Hurry Up…(and wait)

I am waiting.  I spend my whole life waiting, it seems.

I wait for the alarm to go off (YES, I am so ridiculously messed up that I tend to wake up a good 20-30 minutes before the alarm goes off and can’t manage to get back to sleep before it beeps…).

I wait for the children to PUT ON THEIR SHOES (this gets worse with age, by the way…when they are too big to wrestle anymore).

I wait for the bus to come for them (well, our fabulous neighbor Miss Natalie does that, but I sit and listen for it to roll by the house…), as I’m waiting for the bus, I wait for the coffee.  This – the waiting on the coffee – is one of the most tedious periods of waiting throughout the day.  I wait for the morning news, for the shower to get hot, for my hair to dry…the garage door to open.

Then, at work I wait for my emails to update/download at work, I wait for a witness or a probation officer or the Assistant District Attorney to call me back, I wait for LUNCHTIME, clients, discovery, officers, the judge…  At the jail, I wait for the “ropers” (jail officers who gather inmates) to bring up my clients to the plexi-glassed-in conference rooms, I wait for them to tell me they want a “real lawyer” instead of me (apparently my law degree, license to practice and 10 years of experience are all inadequate since I am a public defender).

I wait for 5 pm, then hurry out the door to wait for a red light, the gas to pump, a slow moving chicken truck, my children to report from the playground at school when I arrive to carry them home…

I wait for the pasta to boil, the wine to breathe, the blessing to be said by one of the children (usually Carson) at dinner…  I wait for the children to wash their hair in the bath, to brush their teeth, for a book to be read to me by a first grader at bedtime (I like this waiting the most…), and then, I wait for my body to relax enough to sleep.  I wait for the sleep to come.

Right now, I am waiting.  Waiting for a phone call.  From Birmingham.  There is a lymphoma specialist oncologist at UAB.  I was supposed to have this thing called a mediastinoscopy – so, now I have to go to UAB on Wednesday and have a CT scan (to complement the PET scan I had a couple weeks ago…), and then I will see the cardio-thoracic surgeon there.  I am waiting for them to call me back and tell me when and what and how long.  Keep in mind I spent Tuesday, Thursday and Friday waiting for a call to tell me what is next.  Friday at 6pm, I got a call (while selling girl scout cookies at the West Rome Walmart),   Dr. Forero says what is next is to have a CT Scan and talk to HIS special chest surgeon in Birmingham.  And to do all that hopefully on Wednesday, when Dr. Menick (the surgeon) is in.  So – now, I am waiting on the phone call to tell me when on Wednesday.

Then – then I will wait for Wednesday.

And with all this waiting, I am glad we have things like coffee.  And knitting.  And sweet husbands and children and friends to wait with us.

In Sickness and In Health

Will saved the little crumply paper that held the vows we wrote for our nuptials.

I can’t remember them by heart (sorry, I’m good, but not that good…) – but what I DO remember (from writing them) is certain key points.

I love you.

You are my best friend.

(blah de blah de blah)

I promise to encourage and inspire you daily,

To comfort you in times of sorrow and struggle,

To love you in good times and in bad, when life is easy and when it SEEMS hard,

when our love is simple, and when it is an effort.  … et cetera…

I admit that lately everything BUT our love has been an effort.  Everything SEEMS hard. Our love has been about the only thing that seems easy.

I have practiced saying out loud what I am about to type for the last couple weeks.  No matter how often I say it or how “ok” I make myself with it, the words still taste like vinegar in my mouth.

i have cancer

NOW HEAR THIS:  I AM FINE, I WILL CONTINUE TO BE FINE, AND AT THIS POINT I AM CONVINCED ABOUT MY CURRENT AND FUTURE STATE OF FINENESS.

The long and short of it is that I had what everyone (including my dermatologist) thought was a sebaceous cyst.  (I am pretty sure this is a fancy term for “inflammed pimple-like bump”…)  However, a biopsy came back as “Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma, T-Cell Type” – we have known for almost a month.   Intitally my reaction was:  “ah, well, skin cancer, you know – too much sun on my face in my youth…hope I don’t get a scar from where they have to cut it out.”  This is not skin cancer.  It is lymphoma – as in, relating to the lymph/immune system.  I have an oncologist and everything.  Actually, I have 3 oncologists.  (Drs. Dillmon, Mumber and Forero)  To date I have had 4 oncologist appointments, 3 biopsies, and one big-fat-PET-scan.  This is normal for all cancer patients, apparently.  So far, so good.  It looks like only the growth under my eye is suspicious for now – though there is some concern about an enlarged thymus, and this type of lymphoma is rare, so I have to see a specialist oncologist at the UAB Cancer Center in Birmingham.  I feel I am getting the best care.  Also, I appreciate what is sure to be a huge outpouring of concern and sweet sweet love; however, please know I really don’t enjoy talking about it much.  I feel fine, I am lying in wait for treatment options (although a good bit of systemic involvement has been ruled out – yay – I’m not sure about this thymus thing.) Best case scenario (systemic involvement ruled out) I will begin radiation treatments very soon.  This is still “treatment” and would still last several weeks of every day receiving radiation.  And, there is a chance I will need IV chemo, though that is getting slimmer by the day.  Either way, prognosis is good, but I was naive about the implications.

This is real.  This is Cancer.  And it’s mine.  But I’m going to be fine.  Know this.

Saying it out loud it is uncomfortable.  Because who wants to hear THAT from a friend? It physically hurts to say the words.  Cancer sucks.  My family knows.  Some friends know, and for those that DO know, it’s hard to repeat info and relay info several times over, especially when new info is coming in rapidly.    I haven’t told people so much because most of my conversations out-and-about in the world go like this:

Friend: “HI, JJ, haven’t seen you in weeks (or months or AGES).  HOW ARE YOU!?!?”
Me: “I know, it’s so good to see you, too, friend…..um, well, uh, I’m fine.”

Friend:  “So, tell me, how are you?  How are the children?  How is ‘married life’?  How is work? Are you still knitting/sewing/playing tennis?  Read any good books lately?”

Me: “Great, big, wonderful, still have a job, yes/not-so-much-lately/nope, let me make you a list.”

So, dears, tell me – when does “I have cancer” work into any normal conversation?  I’ll tell you – it doesn’t really fit in anywhere!!! Which is why, after much, much contemplation, I put it here. 

I may regret this post.  I may have regretted not doing it.  However, this is it.  Now that that big news is out of the way, I will move on to discussions of girl scout cookies (I HAVE TONS if any of you need some! – send me an email or a message or comment!!!), knitting, and other such excitement.  I love you all.  Really, I do.

Rose Colored Glasses and Chaos

I used to blog.  I posted regularly.  I wrote about important things, and the inconsequential.  Mostly about my little family, my growing children, my every day ups and downs.  I wrote about all that – and I wrote about football and fabric and how it all seems to go together in my crazy life.  And then, well, life got in the way.  (And I had a creepy internet stalker, but that is a whole other can of worms.)  I had kept a journal even as a small child, then through my teens and twenties, and finally by the time Cole came along, I started blogging.  You can look at the “Archives” of my adventures in family life at My Old Blog.

When I started this website – I maybe harbored a secret hope that I would blog again.  It seemed fitting to start a new chapter, becoming a family.  I felt the subtitle “adventures in family life” appropriate.  It was sure to be an adventure for us all…Will loves me, and he loves the children.  I have never doubted that love for one quarter of a nanosecond; however, I can now honestly admit that I had my concerns about him moving in with us.  I WORRIED: how could he possibly make the transition from calm and quiet bachelor living to a crazy house bursting with small children and dog hair?  I can admit that it worried me now.  I can admit it because, as usual, he has vastly exceeded my expectations. 

I worried because, you see, as a single mom/lawyer/homeowner/community volunteer/(insert–other-time-eating-title-here), I coveted his “alone” time and his personal space and just the general QUIET of his life.  His alarm would go off.  He got up (in the quiet of his apartment, alone), showered with no interruptions about who hit whom first or complaints about super-glue in the dog’s hair.  He went to work, came home, ate whatever he felt like eating at whatever time he was hungry, and watched whatever suited him on TV.  I could not, for the LIFE of me, see how he would want to give all that up to get all tangled up in our chaotic where-are-your-shoes, here-eat-a-cookie-for-breakfast, PUT-ON-YOUR-SHOES-RIGHT-NOW, rush-to-the-busstop, oh-crap-the-dog-ate-my-underwear life.  I wanted to get up when I had to get up to get myself ready, not an hour and a half earlier to FIND EVERYONE’S SHOES and get them all to the busstop.  I wanted to sleep until after 8am on the weekends.  I wanted to have friends over til 11:30 on a weeknight.  I wanted to see an R-rated movie without finding a babysitter.  I wanted to eat chinese takeout whenever I felt like it.  (I admit this one is not too much of a stretch, since the children know China City’s takeout menu by heart themselves…)  This is how I saw Will’s life.  FREE and UNENCUMBERED, and LUXURIOUS.

What I did not realize: perhaps Will was looking at MY (entirely crazy) life through his own rose-colored glasses.  He always wanted a wife (check).  Children (check, check).  Pets (check).  Love, company, homecooked meals, laughter (checkity check check check)…something to come home to other than quiet…maybe  even (gasp) a little chaos now and then.  In one fell swoop, he got all these things (and a lot more than a little chaos now and then).  And, in return, we got him.  We are all lucky.  Very, very, very lucky…

I suppose we will all hold on tight as the adventures begin.