I am seething.
Absolutely enraged.
Yet another one of my dear friends has been invaded by that ruthless monster cancer. Yet another generous soul. Yet another mother who refuses to give up and leave her children. Yet another wife whose husband will be forced to carry a family through treatment. Yet another daughter whose parents will stand by, helpless to help their baby. Yet another family devastated by the possibility, the dread and fury of senseless illness.
Ironically, yesterday was my birthday and as I was driving home from work I was listening to a story on NPR about the optimistic bias most people have when faced with a diagnosis of a vile disease. My gracious and grateful friend is one of these optimists -- the announcement she made regarding her ovarian cancer is graceful and full of light and full of fight.
Me?
I'm just royally pissed. I think that's OK, though -- if she is positive and optimistic, I'll get my hands dirty and fight the fight in any way she needs. She's got the game plan and I'll take whatever orders she gives. Let me be the angry one, let me be the one to take the punches. Let me take this so that she can focus on getting well.
I do not make friends easily. I am friendly, but I'm really just a blustery introvert who can fake it when she needs to, but in her I feel that I've found a kindred spirit. Of course, she is so open and loving that I am probably one of dozens who feels this way about her, but this is MY friend we're talking about here. I lay claim to that friendship. Once again I find myself screaming at the cosmos for trying to steal MY FRIEND.
Dammit, you're not getting this one, either.
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cancer. Show all posts
Friday, July 1, 2011
Friday, February 26, 2010
Milestone: 100th Post
I've hit a milestone! My 100th post. So, in honor of that, I thought I'd try a blog hop today. Although it is doubtful I'll grow my followers from 20 to 100 today, I'm aiming for a 50% increase so that I get to 30. As always, I reciprocate and love commenting!
I've also decided to point you toward some of my favorite posts.
It's Raining, It's Pouring is my reaction to the news that a good friend had (yes, HAD -- now she has a lovely pair of C cups that I covet) breast cancer. It's might not be as funny as some of my posts, but I think it one of my most revealing posts. I still tear up over this post.
Sidewalk is one of my most wistful and bittersweet posts, also the post where I feel like I really hit my stride and started singing most clearly with my voice. It is about my darling Violet.
Lessons is about my Milo. It is also the moment when I started tagging my posts "Mom Lessons" when I realize I'm learning more than my kids.
Laughter is the Best Medicine might be the best window into my sense of humor and the relationship I have with my family. It makes me giggle when I read it, so I hope you like it, too!
I've also decided to point you toward some of my favorite posts.
It's Raining, It's Pouring is my reaction to the news that a good friend had (yes, HAD -- now she has a lovely pair of C cups that I covet) breast cancer. It's might not be as funny as some of my posts, but I think it one of my most revealing posts. I still tear up over this post.
Sidewalk is one of my most wistful and bittersweet posts, also the post where I feel like I really hit my stride and started singing most clearly with my voice. It is about my darling Violet.
Lessons is about my Milo. It is also the moment when I started tagging my posts "Mom Lessons" when I realize I'm learning more than my kids.
Laughter is the Best Medicine might be the best window into my sense of humor and the relationship I have with my family. It makes me giggle when I read it, so I hope you like it, too!
Friday, August 28, 2009
Letter to a Friend
Hello, my dear…
So I hear that you’re gonna have a rack that will FINALLY let you live out your dream of working at Hooters. :)
I have tried writing to you 18 times this week and have hated everything I’ve written. It was too sentimental, then too stoic, and always too exactly not what I wanted to say… I hope that 19 times is the right one.
I love you for being the older sister that I have never had; you and Dan and the kids are the people I include in my chosen family. I want you to know that I will always support you, cry with you, and cheer for you. I don’t want to push too hard, nor distract your energy when you need it so much, but I am with you every step. You have always been in my daily thoughts and will be even more so now. I know that I am too far away to hold your hand, fold your laundry, or to sing silly songs to you, but if I were closer I would do all that for you and your family -- and more.
Please keep us updated if you feel up to it, but I don’t want you to feel pressured to keep us in the loop minute-by-minute.
I’m not sure I got it right with draft 19, but I know that you’re going to be around to read drafts 20, 200, and 2000.
Love you always,
Me
So I hear that you’re gonna have a rack that will FINALLY let you live out your dream of working at Hooters. :)
I have tried writing to you 18 times this week and have hated everything I’ve written. It was too sentimental, then too stoic, and always too exactly not what I wanted to say… I hope that 19 times is the right one.
I love you for being the older sister that I have never had; you and Dan and the kids are the people I include in my chosen family. I want you to know that I will always support you, cry with you, and cheer for you. I don’t want to push too hard, nor distract your energy when you need it so much, but I am with you every step. You have always been in my daily thoughts and will be even more so now. I know that I am too far away to hold your hand, fold your laundry, or to sing silly songs to you, but if I were closer I would do all that for you and your family -- and more.
Please keep us updated if you feel up to it, but I don’t want you to feel pressured to keep us in the loop minute-by-minute.
I’m not sure I got it right with draft 19, but I know that you’re going to be around to read drafts 20, 200, and 2000.
Love you always,
Me
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
It's Raining, It's Pouring...
It is raining today. I've looked at the RADAR and it will be raining, and possibly storming, all day. I think this is OK, the rain certainly matches my mood.
It was a tough weekend in the Olinger household and an even tougher start of the week. Today is that mythical mid-way point and I'm searching for signs of improvement in the forecast.
The kids are sick. Nothing serious, but annoying enough to them that I've spent most of the last three nights comforting one or the other of them for the majority of the time that I should be sleeping. Both seem to be doing better today, I hope, anyway.
Milo is hitting an important milestone today! He's starting preschool in T-2 hours. He is appropriately alternating between terrified and excited. My bet is that he'll be excited until we park at the preschool, then terrified as we walk to the building and into his classroom.
Violet can count to ten! Almost... She's got 1-6, 9 & 10. I think she's afraid of 7 because, well... 7 ate 9. Ba-dum-bump!
Work is busy for both me and Scott. This is the week that all of the first-year students are on campus and we've both got meetings and events galore. We played the "shift the kids back and forth so that both of us can attend as much as possible" game on Monday and Tuesday. That's so exhausting... Plus, the kids totally trashed my office twice yesterday. I need to figure out if I can scrub highlighter off of an upholstered chair. Don't ask...
But the news that has made this week the most difficult, drawing me deeply into my shell, is that our dear friend, my sister-by-choice, has breast cancer.
Selfishly I have yet to contact her. I haven't called because I know that I will simply come unspooled if I talk to her. I haven't written because everything I write sounds like a eulogy -- and I'm not sending something that grotesque to her. I know that she needs me and am very thankful that Scott has done what he always does: reach out, use inappropriate humor, and send massive amounts of chocolate. As in bought an entire aisle of dark chocolate from Target -- one of every variety, several of the most tempting.
I am not the one who is sick, but I am not processing this well at all. I am furious that cancer is trying to steal someone whom I love so much. Every time I put Violet to breast, and that has been quite a few times since she's ill, I touch the very tissue that my friend will lose next week. I hold in my hand that which is giving my daughter life and that which is poisoning my friend. And I am angry about it -- who gives cancer the right to creep quietly into her body, sliding between cells, ravenous and vicious?
On Sunday night, the night before I learned of my friend's battle, I lay next to Milo's bed, sighing because he didn't want me to leave his side. His sleep was uneasy, his fever rousting him every few moments. I lay there and thought, "This is annoying, but it will pass. I can't imagine what I would do if one of my babes was so sick that the illness won't pass. I can't imagine the grief of not being able to lie on the carpet next to the bed of my child. I am lucky."
I wept silently as I recalled a young family that I had seen at Disneyland on the trip to California that we'd taken when Milo was about 19 months old. I was pregnant with Violet and we were visiting my dear friend about whom I am writing. We were in line behind the family for the Jungle Cruise ride and I noticed that the young mother was struggling to hold a child on her hip in the heat. The child looked too old to really need to be held, or so I thought until I saw that she was bald. An ugly, ugly scar mapped her scalp. My heart stopped. I realized that the little girl and her family were on a Make-a-Wish trip.
Instantly my pregnant hormones went into overdrive and I started blinking rapidly to hold back tears. My chest tightened and my breath caught in my throat. It was all I could do to not bawl as I watched the girl, grinning from ear to ear, as she described all of the things she thought she would see on the ride. This mother wasn't just holding her child in a long line, she was clasping her into her body, trying to force her back into the womb, back into a time when she was safe and healthy, back to the time when their souls were one.
I had to look away, gulping air. I rubbed Violet's bum inside me, squatted and kissed a sticky Milo, then hoisted him up onto my hip, vowing that I would carry my children into my body any time they needed me to lift them up. I think of this family every time one of my kids is ill.
I don't want to overwhelm my friend, after all, this isn't about me and what I want -- it is about her and what she needs. I am thirsty for knowledge, but unsure how far to push her; I don't want to hover and smother, yet I am unsure of how to support. She is so generous that I don't want her to know how wrecked I am about this; her first reaction would be concern for me and I think she needs to put her energy into healing. I will write to her by the end of the week, I must swallow my own fear and grief and let her know how much I love and support her.
I want to carry my friend. I want to scoop her up and hold her. I want to sing to her and keep her safe. I want to do these things for her because I love her, because I love her children and her husband, and because I love my children and my husband, and a little girl whom I have never met.
It was a tough weekend in the Olinger household and an even tougher start of the week. Today is that mythical mid-way point and I'm searching for signs of improvement in the forecast.
The kids are sick. Nothing serious, but annoying enough to them that I've spent most of the last three nights comforting one or the other of them for the majority of the time that I should be sleeping. Both seem to be doing better today, I hope, anyway.
Milo is hitting an important milestone today! He's starting preschool in T-2 hours. He is appropriately alternating between terrified and excited. My bet is that he'll be excited until we park at the preschool, then terrified as we walk to the building and into his classroom.
Violet can count to ten! Almost... She's got 1-6, 9 & 10. I think she's afraid of 7 because, well... 7 ate 9. Ba-dum-bump!
Work is busy for both me and Scott. This is the week that all of the first-year students are on campus and we've both got meetings and events galore. We played the "shift the kids back and forth so that both of us can attend as much as possible" game on Monday and Tuesday. That's so exhausting... Plus, the kids totally trashed my office twice yesterday. I need to figure out if I can scrub highlighter off of an upholstered chair. Don't ask...
But the news that has made this week the most difficult, drawing me deeply into my shell, is that our dear friend, my sister-by-choice, has breast cancer.
Selfishly I have yet to contact her. I haven't called because I know that I will simply come unspooled if I talk to her. I haven't written because everything I write sounds like a eulogy -- and I'm not sending something that grotesque to her. I know that she needs me and am very thankful that Scott has done what he always does: reach out, use inappropriate humor, and send massive amounts of chocolate. As in bought an entire aisle of dark chocolate from Target -- one of every variety, several of the most tempting.
I am not the one who is sick, but I am not processing this well at all. I am furious that cancer is trying to steal someone whom I love so much. Every time I put Violet to breast, and that has been quite a few times since she's ill, I touch the very tissue that my friend will lose next week. I hold in my hand that which is giving my daughter life and that which is poisoning my friend. And I am angry about it -- who gives cancer the right to creep quietly into her body, sliding between cells, ravenous and vicious?
On Sunday night, the night before I learned of my friend's battle, I lay next to Milo's bed, sighing because he didn't want me to leave his side. His sleep was uneasy, his fever rousting him every few moments. I lay there and thought, "This is annoying, but it will pass. I can't imagine what I would do if one of my babes was so sick that the illness won't pass. I can't imagine the grief of not being able to lie on the carpet next to the bed of my child. I am lucky."
I wept silently as I recalled a young family that I had seen at Disneyland on the trip to California that we'd taken when Milo was about 19 months old. I was pregnant with Violet and we were visiting my dear friend about whom I am writing. We were in line behind the family for the Jungle Cruise ride and I noticed that the young mother was struggling to hold a child on her hip in the heat. The child looked too old to really need to be held, or so I thought until I saw that she was bald. An ugly, ugly scar mapped her scalp. My heart stopped. I realized that the little girl and her family were on a Make-a-Wish trip.
Instantly my pregnant hormones went into overdrive and I started blinking rapidly to hold back tears. My chest tightened and my breath caught in my throat. It was all I could do to not bawl as I watched the girl, grinning from ear to ear, as she described all of the things she thought she would see on the ride. This mother wasn't just holding her child in a long line, she was clasping her into her body, trying to force her back into the womb, back into a time when she was safe and healthy, back to the time when their souls were one.
I had to look away, gulping air. I rubbed Violet's bum inside me, squatted and kissed a sticky Milo, then hoisted him up onto my hip, vowing that I would carry my children into my body any time they needed me to lift them up. I think of this family every time one of my kids is ill.
I don't want to overwhelm my friend, after all, this isn't about me and what I want -- it is about her and what she needs. I am thirsty for knowledge, but unsure how far to push her; I don't want to hover and smother, yet I am unsure of how to support. She is so generous that I don't want her to know how wrecked I am about this; her first reaction would be concern for me and I think she needs to put her energy into healing. I will write to her by the end of the week, I must swallow my own fear and grief and let her know how much I love and support her.
I want to carry my friend. I want to scoop her up and hold her. I want to sing to her and keep her safe. I want to do these things for her because I love her, because I love her children and her husband, and because I love my children and my husband, and a little girl whom I have never met.
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