Tag: cancer

Posted on in music, video

Goodbye David Bowie. I will always love your music.

Christine and I were best friends our freshman year in high school, and one day she played a David Bowie record for me. Of course I knew who David Bowie was, who hadn’t heard his music in 1982? But I had never actually listened to his music until that day when I was 15, lying on the floor of my friend’s bedroom. Her room was decorated with Bowie posters and she explained why she loved him so much. After then, I did too.

Here is one song I fell in love with. His voice is brilliant.

Before then, I knew David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, a bewitching gender-bending artist I listened to as a kid in the 1970’s.

David Bowie’s artistry, voice, creativity and innovation earned my respect. He stood by his work and continued to push the boundaries of art, gender, and music. Never one to just settle on his laurels and make cash, as some musicians do when they reach a certain level of “legend,” David Bowie continued to create art. He was one of the greatest artists of the 20th and early 21st Centuries.

Thank you Mr. Bowie for sharing your genius. And thank you Christine for sharing his music with me.

I wish you had more time, David Bowie. Imagine what you could have created.

I hate cancer.

Posted on in caregiving, family, health, life, Uncategorized

Is there a difference between gratitude and happiness?

This summer, I began a 150 day happiness challenge on Facebook. Every day I would post something that made me happy. It felt important I do this because I was overwhelmed with fear and anger from my husband’s cancer. Suddenly, I was the caregiver for two medically fragile people, my husband and my daughter, and the emotional toll made getting out of bed difficult. So I started looking for things to make me happy.

Quickly, the exercise felt phony. Very little made me happy. Writing about the joy I found in my morning coffee was silly, and how many times could I write about my garden? Happiness? What was that? I was happy just to get through the day.

Then I realized that I was actually writing down things I was grateful for. Having that morning cup of coffee helped ease me out of bed, and I was grateful for that. Watching my garden grow filled me with gratitude because I could feed my family while supporting wild bees. Gratitude was the best I could do. Happiness was like chasing a mirage.

What is gratitude? To me, it is an awareness of the gifts I have in my life. The simple things, like a warm bed, health insurance and the internet. I am grateful my husband’s cancer seems to be gone and I am grateful my daughter is thriving in her new school. I am grateful for her teachers. Grateful my car is running and I can afford new tires for winter. These things don’t make me happy; they make me grateful for my life.

As the weeks went by and I forced myself to post a gratitude, an interesting shift in my awareness occurred. The more I focused on gratitude, the more I felt happiness. Where did this happiness come from? Circumstances hadn’t changed. My husband still struggled to recover and my daughter still had bad days, but she also had good ones. There were days I wanted to cry from the weight of the emotional load I constantly carried, but on that same day I’d smile watching the dog chase leaves across the back yard.

I am not in denial; things are bad. Frightening. Cancer lurks and my daughter could decline any time. Money is tight and I still don’t have job. The future is one big scary unknown and the odds aren’t in our favor.

In searching for any small, random thing I felt grateful for, I uncovered a rich source of joy. Happiness fluctuates. But gratitude is constant. WhenI feel happiness has vanished and I’m left alone fighting my battles, gratitude holds me up. I am grateful for my strong, weary body. I am grateful for love. I am grateful it rained today.

Or is there really any difference between gratitude and happiness? Can you feel one without the other?

Posted on in life, opinion

Nurses: stuck between patient’s needs and doctor’s demands.

i am sitting next to my husband’s hospital bed watching his nurse try to take care of him. He’s being treated for cancer with Brachytherapy and must in the hospital for two days. Since his arrival yesterday, his pain has been awful. The nurses desperately paged various doctors to authorize more medication, but they could only decrease the pain, not stop it. 

Today his day nurse has been doing the same thing. 

The Resident came and went. A Nurse Practitioner came and went. Promises were made. Meds were increased a little. The Pain Management Team was supposed to be here over an hour ago. The nurse keeps calling. And in between calls she takes care of him. I can see the frustration on her face. 

I don’t know who to yell at, so I keep asking the nurse when the doctor will come. “15 minutes,” she says. The doctor doesn’t come. She pages again. “15 minutes,” she tells me again. He doesn’t come. After an hour I stop asking. She’s as upset as I am.

Nursing must be one of the hardest jobs on the planet. They take care of frightened people in pain while dealing with frightened family members and disappearing doctors. They must answer questions they don’t have the answers to and handle angry outbursts when the doctor doesn’t show up. And if they make a mistake, they could create more suffering for their patients.

Nurses work in the mine field between the needs of their patients and the demands of the doctors.

Throw in hospital regulations and redundant paperwork and it’s a miracle your nurse doesn’t go crazy. Maybe she does, but it’s part of her training to hide it well.

Thank you nurses at UCSF Mission Bay. Thank you nurses everywhere.

Posted on in family, life

cancer 

My husband was diagnosed with cancer two months ago. From the moment he told me “I have cancer,” nothing that had happened before mattered. Not a single argument, moment of pain, or disappointment, had any power. All that mattered was that he get well.

And he did.

Last week he had surgery to remove the tumor. I sat beside his bed and held his hand, feeling how small and frightened he had become. My strong, Viking sized man held on to me as if his life depended on it. And I knew I would never let go. 

Love brings ammunition. We join together, set up our walls, dig our trenches, and then hurl bombs at each other without understanding what we’re doing. Everything we’ve been taught since childhood gets thrown on the battlefield; you have to watch for trip wires. The battle will continue until you learn that the person you love can never make you whole. Healing is your job.

My husband slowly heals. The cancer is gone, but his body is scarred. We are both holding our breath to see what happens now. 

The only thing I know is that I love him with all my heart. I will do my best for him, even if I don’t know what to do.