Another Flying Week and You're Almost 65

Writing a blog about your so-called 'terminal' cancer really isn't something that can be done in isolation. The rest of life weaves its way in and out of my writing. Does it interfere? Or is life a tapestry that can't be unraveled? Dad, dogs, family, work, friends, the flu. They become inextricably woven together. They will all spill into this blog at one time or another. But your cancer is the unspoken dye that colors everything now. We don't get to choose whether or not we can remove it. This cancer is not a choice. Pancreatic cancer never goes away. "We" have cancer. Our lives have cancer. And when the cancer is gone, there will be no more "we". Then, maybe then, I will have a life free of cancer, but "we" never will. When my life no longer has cancer, it will no longer have you.

You wore your fanny pack for 48 hours. It emitted a gentle little 'whirring' sound every so often. You were slightly nauseous at times, but never enough to throw up. In the end, after the pack was removed, I asked what the side effects were, and you said fatigue, headache and not much else. They want you to do this 16 times. Every two or three months they will do a CT scan to check the tumor size. If they are able to shrink it to half its size, they will do the surgery. The procedure will take 10-12 hours and you will be in the hospital for two weeks. If they are unable to shrink the tumor and do the surgery, the tumor will at some point in time grow enough to choke off the blood supply to your entire intestinal tract. I don't know what we will do then. With my counselor's help, I have decided not to think about that. Your next fanny pack was supposed to come on Monday, your 65th birthday, it will have been two weeks, but they are letting you do it on Tuesday instead.

Beth came down on Friday. She took a long shower and then you dropped her off at the health care center to see Dad. I arrived about an hour later, we spent some time with him, and then she and I came home. She saw how much better he is now and she was relieved that if this is her last memory of him, it will be one of more clarity and mental presence. She had brought down the wonderful book his father had made for us of our family history. Dad was engrossed in it. We had a relaxing evening at home. We were able to go over Dad's business and review the plans in his trust. I hadn't really firmed up a potential appointment with Dad's financial adviser, so that didn't happen the way I had hoped. You let us have a lot of 'girl time'; you made us dinner and we soaked in the hot tub. Early Saturday morning we got up but you were gone. I thought that maybe you had gone out to breakfast with David. We got into the big van with the bikes and headed off to Starbucks. You called. You had been at Trader Joe's and wanted to go riding with us. I dropped Beth off to pick up our coffee order and came back for you. We had another gorgeous ride on the bike path, the weather was perfect but the birds weren't out for Beth to get to enjoy. We decided we would try it again on Sunday morning. Beth and I had arranged for our childhood friend, Debbie, to come over. She came by for lunch. We ended up talking for three hours before we were able to stop and visit Dad. Debbie was so thrilled to see Dad, and he remembered her and her family well. It was a fabulous reunion. We are so much alike and have had so many common experiences during the years our lives headed off in different directions. Debbie taught art in private schools for several years. She has three children, she and her husband are devout Christians, and times are tough for them. Yet she still has the same sweet, loving disposition she always had. She and I started taking violin lessons in elementary school, and she still plays in local orchestras and productions. I have vague recollections of sketching and drawing with her when we were little. She has kept that up too. When she recently quit her job as an art teacher she decided to go back to oil painting, except this time she does oil paintings of dogs. I had sent her some jpgs of Matt, Quincy and Stevie, and she painted them. They are beautiful! They look exactly like our boys, and she is adding her own artistic touch to them. It's exciting! I told her I would pay her for them. I think I finally have a gift for you that you'll like! She will bring them over this weekend. The only problem I have is a frame.....But Del makes his own, and he and Ann are coming out in two weeks.

Sunday didn't materialize the way we had hoped. On Saturday Beth and I stayed up watching 'Kitchen Nightmares' and you, she and I had a late dinner. We went to bed around eleven because we were going to go bike riding at 8:00. In the night I started feeling a dryness in my throat, then a croupy cough, and by morning I was running a fever. Oh, yuck! I hadn't come down with a cold; I had the flu! I dragged myself out at 7:45 to tell Beth. She was gracious about having to change her plans, and you drove her to the airport at 10:15. I was in bed for three days. Three days with a fever can feel both like a blink of an eye and an eternity at the same time.

It was tough to return to work on Wednesday, and my kids had been off-the-charts with their behavior. B had been wearing a belt to school and taking it off at lunchtime to use to hit the other children. Someone had removed the science experiment. I mean, there was nothing left but an empty jar. The sub had left me a note that they couldn't do the seed-growth pages for the science journals because there were no seeds growing. S was hatching a plot to have an all-out sand war. With what sand? I thought. The district removed it all because the neighborhood cats had been using it as a latrine. Then I found one area, a place where an old tree had been removed from it's island in the center of the blacktop. Somehow that circle was filled with sand. I had seen sand coming out of S's shoes. It was the first time in years I had had sand on the classroom rug. It was making sense now. He was randomly attacking others with handfuls of sand during lunch. D was bringing interesting things to school. SD was masticating the cuffs and necks of his shirts so badly. I have started calling him my 'little cloth eater'. Someone in another class had been dropping the girls' bathroom pass in the toilet every day. Julie was pissed. Someone had started peeing daily on the boys' bathroom floor in my room. As we were getting ready for lunch, the assistant principal came in the room. She was angry about what had been going on. And she told them so. She read them the riot act. I think she scared the daylights out of them, but at that point they deserved it. She told me about the belt and had B remove it and give it to me. She walked the most silent line in history to the cafeteria.

By the time I was finished with school, going to therapy and visiting Dad, I was extremely tired. When I went to pick you up from yoga at the Wellness Community, I was not in a good mood. You were 15 minutes late and wouldn't pick up my phone calls. Why do you do that? If I don't answer your calls, you read me the riot act. But you consistently don't answer mine. Is that fair???? And then if I bring it up, you act like I'm the biggest bitch on the planet. Is that fair? But that's a game you've always played with me. If I complain about something you do, you attack with swift force, trying to immobilize me, trying to shoot me dead in the water. Why do I back down? I feel I have a right to approach you in the same manner as you do me when I don't answer your calls. And the only time I don't answer your calls is when I am on a call to another person and I don't feel it's a good time to interrupt my conversation. We went to dinner nearby and ran into some minor district honchos. You weren't exactly friendly. I was uncomfortable. Once again, the woman who has never liked me was there. At least it doesn't bother me now like it did 35 years ago. I still don't think you're going to answer my calls.

The Good Wives Club had a warm meeting. I am feeling more relaxed in the group and my trust is growing. There is an affection flowing between all of us now. We are developing a kinship. Karen was back from her vacation and Janet suggested I tell her about my talk with my dad. I said I'd cry again. They said they wanted me to tell Karen. They said it would be incomplete if Karen didn't hear me tell it. They were right. So I did it again. Tears and all. And Karen was wonderfully supportive. I told them that next week I would tell them my cookie stories. They don't know that for me, telling them the cookie stories is the sign that I now trust them.

By today I had wrangled my students back into some pretty decent behavior. Teaching happened. I think some real learning happened too. I was happy. It is getting back to normal, just in time for Spring Break to come and throw them all out of their good habits.

For at least a month now, the dogs have been coming in at night. Matt was getting very upset that he was left our in the yard while Quincy was lavishing in the comfort, warmth and affection of the house, so you were bringing him inside to sleep with you in the middle bedroom while Q-ball slept with me. Quincy's paw is well enough now that we have taken the bandage off and you put him in the back yard for several hours a day. I think, I have a feeling though, that the dogs will be coming in every night from now on, whether or not they have boo-boos on their paws.