You have been very ill for about a month now. Next week you'll turn 66. Last year you went on Medicare and it has been a magic bullet for you. It has enabled you to seek and receive medical treatment anywhere you want. You have gone to virtually every medical facility in your area. And here too. You have just spent several days in the hospital. They tried some procedures to stop your internal bleeding. Did they succeed? I don't know. But you are alive and, as far as I know, you are winning the battle against pancreatic cancer.
I DO know that my friend and colleague doesn't have the same access to medical care but has been resourceful in getting into medical trials and experimental treatments. She has valiantly battled her cancer off and on for the past seven years. This week she turned 45 and it was probably her last birthday. The day before the doctors told her the last PET scan was not good. It showed her tumors multiplying and growing at an alarming rate. She began a new treatment, a trial, but they say she doesn't have the time left. This treatment takes several months to build up in the body and do its magic. She doesn't have the luxury of time required. They say she is dying. I say, "Unacceptable!"
I DO know that my lovely friend's good, kind, generous and altruistic husband left this earth last week, a victim of metastatic cancer, being mercifully granted a peaceful death, not the usual death of a cancer patient, drowning in watery lungs. He had ushered so many people out of this world in his work with hospice, God must have granted him mercy. He deserved it. He asked for a hamburger, fell to sleep, and died without suffering. But he was a good man who had dedicated the last fifteen years or so of his life to serving others and treating the homeless and the terminally ill. He didn't have access to much medical care. He had one choice: Kaiser. He couldn't go elsewhere. He took their one-size-fits-all treatment. It metastasized. He died. He was remembered fondly at the service this week. What a loss. Unacceptable.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Bleeding
Laura and Kyle are being attentive to you. Even though you live over 100 miles away, those sweet kids are driving out and spending time with you, running your errands, cleaning your house, washing your sheets. You live in a large place but you don't like it there. You want a settlement with me so you can buy yourself a nice house with a view. I'd like a nice house with a view too.
You need blood transfusions. There's blood in your stools. You are very weak and you can't hold down much of the food you eat. You had asked if we could take care of the dogs for a couple of days while you go to the hospital and get some tests to try and figure out the source of your bleeding. You were going to bring the dogs by on Monday. On Sunday evening you called Kyle. You said you were too weak to drive yourself in to town. Would he come out on a bus in the morning and drive you in? He's a good guy; he said yes.
Kyle and Laura left the house around six. She drove him downtown. He had to be at the station an hour before his bus left. He got out to the desert at 11:00. Where were you? You had gone to the hospital out there to get a transfusion. You would be picking him up at about two or three in the afternoon. Laura said no. He wasn't going to go running out there to help you and then sit around and wait four hours for you to pick him up. The whole 'dropping of everything' ' rushing out to accommodate you' which in a normal person's world would be a big effort, one that would be appreciated by most of the rest of the world, was staying true to your form. You ask someone to make a sacrifice for you and then you act like they should make countless more accommodations for you without batting an eye. You had a friend pick up Kyle and take him to your place. He ran your errands for you and then picked you up at the hospital. You were tired. I hear that getting a transfusion can be exhausting. You came home and fell asleep immediately. Then you started telling Kyle that you didn't want to drive back here. You had changed your appointment with the hospital here. You were coming in on Tuesday now. You wanted to stay out in the desert overnight and then drive in early in the morning. What part of 'traffic' do you not understand? Laura reacted very intensely to that. She got on the horn with Kyle and told him this was a pattern of yours. Ask for big favors and, once they have started, just ask for more and more. There was a time when that felt like spontaneity to me. I loved it; it fed into my sense of adventure. But after a while it becomes an inconvenience. There were so many times I had other plans that would be interrupted by this capriciousness. It got old.
You and Kyle came in late that night. You had gotten the picture from Laura. She didn't like your behavior and she wasn't going to let her boyfriend get sucked into it. We got the dogs. You stayed at David's. You went to the hospital here. They said---or you said they said-----that you have some kind of bleeding that will heal itself in a couple of months. In the meantime you'll be weak and you'll need blood transfusions. You stayed for three more days. On Thursday we had a deposition in your attorney's office. It was a long day. It was mentally exhausting. You took Laura out to dinner that night.
You are thin, you are weak, your body is not cooperating with you. You called Kyle and asked if we could keep the dogs for another week. You have some 'medical issues'. I'm worried you are dying and your body is disintegrating from the inside out. I'm worried that the tumor is still so large that it is continuing to choke the superior mesenteric artery thus cutting some of the blood supply to your intestines. Again, I am sorry you chose divorce. It would be terribly unpleasant to live with you while you are suffering so, but I would have done it. I told Kyle I was wondering if you were feeling despondent and suicidal. You came by to say goodbye to the dogs yesterday. I asked Kyle if he noticed any finality in that. Are you going to take your life? You said you would if you found yourself dying and in great pain.
You need blood transfusions. There's blood in your stools. You are very weak and you can't hold down much of the food you eat. You had asked if we could take care of the dogs for a couple of days while you go to the hospital and get some tests to try and figure out the source of your bleeding. You were going to bring the dogs by on Monday. On Sunday evening you called Kyle. You said you were too weak to drive yourself in to town. Would he come out on a bus in the morning and drive you in? He's a good guy; he said yes.
Kyle and Laura left the house around six. She drove him downtown. He had to be at the station an hour before his bus left. He got out to the desert at 11:00. Where were you? You had gone to the hospital out there to get a transfusion. You would be picking him up at about two or three in the afternoon. Laura said no. He wasn't going to go running out there to help you and then sit around and wait four hours for you to pick him up. The whole 'dropping of everything' ' rushing out to accommodate you' which in a normal person's world would be a big effort, one that would be appreciated by most of the rest of the world, was staying true to your form. You ask someone to make a sacrifice for you and then you act like they should make countless more accommodations for you without batting an eye. You had a friend pick up Kyle and take him to your place. He ran your errands for you and then picked you up at the hospital. You were tired. I hear that getting a transfusion can be exhausting. You came home and fell asleep immediately. Then you started telling Kyle that you didn't want to drive back here. You had changed your appointment with the hospital here. You were coming in on Tuesday now. You wanted to stay out in the desert overnight and then drive in early in the morning. What part of 'traffic' do you not understand? Laura reacted very intensely to that. She got on the horn with Kyle and told him this was a pattern of yours. Ask for big favors and, once they have started, just ask for more and more. There was a time when that felt like spontaneity to me. I loved it; it fed into my sense of adventure. But after a while it becomes an inconvenience. There were so many times I had other plans that would be interrupted by this capriciousness. It got old.
You and Kyle came in late that night. You had gotten the picture from Laura. She didn't like your behavior and she wasn't going to let her boyfriend get sucked into it. We got the dogs. You stayed at David's. You went to the hospital here. They said---or you said they said-----that you have some kind of bleeding that will heal itself in a couple of months. In the meantime you'll be weak and you'll need blood transfusions. You stayed for three more days. On Thursday we had a deposition in your attorney's office. It was a long day. It was mentally exhausting. You took Laura out to dinner that night.
You are thin, you are weak, your body is not cooperating with you. You called Kyle and asked if we could keep the dogs for another week. You have some 'medical issues'. I'm worried you are dying and your body is disintegrating from the inside out. I'm worried that the tumor is still so large that it is continuing to choke the superior mesenteric artery thus cutting some of the blood supply to your intestines. Again, I am sorry you chose divorce. It would be terribly unpleasant to live with you while you are suffering so, but I would have done it. I told Kyle I was wondering if you were feeling despondent and suicidal. You came by to say goodbye to the dogs yesterday. I asked Kyle if he noticed any finality in that. Are you going to take your life? You said you would if you found yourself dying and in great pain.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Did You?
Yesterday Kyle had to call you to ask some questions. What ensued, of course, was a fairly long conversation. You had missed Laura's 21st birthday because we were in Idaho. You sent her a Happy Birthday text. There wasn't much else you could do.
In the conversation with Kyle, you said you were not feeling well. You aren't able to keep food down. That sounds familiar. It's how your disease was first discovered. Is this your cancer metastasizing? Are you there alone? Did you know this was coming? Did you listen to me when I asked you who you thought was going to take care of you when you were ill? I asked you if your gambling buddies were going to give you your morphine shots and you said that wouldn't be necessary. You said it wouldn't come to that. But that was before the judge had you take your guns down to the police station. Did you think it would come to this? Did you think it wouldn't? Who knows, maybe you just have the flu.
I am sad you are ill and I am not part of your life anymore. I wanted to be there for you until the end. I had made a commitment to you and I was going to see it through. Even though you weren't a very good husband, I know you love me more than you've ever loved anyone else. I know you love Laura more than you can describe. So what is this? Did you know when you locked me out of the house and lied to the police about me that this would happen? What was your plan? Were you going to beat cancer and live forever?
Did you ever think this would happen? And more importantly, did you WANT this to happen?
In the conversation with Kyle, you said you were not feeling well. You aren't able to keep food down. That sounds familiar. It's how your disease was first discovered. Is this your cancer metastasizing? Are you there alone? Did you know this was coming? Did you listen to me when I asked you who you thought was going to take care of you when you were ill? I asked you if your gambling buddies were going to give you your morphine shots and you said that wouldn't be necessary. You said it wouldn't come to that. But that was before the judge had you take your guns down to the police station. Did you think it would come to this? Did you think it wouldn't? Who knows, maybe you just have the flu.
I am sad you are ill and I am not part of your life anymore. I wanted to be there for you until the end. I had made a commitment to you and I was going to see it through. Even though you weren't a very good husband, I know you love me more than you've ever loved anyone else. I know you love Laura more than you can describe. So what is this? Did you know when you locked me out of the house and lied to the police about me that this would happen? What was your plan? Were you going to beat cancer and live forever?
Did you ever think this would happen? And more importantly, did you WANT this to happen?
Friday, October 15, 2010
It's Been Four Months
It's been four months since I abandoned this blog. You have had a very successful summer and the fall looks to be even better for you. You have continued with your chemotherapy and I hear you are getting radiation as well. Someone said seeds, but I don't know. Long about the middle of July the judge granted me an extension of the restraining order. He saw an escalating pattern of erratic and unpredictable behavior. Being that you had chosen to throw this divorce into the domestic violence arena, it put us on a totally different track than your average divorce. When he set down his ruling, the judge said that it is really called the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, and an important part of what he does is look at patterns of behavior and then act to protect potential victims. For that reason he gave me a 5 year restraining order against you and your growing insanity.
It is tragic that in order to save your physical life, you lost your family. I would have chosen the same route with chemo but would have had my psychiatrist work with my oncologist to make sure my mood swings didn't get out of control. In the course of these past four months you have thrown away me and our daughter. And you forged ahead in an unrelentingly nasty manner. You didn't hesitate to verbally threaten and bully me via my lawyer and our daughter.
I have started paying you spousal support. It is making my life difficult and I imagine you sitting in a casino somewhere in the desert with a cigar in one hand and poker cards in another. You have no financial worries now unless you bring them on yourself, which you are sure to do. You have moved to the desert. You have lived in a clothing optional community, you've bought yourself a motorcycle, you've got a new laptop and God knows what else. You are beating cancer and living off of me. Life has a weird way of turning things around. In time you will have that very complicated 'Whipple Plus' surgery. They will reverse your intestinal bypass and reconstruct the blood supply to your intestinal tract.
I will try to move on.
It is tragic that in order to save your physical life, you lost your family. I would have chosen the same route with chemo but would have had my psychiatrist work with my oncologist to make sure my mood swings didn't get out of control. In the course of these past four months you have thrown away me and our daughter. And you forged ahead in an unrelentingly nasty manner. You didn't hesitate to verbally threaten and bully me via my lawyer and our daughter.
I have started paying you spousal support. It is making my life difficult and I imagine you sitting in a casino somewhere in the desert with a cigar in one hand and poker cards in another. You have no financial worries now unless you bring them on yourself, which you are sure to do. You have moved to the desert. You have lived in a clothing optional community, you've bought yourself a motorcycle, you've got a new laptop and God knows what else. You are beating cancer and living off of me. Life has a weird way of turning things around. In time you will have that very complicated 'Whipple Plus' surgery. They will reverse your intestinal bypass and reconstruct the blood supply to your intestinal tract.
I will try to move on.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday at Work
Crazy day! Monday, June 7. It was Syd's birthday and I had a retention conference with S's mom and the assistant principal right after school. About 20 minutes into the conference, you came into my room. You had shaved your head; we almost didn't recognize you. You put a letter on my desk and asked me to read it as soon as my conference ended.
When I read the letter, I didn't get it at first. It was written to the watch commander at our local police station. It started with my physical description. Then it went on to say you had changed the locks on the house. You alleged I had tried to kill you three times during our marriage and that you were afraid for your life. It also mentioned that you had handguns in the house. You gave the name and address of a friend of mine at whose home you thought I would be staying. Such fun news!!! I got to spend the next 7 hours on the phone with attorneys, doctors, friends, Carmi and Laura. Here's an interesting tidbit I learned. The P.A. at your oncologist's said, "Oh, yes, this chemo interferes with neurotransmitters and psych meds."
NO KIDDING!!! YA THINK???
I'd seen it coming. You were moving into full-blown mania. And you were going with gusto. You have your eye on the prize. Pay day is on the horizon. Cha - ching!! Cash in on the old Cash Cow.
This divorce is going downhill fast. You aren't getting your way for the first time in 22 years, and you are going to play dirty. I am not conceding to your schemes. You can't suck me back in because I am finished with you. Enough of the insanity, enough of the drama, enough of keeping your secrets and being ashamed of my life. It's over.
It took me two days and over $3000 in attorney's fees to get myself back in the house. And when the judge read my petition, he ordered you to move out and gave you two days to get rid of all of your firearms. My petition was the truth; yours was a pack of lies.
And now this blog will end. It is no longer about cancer and a difficult marriage. It's about divorce.
When I read the letter, I didn't get it at first. It was written to the watch commander at our local police station. It started with my physical description. Then it went on to say you had changed the locks on the house. You alleged I had tried to kill you three times during our marriage and that you were afraid for your life. It also mentioned that you had handguns in the house. You gave the name and address of a friend of mine at whose home you thought I would be staying. Such fun news!!! I got to spend the next 7 hours on the phone with attorneys, doctors, friends, Carmi and Laura. Here's an interesting tidbit I learned. The P.A. at your oncologist's said, "Oh, yes, this chemo interferes with neurotransmitters and psych meds."
NO KIDDING!!! YA THINK???
I'd seen it coming. You were moving into full-blown mania. And you were going with gusto. You have your eye on the prize. Pay day is on the horizon. Cha - ching!! Cash in on the old Cash Cow.
This divorce is going downhill fast. You aren't getting your way for the first time in 22 years, and you are going to play dirty. I am not conceding to your schemes. You can't suck me back in because I am finished with you. Enough of the insanity, enough of the drama, enough of keeping your secrets and being ashamed of my life. It's over.
It took me two days and over $3000 in attorney's fees to get myself back in the house. And when the judge read my petition, he ordered you to move out and gave you two days to get rid of all of your firearms. My petition was the truth; yours was a pack of lies.
And now this blog will end. It is no longer about cancer and a difficult marriage. It's about divorce.
Snoop
Thursday was revealing. Some day. Maybe it was Thursday. You said I had left my private email account logged in that evening. You had read my emails. Hmmmmmm....emails to my attorney, emails to my friends........you felt betrayed that I was being honest with people. You thought I was having an affair with my old boyfriend from high school. Being honest isn't the same as having an affair. I almost wish I were having an affair. It would make the vitriol that followed almost worth it.
You went to the desert for the weekend. We had talked about having a yard sale but you said you were coming down with a cold, so we called it off. I wanted to call it off, too. I had too much work to do at school. My progress reports were due the following Friday and they involved a ton of work. Ending the school year is brutal. That's why I had asked you to hold off on decisions and actions about the divorce until the 18th. But you hadn't backed off. Every time we 'agreed' to hold off for two weeks, within hours you were wanting me to 'sit down' with you to make a settlement. That wasn't respite. That wasn't taking two weeks off. That was you trying to circumvent the legal process-----about which I know next to nothing, and wouldn't be able to study until school was out. Oh, you are clever with your timing. How many times in this marriage have you pushed something on me when I was distracted by the demands of something else? It's a clever tactic and it's worked well for you over the years.
From the desert you started with the text messages again. You said you were writing a petition to a judge to have me and my dad removed from the house. You were going to let me read it before you submitted it. Another threat. See if I would buckle under allegations. I wouldn't answer many of your texts. You're manicky; it's not worth the time and effort. You said if I agreed to some things, then you wouldn't file it.
But in messing around on the computer I somehow came across a keystroke tracking program. We had bought it five years ago when we were having trouble with Laura. We had hid it from the desktop and it required a set of strokes to pop it up. I had asked you if we still had it a couple of years ago and you said you couldn't remember the sequence of strokes we needed to do to get it to come up. I had figured it was outdated anyway and didn't give it more thought. But there were all my keystrokes, all my passwords, all my messages, everything I had written over the past couple of weeks. You were spying on me. As soon as you decided you wanted a divorce, you started tracking everything I wrote. Then you took the credit cards out of my purse and photocopied them along with my checkbook. You had gone Spy vs. Spy on me.
I had always known that when you were manicky, or when you were after money, there was nothing you would let in your way. This was not going to be an 'amicable' divorce. You had set me up by trying to act like you wanted to work things out. You were trying to get me to call off my attorney for two weeks while you invaded my privacy. It 's time for this disaster of a marriage to be over and for me to get out from under your control!
I went into work and changed all the passwords to everything. Then I thought maybe you'd lock me out of the house, so when I went to work on Monday morning, I took the keys and the owner's manual to the front door keypad entry system with me. I left one key home for you. I couldn't find the owner's manual to the keypad lock for the backdoor. But I figured with the front door, I'd be able to get in if you were as feral as to change the passcode.
You went to the desert for the weekend. We had talked about having a yard sale but you said you were coming down with a cold, so we called it off. I wanted to call it off, too. I had too much work to do at school. My progress reports were due the following Friday and they involved a ton of work. Ending the school year is brutal. That's why I had asked you to hold off on decisions and actions about the divorce until the 18th. But you hadn't backed off. Every time we 'agreed' to hold off for two weeks, within hours you were wanting me to 'sit down' with you to make a settlement. That wasn't respite. That wasn't taking two weeks off. That was you trying to circumvent the legal process-----about which I know next to nothing, and wouldn't be able to study until school was out. Oh, you are clever with your timing. How many times in this marriage have you pushed something on me when I was distracted by the demands of something else? It's a clever tactic and it's worked well for you over the years.
From the desert you started with the text messages again. You said you were writing a petition to a judge to have me and my dad removed from the house. You were going to let me read it before you submitted it. Another threat. See if I would buckle under allegations. I wouldn't answer many of your texts. You're manicky; it's not worth the time and effort. You said if I agreed to some things, then you wouldn't file it.
But in messing around on the computer I somehow came across a keystroke tracking program. We had bought it five years ago when we were having trouble with Laura. We had hid it from the desktop and it required a set of strokes to pop it up. I had asked you if we still had it a couple of years ago and you said you couldn't remember the sequence of strokes we needed to do to get it to come up. I had figured it was outdated anyway and didn't give it more thought. But there were all my keystrokes, all my passwords, all my messages, everything I had written over the past couple of weeks. You were spying on me. As soon as you decided you wanted a divorce, you started tracking everything I wrote. Then you took the credit cards out of my purse and photocopied them along with my checkbook. You had gone Spy vs. Spy on me.
I had always known that when you were manicky, or when you were after money, there was nothing you would let in your way. This was not going to be an 'amicable' divorce. You had set me up by trying to act like you wanted to work things out. You were trying to get me to call off my attorney for two weeks while you invaded my privacy. It 's time for this disaster of a marriage to be over and for me to get out from under your control!
I went into work and changed all the passwords to everything. Then I thought maybe you'd lock me out of the house, so when I went to work on Monday morning, I took the keys and the owner's manual to the front door keypad entry system with me. I left one key home for you. I couldn't find the owner's manual to the keypad lock for the backdoor. But I figured with the front door, I'd be able to get in if you were as feral as to change the passcode.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Insults to Injury
Wednesday came and I knew you were coming back home so that you could make it to your cancer support group meeting. You bombarded me with text messages. Could I meet and talk with you for twenty minutes? Can we have a discussion? You had a proposition for me. But I had already heard the drumbeats. You had called my investment manager and asked him how much money I have in my tax shelter, left him a message that you and I had found a place we wanted to buy out in the desert. I told him not to tell you a thing unless he was served with a court order. The cascade of text messages continued. There's this great property out in the desert. It's a foreclosure, a fixer-upper but not as much work as the remodel we did on our house and right up your alley. We'd have to act fast. I said I didn't want to talk to you. And on top of it all, it was the music concert at school, then the cancer support group meeting. I literally didn't have a minute to talk until at least 9:30 at night. No, this would not be a good day to talk. What part about waiting until the 18th isn't making sense to you?
You also wanted to sit down and sketch out our finances together, see if we could make a little agreement about spousal support.
My therapist shared very critical pieces of information with me, observations she had made over the years. First, she said I have a way of deflecting your inappropriate and negative comments. I just let them bounce off my head. Second, you have a way of sucking me back in. Ok, she didn't use the term 'sucking me back in', that's mine, but what she said meant the same thing. You know every crack in my veneer, every chink in my armor. And third, she said one of my weaknesses with you is materialistic desires. I can get seduced by my desire to make money. You can entice me to engage in things with you.
The music concert came and went. I rushed over to my cancer caregivers' support group. I told them about your desire to buy a house in the desert. I spent a long time talking about what was going on with us. It occurred to me that my life wasn't about cancer anymore. My life was now about divorce and turmoil . I was feeling that I was not helping these beautiful people heal from their pain, or deal with their loved ones' cancer.
We didn't talk at home.
You also wanted to sit down and sketch out our finances together, see if we could make a little agreement about spousal support.
My therapist shared very critical pieces of information with me, observations she had made over the years. First, she said I have a way of deflecting your inappropriate and negative comments. I just let them bounce off my head. Second, you have a way of sucking me back in. Ok, she didn't use the term 'sucking me back in', that's mine, but what she said meant the same thing. You know every crack in my veneer, every chink in my armor. And third, she said one of my weaknesses with you is materialistic desires. I can get seduced by my desire to make money. You can entice me to engage in things with you.
The music concert came and went. I rushed over to my cancer caregivers' support group. I told them about your desire to buy a house in the desert. I spent a long time talking about what was going on with us. It occurred to me that my life wasn't about cancer anymore. My life was now about divorce and turmoil . I was feeling that I was not helping these beautiful people heal from their pain, or deal with their loved ones' cancer.
We didn't talk at home.
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