’d like to keep her around.
Frankly, I think the medical profession ought to be asking her to do speaking tours. She’s beaten the odds so many times; I’m beginning to she’s unable to be killed. After all, her mother is in the upper half of the 80s and is still kicking it in an assisted living facility with an artificial hip, bouts with congestive heart failure, and some dementia. My wife also has a resilient nature as she’s come back from thyroid disease and MS to lead a normal life. So, to adjust for inflation, maybe my Mother-in-Law is the $30 million dollar woman, or perhaps just priceless.
That title is a bit of a misnomer. Not the miracle part, but the price tag associated with it. After all, in the 1970s, the operations that gave Steve Austin his bionic abilities may have cost around six million dollars, but in today’s terms, the actual cost attached to all of that hardware may put it closer to what the government gave AIG in TARP funds. However, to say that my Mother-in-Law was given, not only bionic parts, but a six million dollar cumulative price tag for all her surgeries is probably incorrect. In fact, they didn’t exactly add anything, more like they took pieces out. OK, I should have titled this “The Incredible Shrinking Woman.” Are these 70s and early 80s pop culture references doing anything for ya? Thought not. Well, then let’s just find the chase and cut to it.
I spoke before about my unwillingness to understand how someone can have faith in a higher power when all they’ve done is fight to keep death at bay. This time around, I think I’ll look a little more positive on the subject but I won’t give into too much praise of a higher being keeping her around. Here’s a quick rundown on what we’ve had so far.
In 1997 after a bout with a tricky case of pneumonia, she found out that she had a football sized tumor on her kidney. When they opened her up on the table, they wished that they hadn’t. RCC (Renal Cell Carcinoma) had metastasized into her lungs. They put her at stage IV and removed the tumor, along with the kidney, and an ovary. When I say “They wished they hadn’t” I mean that had they known what was going on inside her, they wouldn’t have bothered and told her to go home and be comfortable. But they didn’t. Instead, they put her into a study for an experimental treatment that would quite literally take her to death’s door in order to reboot her immune system. Consider it the Jurassic Park computer system method.
When I met her daughter, my future wife, she had already been through the treatments and come out with a clean bill of health, for now. All of the spots on her lungs had disappeared and she had been cancer free for a year. I have since learned that you are never really free from it, regardless of how well scans look.
Jump forward to 2006. For nearly 10 years, my M-I-L has had clean scans but a new spot showed up on her pancreas. Soon, the doom and gloom crept back into the thoughts of her family. Statistically speaking, for her to live past five years would have put her into a bracket of about 5%. I’m not exactly sure but I’ve heard various differences pushing her closer to a 1% bracket. But, now she had to endure more surgery.
After 12 hours on the table, the doctors in Pittsburgh removed part of her pancreas, and her spleen, making recovery a difficult process. She spent five days in recovery, more because of the lack of empty rooms than anything else, but she really didn’t look that good and being lumped together in that bullpen of other surgical patients didn’t do much for her recovery process. Still, she came out on the other side with no apparent tumors or other spots in her system. The pathology came back as renal cell cancer; her old nemesis had shot seeds into her system and found a new place to sleep.
The three years that followed gave her an opportunity to see the birth of another grandchild, my daughter. “Gammy,” as my little one refers to her, is pretty much an everyday fixture in her life as we only live a few minutes away and because of the renewed bond between mother and daughter, we see them often, if not every night. We even share the stomach flu as we all got hit with it on Valentine’s Day, providing more evidence that I should just skip holidays all together.
But then something happened. Gammy wasn’t bouncing back from the stomach flu like the rest of us. That missing spleen might have something to do with it, or it could be that something more sinister was going on in there. She began to have problems focusing. Headaches became an everyday occurrence. She started to seem confused and even stopped at a mailbox and drove through a red light. Something wasn’t right. My wife, ever the enforcer when it comes to medical issues started to harp on her about seeing a doctor and her coworkers even forced her to keep an appointment for an MRI in March of 2009. Before she made it back to her desk after the scan, the hospital had called her. She needed to go directly to the ER and consult with an oncologist and neurologist. She had a brain tumor. After the diagnosis, we all realized that these symptoms were noticed long before the stomach flu incident. At New Year’s she seemed distant.
On March 18th, she went in for surgery to remove the tumor. Considering her last surgery lasted 12 hours, we expected a long day ahead of us, but the doctors came out to see my wife and her dad after an hour and a half. What had gone wrong? Could they not operate? Was it really bad? After losing all color in the face, they were given the news. She’s out of surgery and they had already removed the entire tumor. The surgery was quick and she was out of the hospital in two days. A follow up treatment, of radiation to the area, provided extra defense in case they had missed something.
During her stay in the hospital, the announcement of her other daughter’s impeding nuptials provided a method for getting my in laws to go on vacation. In their 43 years of marriage, they had never taken one. So, in we decided to tag along with the newlyweds and get a house at the beach. It would be the first time my daughter and her Gammy would see the beach.
The trip almost got cancelled. My M-I-L started to feel shortness of breath and would get tired walking a small distance. She also developed a lump on her arm. While in the hospital to do additional scans of her abdomen, everything came together. Another mass was found and she was suffering from blood clots in her arm, legs, and lungs. She ended up back in the hospital over Mother’s Day weekend for treatment. An EKG showed a weakened heart and surgery was almost scrubbed because of her condition. If anything, vacation would be cut because of surgery to remove the mass that had now been found in her remaining ovary. Why she did not have a hysterectomy back in 1997 is beyond any of us. Soon, we had a new list of problems to address. Would she be strong enough for surgery? Is this renal cell or ovarian? Can her remaining kidney handle continued stress from the dye used in scans and another surgery?
Due to the EKG results, her surgery was being postponed for a month. The doctors did not feel that the tumor was dangerous enough to operate right now, so they felt they could wait. The blood clots were treated but they waffled on clearance for the trip. It was a 12 hour drive to the beach and she would have to keep her legs elevated and couldn’t sit for long periods of time. Having a two year old daughter would mean numerous stops along the way, so that wasn’t a problem. Also, thanks to my daughter, we needed to have a vehicle that could handle all of her things as well as ours, so we rented a Dodge Grand Caravan to make the trip. In a twist of fate, the blood clots nearly hampered but ultimately allowed for her to go on vacation. A trip, I feel, did wonders for her outlook and health. We had a three story house with lots of steps to climb, and a pool for her to exercise and relax in during the week. After we returned home, her multiple doctors all gave her a clean bill of health for surgery, citing that she was in better condition than she had been in months, perhaps years.
Skipping the Fourth of July was not an option my daughter shares a birthday with the adjoining day. A cookout/birthday party served as a celebration and feast before surgery. The following Thursday would be her latest date with the surgical blade. Because of the volatile nature of ovarian cancer, she could not be biopsied until after surgery. Running the risk of rupturing the tumor could escalate her into a higher stage. I had just learned that once you get classified as stage IV RCC, you keep that no matter how clean your scans are there was no sense in adding a high stage of ovarian cancer if it was possible.
After an hour and a half or surgery, she had been put into recovery. The gynecological oncologist sat with us in a room and discussed the procedure. He was used to see ovarian cancer on a regular basis and from what he saw, this was not it. There was a very condensed and compact area that was affected. There were no nodules or other infected tissue which suggested to him that this was indeed, renal cell cancer. Pathology could reverse that opinion but for now, we breathed a sigh of relief. When you have to root for one kind of cancer over another you start to feel like your rooting for one political candidate who is not as despicable as the other while still maintaining that they are both evil. When asked about the short length of surgery he said that it would have gone quicker, but they spent an hour cutting through a lot of scar tissue from previous surgeries in 1997 and 2006. At one point before surgery, my M-I-L wondered if they could just put a zipper in place instead of having to constantly cut her open since she’s becoming an old pro at this. I told her in recovery that the next time they ought to have it down to fifteen minutes. It could be like ordering a pizza. It’ll be done in 30 minutes or it’s free. Maybe you could start using a drive through for this. While trying not to pop a stitch from laughing at the lameness of my jokes, she said, “There won’t be another one.” I’m not sure if that means she hopes that this is the last time she’ll have to do this or that she feels that her luck has just about run out.
Think about it, while simultaneously keeping the Pittsburgh medical profession in business, she’s pared away about ever spare part you can imagine. How long before it’s something she can’t live without? She’s already a diabetic; she has OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea), hypertension, high blood pressure, and is prone to pulmonary emboli. She takes more drugs than the ballplayers listed on the Mitchell Report and the bands on Ozzfest. Sooner or later, she won’t be treatable. It’s not like she can take that amazing cocktail of drugs like she did in 1997. She was in perfect health back then. Now, she wouldn’t survive the extreme dosage needed when she first got diagnosed. Lesser doses may not be sufficient to rid her of more tumors.
Through all this, we have maintained that this is a chronic condition instead of a terminal one. Cancer has taken a heck of a lot of her body, but not her spirit. Approaching the back nine of her 60s has given her the frame of mind that she’s just playing with the house money and the deck has been getting colder as the time marches on. The Sword of Damocles is constantly hanging overhead waiting for her to exhale. One day, luck will run out and I hope that is well into her 90s or more as long as she can maintain a good quality of life. I know my wife will be devastated when the day comes and she wants every day she can get but she has to know that it’s not her choice and ultimately, there may come a time when she can’t fight. I’m just hoping that she goes twelve rounds with death before losing at Battleship, Clue, Electric Football, or Twister. Be that as it may, the fight rages on and she does not go gently into that good night. If there is a higher power, I think he’s just not ready for her. She is a force to be reckoned with say what you will about Mother-in-Laws; I think I’d like to keep her around.
Frankly, I think the medical profession ought to be asking her to do speaking tours. She’s beaten the odds so many times; I’m beginning to she’s unable to be killed. After all, her mother is in the upper half of the 80s and is still kicking it in an assisted living facility with an artificial hip, bouts with congestive heart failure, and some dementia. My wife also has a resilient nature as she’s come back from thyroid disease and MS to lead a normal life. So, to adjust for inflation, maybe my Mother-in-Law is the $30 million dollar woman, or perhaps just priceless.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Are You There God? It's Me, Mongo
It could be anything, really. It could be the gum you just stepped in on your way out of the store, the car in front of you that just stopped at a newly formed yellow light causing you to be late to an appointment, or even your job giving you grief. Any of these among a host of others could be the reason why you're so pissed off at the world that you want to climb up a bell tower with a high powered rifle. When you get like this, that is when the universe knocks on you door, pokes its head into your self centered, self absorbed life and reminds how unimportant your problems are in the scheme of things. The universe is sure to remind you that it's not about you and it's nothing personal.
Now, I was born in a Byzantine Catholic family. I went to catechism classes as a child and learned all the principals of religion, the Nicene Creed, the rosary, and at the age of five I made my first Holy Communion. For seven more years I still held all those principals of faith as truths. God exists, he loves us, and everything is his will. When I reached the age of 12 or maybe 13, I had a drastic change in my faith structure. My uncle, who I hadn't seen since in probably six years or so had come to visit my Mother. At first, I thought he had fallen on hard times. He looked rather bad like he'd been on a three day bender with Mel Gibson in Malibu. He was very skinny and had trouble talking and stumbled a bit. It wasn't until after he had died that I found out he had Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is a wonderful little disease. You don't just suddenly up and die one day. It takes its time with you, slowing paring away everything you are, one piece at a time. It eats away at the protective covering to your nervous system, damaging the connections to the point where you have trouble walking and numbness. Imagine MS as a bull fight. It comes into the ring and acts as the picador and banderilleros, stabbing at you and weakening you, but it doesn't kill you. There you are, weakened with your head down in a charging stance and in comes the matador which is most likely pneumonia or some other illness. It toys with you for awhile before finally killing you. It was this experience that caused me to look up into the sky and ask, "Why?" Why would a being, all powerful and knowing allow someone to go through this kind of internal torture?
As I moved through adolescence and into adulthood, I held my discourse close to the vest. I didn't talk about it with people because they had their beliefs and I wasn't about to infringe on their rights. I went through college and graduated and my little world was fine. I began dating my wife after graduation. She held a special place for God and I didn't want to express my disbelief because of it.
At that same time, I began working at a hotel near my home. One of my supervisors had a granddaughter named Samantha, who was 12 years old, and had bone cancer. She was a spirited and cheerful girl who had already beaten it once and now it had come back. Regardless of her station in life, she acted like any other 12 year old who had the entire world ahead of her. Most of us were embittered by life, especially after college, but she still believed in all the things children believed in and showed us jaded assholes what life should be like. As she went back through treatment, she showed more courage and strength as a child than most stalwart of manly men around. Her positive outlook was enough to sway me back towards the flock and I secretly spoke to God one night and tried to mend fences. You know those moments at night between awake and sleep, when you lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the wind and that one tree branch banging against the house your only company. You make those little bets. You ask those little favors because that's the time when you believe that God has your undivided attention.
So, I asked. "God. Look, I could be talking to that little bug on the ceiling or I could be talking to you. At this point, it's all the same. I want you to give this one a pass. This isn't about me wanting you to help me pass finals or get out of that speeding ticket. This is a little girl that deserves the chance to grow up and spread that infectious spirit, saving the rest of our sorry asses." I spoke to the big guy two more nights in row. She died a couple days later. I felt like a battered person going back to their spouse, giving them another chance, only to be beaten within an inch of their life.
You can never measure the impact of your life until you're not there with the yard stick. In a medium sized funeral home nearby, people stood in line to get inside for Samantha's viewings. People, religious and not, will spin this experience so many ways you'd think it was politics. On one side you get "There is no God. This happened because it happened." The other side will say that "She was meant for better things in heaven and that her struggle and death serves as a lesson for us all to appreciate life and we've come together to celebrate how she touched us." I say that this is a little girl that didn't get the chance to grow up, fall in love or fall out of love, for the first time. She didn't get the joy of driving her first car or living in her first place on her own. If there is a higher power and he has that power to do some miraculous things, he dropped the ball. There are perfectly normal and healthy people in this world ripping off others' life savings, shaking babies, and killing innocent families before turning the gun on themselves. Out of all those physically fit adults, you have to give a 12 year old with a 10,000 watt smile bone cancer.
I now put more faith into extra terrestrial life. I find it easier to believe that we are just the product of a perfect set of variables than the design and execution of some otherworldly being. Somewhere in that vast universe, another planet at a perfect distance from a star has the ability to sustain life and perhaps they are advanced enough to be able to travel across the universe to ask for a cup of sugar. It makes more sense to me that we are nothing more than a really good flan. The right ingredients at the right temperature producing a tasty treat. Cook it too long, you get Mercury. Open the oven too soon, you get Mars. I find more comfort in that than one being was responsible for everything and did in less time than it takes me to get over a head cold.
After my whole Carl Sagan fueled rant, I went on with my life. My girlfriend asked me why I had so much trouble believing and I told her. Then she told me why she had such an easy time believing. Just before I met her, her mother had been diagnosed with renal cell cancer. Her parents had kept it from her while she finished up her first semester of college. They didn't want her failing out because this type is very dangerous. Not to say that any other cancer is a walk in the park but renal cell has a better green thumb than I do and shoots seeds all over the place. You can have cancer anywhere in your body that is renal cell in nature. Her mom had it in her lungs and on her kidney. In fact the doctors didn't know any of this until they had already opened her up on the table and pulled a football sized tumor out of her gut. Had they known prior to surgery that she was in stage IV, they wouldn't have operated. Instead they would have given her a pat on the head and a "good luck." But they didn't. She was put into a study and given experimental treatments. She shed her skin twice and her body temperature went between hot to cold faster than my shower if I nudge the dial ever so slightly to the right. After an intense battle she was a kidney short, but cancer free. That was her miracle. Her mother survived Stage IV cancer and went on to live her life. My wife told me that she had to believe in God, he saved her Mother. In my own little damaged mind I told her that if he was so great, then why did she have it in the first place.
Further proof of my disdain for the almighty would occur less than three years later. Still three years from getting married or engaged my wife started to experience problems with her eye. She felt as if someone had smeared Crisco in it, blurring her vision. She went to an optometrist which then referred her to a neurologist. She had optic neuritis, an inflammation of the optic nerve which caused loss of vision. There were two primary reasons why this would be happening. She either had a brain tumor, or MS. She hoped for brain tumor. She got MS. She's been treating it with a daily shot of Copaxone and has only had one relapse with the optic neuritis. At one point she wanted me to break up with her. She didn't want me to throw my life away on someone who was going to end up in wheelchair. I ended up proposing to her.
Three years later we were planning our nuptials and, if there is a God, you have to believe that he has a sense of humor, if not irony. He wanted to make sure that I knew what it was like to have a parent with renal cell cancer. Again, another set of parents decided to keep their child in the dark about things while he went off and had a good time at his wedding and honeymoon. It wasn't until after the holidays that we found out my Father had been diagnosed with it. It was an odd thing because the doctors weren't even looking for cancer. He was tired and jaundiced and it just happened to show up on one of his many scans performed to determine the problem. So, on my birthday in March, he went into the hospital and had his kidney removed. He came through perfectly and was fine. Unfortunately, his doctor must have been the kind of child that didn't finish his vegetables because he left a little bit of cancer in my Dad. A year later, he had to go back in for more surgery.
Remember I said God has a sense of humor? Down the road at another hospital, my Mother in Law was also having surgery at the same time. It turns out her cancer had come back and got into her pancreas. My wife was convinced her mom was about to die and I was just oblivious because here I was wondering why my Father was flat on his back again. To know the man you would understand why him on his back in pain is an odd sight. At 65 he was still active with a full time job and spent his extra time with his brother taking care of a farm which includes replacing the roof of the barn and other laborious tasks that puts me to shame when I breathe heavy from mowing the lawn.
After dueling bed pans was done, both our parents became cancer free for second time. Unfortunately, my Mother in Law's lack of organs had begun to catch up with her. Without part of her pancreas, she now has Type II diabetes. She lost her spleen previously and takes longer to bounce back from illness, and Sleep Apnea forces her to wear a CPAP mask at night in order to breathe while sleeping. In all, she has no complaints. According to her, she's been playing with the house money for the last ten years and regrets nothing. She's seen her daughters be married and have children. She has her quirks like her love of a good gadget or toy and she's not afraid to tell it like it is. She's sharp. As a benefits analyst she knows her stuff. That is why we were so concerned when she became unfocused and foggy in the last month. She began repeating questions that she had already been given answers to minutes ago. She seemed meek and unable to even type properly at work. We implored her to get an MRI and find out what is going on up there. She had recently been given a different blood pressure medication and put on singular, both of which can cause headaches but this was different. On her way to the MRI, she stopped at two mailboxes and ran a red light.
Back at work, she got the call. "How are you feeling?" the doctor asked, "Fine, just fine." She replied. "No, you're not. There is something going on up there. You need to get to the hospital now, call your oncologist and get a recommendation for a neurosurgeon." Our collective stomachs fell out our collective asses. In the past ten years she hasn't had a brain scan because they've been so worried about the rest of her body. I immediately spoke in a Sallah accent saying, "They're digging in the wrong place." She is at the hospital and their is some kind of mass on her brain. Swelling has been causing her mental lapses and right now she is being treated for that until they can come up with a course of treatment. And me, I'm calling up friends I haven't spoken to in years.
I don't want this for me. I want this for my wife. I want this for my daughter. I want this for my Father in Law. This woman has been able to hold a family together much better than I could ever hold anything together, and I pray in the church of duct tape. The people around me that I love have gone through cancer, MS, Graeves Disease, diabetes, OSA, and a slew of other health issues. Some have made it, some have not. Whether you're out there rolling your 20 sided die, deciding our fate, we're here and about out of saving throws. I know this lady has beaten cancer twice. But in football, beating someone twice usually can mean anything come the playoffs. We aren't ready and I'm not willing to call this one, yet. You're not doing anything to help sway anyone like me back to flock. She's already lost a kidney, her pancreas, and some of her bounce. What more do you want? She has a family that loves her and a little granddaughter that adores her. The company she's worked at for over 15 years has decided to sell to a bigger company, forcing her out of her job that she's been so loyal to. Prove me wrong and we'll talk.
Now, I was born in a Byzantine Catholic family. I went to catechism classes as a child and learned all the principals of religion, the Nicene Creed, the rosary, and at the age of five I made my first Holy Communion. For seven more years I still held all those principals of faith as truths. God exists, he loves us, and everything is his will. When I reached the age of 12 or maybe 13, I had a drastic change in my faith structure. My uncle, who I hadn't seen since in probably six years or so had come to visit my Mother. At first, I thought he had fallen on hard times. He looked rather bad like he'd been on a three day bender with Mel Gibson in Malibu. He was very skinny and had trouble talking and stumbled a bit. It wasn't until after he had died that I found out he had Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is a wonderful little disease. You don't just suddenly up and die one day. It takes its time with you, slowing paring away everything you are, one piece at a time. It eats away at the protective covering to your nervous system, damaging the connections to the point where you have trouble walking and numbness. Imagine MS as a bull fight. It comes into the ring and acts as the picador and banderilleros, stabbing at you and weakening you, but it doesn't kill you. There you are, weakened with your head down in a charging stance and in comes the matador which is most likely pneumonia or some other illness. It toys with you for awhile before finally killing you. It was this experience that caused me to look up into the sky and ask, "Why?" Why would a being, all powerful and knowing allow someone to go through this kind of internal torture?
As I moved through adolescence and into adulthood, I held my discourse close to the vest. I didn't talk about it with people because they had their beliefs and I wasn't about to infringe on their rights. I went through college and graduated and my little world was fine. I began dating my wife after graduation. She held a special place for God and I didn't want to express my disbelief because of it.
At that same time, I began working at a hotel near my home. One of my supervisors had a granddaughter named Samantha, who was 12 years old, and had bone cancer. She was a spirited and cheerful girl who had already beaten it once and now it had come back. Regardless of her station in life, she acted like any other 12 year old who had the entire world ahead of her. Most of us were embittered by life, especially after college, but she still believed in all the things children believed in and showed us jaded assholes what life should be like. As she went back through treatment, she showed more courage and strength as a child than most stalwart of manly men around. Her positive outlook was enough to sway me back towards the flock and I secretly spoke to God one night and tried to mend fences. You know those moments at night between awake and sleep, when you lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the wind and that one tree branch banging against the house your only company. You make those little bets. You ask those little favors because that's the time when you believe that God has your undivided attention.
So, I asked. "God. Look, I could be talking to that little bug on the ceiling or I could be talking to you. At this point, it's all the same. I want you to give this one a pass. This isn't about me wanting you to help me pass finals or get out of that speeding ticket. This is a little girl that deserves the chance to grow up and spread that infectious spirit, saving the rest of our sorry asses." I spoke to the big guy two more nights in row. She died a couple days later. I felt like a battered person going back to their spouse, giving them another chance, only to be beaten within an inch of their life.
You can never measure the impact of your life until you're not there with the yard stick. In a medium sized funeral home nearby, people stood in line to get inside for Samantha's viewings. People, religious and not, will spin this experience so many ways you'd think it was politics. On one side you get "There is no God. This happened because it happened." The other side will say that "She was meant for better things in heaven and that her struggle and death serves as a lesson for us all to appreciate life and we've come together to celebrate how she touched us." I say that this is a little girl that didn't get the chance to grow up, fall in love or fall out of love, for the first time. She didn't get the joy of driving her first car or living in her first place on her own. If there is a higher power and he has that power to do some miraculous things, he dropped the ball. There are perfectly normal and healthy people in this world ripping off others' life savings, shaking babies, and killing innocent families before turning the gun on themselves. Out of all those physically fit adults, you have to give a 12 year old with a 10,000 watt smile bone cancer.
I now put more faith into extra terrestrial life. I find it easier to believe that we are just the product of a perfect set of variables than the design and execution of some otherworldly being. Somewhere in that vast universe, another planet at a perfect distance from a star has the ability to sustain life and perhaps they are advanced enough to be able to travel across the universe to ask for a cup of sugar. It makes more sense to me that we are nothing more than a really good flan. The right ingredients at the right temperature producing a tasty treat. Cook it too long, you get Mercury. Open the oven too soon, you get Mars. I find more comfort in that than one being was responsible for everything and did in less time than it takes me to get over a head cold.
After my whole Carl Sagan fueled rant, I went on with my life. My girlfriend asked me why I had so much trouble believing and I told her. Then she told me why she had such an easy time believing. Just before I met her, her mother had been diagnosed with renal cell cancer. Her parents had kept it from her while she finished up her first semester of college. They didn't want her failing out because this type is very dangerous. Not to say that any other cancer is a walk in the park but renal cell has a better green thumb than I do and shoots seeds all over the place. You can have cancer anywhere in your body that is renal cell in nature. Her mom had it in her lungs and on her kidney. In fact the doctors didn't know any of this until they had already opened her up on the table and pulled a football sized tumor out of her gut. Had they known prior to surgery that she was in stage IV, they wouldn't have operated. Instead they would have given her a pat on the head and a "good luck." But they didn't. She was put into a study and given experimental treatments. She shed her skin twice and her body temperature went between hot to cold faster than my shower if I nudge the dial ever so slightly to the right. After an intense battle she was a kidney short, but cancer free. That was her miracle. Her mother survived Stage IV cancer and went on to live her life. My wife told me that she had to believe in God, he saved her Mother. In my own little damaged mind I told her that if he was so great, then why did she have it in the first place.
Further proof of my disdain for the almighty would occur less than three years later. Still three years from getting married or engaged my wife started to experience problems with her eye. She felt as if someone had smeared Crisco in it, blurring her vision. She went to an optometrist which then referred her to a neurologist. She had optic neuritis, an inflammation of the optic nerve which caused loss of vision. There were two primary reasons why this would be happening. She either had a brain tumor, or MS. She hoped for brain tumor. She got MS. She's been treating it with a daily shot of Copaxone and has only had one relapse with the optic neuritis. At one point she wanted me to break up with her. She didn't want me to throw my life away on someone who was going to end up in wheelchair. I ended up proposing to her.
Three years later we were planning our nuptials and, if there is a God, you have to believe that he has a sense of humor, if not irony. He wanted to make sure that I knew what it was like to have a parent with renal cell cancer. Again, another set of parents decided to keep their child in the dark about things while he went off and had a good time at his wedding and honeymoon. It wasn't until after the holidays that we found out my Father had been diagnosed with it. It was an odd thing because the doctors weren't even looking for cancer. He was tired and jaundiced and it just happened to show up on one of his many scans performed to determine the problem. So, on my birthday in March, he went into the hospital and had his kidney removed. He came through perfectly and was fine. Unfortunately, his doctor must have been the kind of child that didn't finish his vegetables because he left a little bit of cancer in my Dad. A year later, he had to go back in for more surgery.
Remember I said God has a sense of humor? Down the road at another hospital, my Mother in Law was also having surgery at the same time. It turns out her cancer had come back and got into her pancreas. My wife was convinced her mom was about to die and I was just oblivious because here I was wondering why my Father was flat on his back again. To know the man you would understand why him on his back in pain is an odd sight. At 65 he was still active with a full time job and spent his extra time with his brother taking care of a farm which includes replacing the roof of the barn and other laborious tasks that puts me to shame when I breathe heavy from mowing the lawn.
After dueling bed pans was done, both our parents became cancer free for second time. Unfortunately, my Mother in Law's lack of organs had begun to catch up with her. Without part of her pancreas, she now has Type II diabetes. She lost her spleen previously and takes longer to bounce back from illness, and Sleep Apnea forces her to wear a CPAP mask at night in order to breathe while sleeping. In all, she has no complaints. According to her, she's been playing with the house money for the last ten years and regrets nothing. She's seen her daughters be married and have children. She has her quirks like her love of a good gadget or toy and she's not afraid to tell it like it is. She's sharp. As a benefits analyst she knows her stuff. That is why we were so concerned when she became unfocused and foggy in the last month. She began repeating questions that she had already been given answers to minutes ago. She seemed meek and unable to even type properly at work. We implored her to get an MRI and find out what is going on up there. She had recently been given a different blood pressure medication and put on singular, both of which can cause headaches but this was different. On her way to the MRI, she stopped at two mailboxes and ran a red light.
Back at work, she got the call. "How are you feeling?" the doctor asked, "Fine, just fine." She replied. "No, you're not. There is something going on up there. You need to get to the hospital now, call your oncologist and get a recommendation for a neurosurgeon." Our collective stomachs fell out our collective asses. In the past ten years she hasn't had a brain scan because they've been so worried about the rest of her body. I immediately spoke in a Sallah accent saying, "They're digging in the wrong place." She is at the hospital and their is some kind of mass on her brain. Swelling has been causing her mental lapses and right now she is being treated for that until they can come up with a course of treatment. And me, I'm calling up friends I haven't spoken to in years.
I don't want this for me. I want this for my wife. I want this for my daughter. I want this for my Father in Law. This woman has been able to hold a family together much better than I could ever hold anything together, and I pray in the church of duct tape. The people around me that I love have gone through cancer, MS, Graeves Disease, diabetes, OSA, and a slew of other health issues. Some have made it, some have not. Whether you're out there rolling your 20 sided die, deciding our fate, we're here and about out of saving throws. I know this lady has beaten cancer twice. But in football, beating someone twice usually can mean anything come the playoffs. We aren't ready and I'm not willing to call this one, yet. You're not doing anything to help sway anyone like me back to flock. She's already lost a kidney, her pancreas, and some of her bounce. What more do you want? She has a family that loves her and a little granddaughter that adores her. The company she's worked at for over 15 years has decided to sell to a bigger company, forcing her out of her job that she's been so loyal to. Prove me wrong and we'll talk.
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