Scanxiety Revisited

I have lost count of the times we have made this trip to Houston over the past eight years. Thirty, maybe? I'm not complaining. in fact, I'm grateful that Jim is alive and able to get here. We have hit every season and most holidays. While it is not a "home away from home," we have established a comfortable routine some of which is enjoyable.

Today we braved the heat and walked to Rice Village for a late lunch and dessert at Ruggles. We topped the afternoon off with 90 minute foray in the second hand book store. The eight books we bought served as hand weights for the trip back to the hotel. If I were trapped alone in a n elevator (one of my fears)I could survive if I had just come from the bookstore. I could probably even endure solitary confinement in enemy territory (another fear) if my captors threw in a book every day or so. I'd prefer something other than political propaganda, but if that's all they offer, I hope it's well written.

I've already finished one of the books, Very Nice Ways to Say very Bad Things: An Unusual Book of Euphemisms. The thesaurus for every writer who has struggled with the right words for a delicate subject. Funny, but I doubt I'll use any of the bawdy alternatives in my upcoming articles.

Also bought: Game Change (an inside look at the 2008 presidential campaigns), Every last One by Anna Quindlen, Somewhere Inside by Laura and Lisa Ling, Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson, and a few books on writing. I hope they are engaging enough to distract me from the real purpose of the trip.

Those of you who read my book will understand when I say that I am holding at Code Yellow.I'd like to think that I've made progress in handling the pre-scan anxiety. More likely I'm in denial--which is exactly where I'd like to stay. Thank you very much. I'm quite comfortable here with my head in the sand. My rational mind is telling me that the cancer has not had time to outsmart the last round of drugs,so we're safe for a while.

I hope the anxiety level will hold through Tuesday when we get results. Unfortunately fear is like grief. We never know when it will overtake us. I just have to keep my mind on what I do know: God is in control and God is good.

Ten things Not to Say to a Caregiver

1. "God never gives you more than you can handle."
If you say this to a caregiver, you are implying she/he should be able to cope with whatever comes his way. God frequently gives us more than we can handle so that we learn to depend on Him.

2. "My dad (mom,friend, uncle) died from this kind of cancer."
Not what the loved one of a cancer patient wants to hear. Don't even mention death to someone in the midst of cancer battle.

3. "Did he smoke?"
Why do you need to know? Will it make you feel better if the patient got his "just desserts." No one deserves lung cancer--or any other kind. Maybe you're hoping to find a cause that exempts you from contracting the disease. Give up. No one is exempt.

4. "How long did they give him?" or "What's the prognosis?

Again, none of your business. Besides no one knows the answer.

5. "You should try alternative medicine. Chemo is a killer."
Trust me. Better minds than yours are developing treatment strategies. Pumpkin seeds might have helped your yeast infection, but cancer requires big guns.

6. "You should go to ________ for treatment."
Don't use the word "should" with a caregiver. If you have personal, positive experience with a reputable physician or treatment center you might pass on names.

7. "God will heal you--if you have enough faith."
Say nothing to add to the already heavy burden of the caregiver. This philosophy implies that the outcome of the cancer is directly proportional to the faith of the patient or his loved ones. Bull feathers!

8. "Everything will be all right."
Are you omniscient? Do you have ESP? A crystal ball? Then don't make predictions. Early in the cancer journey, the only "all right" I could have accepted was complete--and fast--healing.

9. "I know just how you feel."
I doubt it.

10."You just have to have faith."
Where might I get some?

Living on the Edge--Part 2

Life after middle age can be an exciting adventure.
1. Explore your God-given passions. Pour yourself into life with abandon. Sarah Young in one of her devotionals says, “Out on a limb with me [Jesus] is the safest place to be.” Step out on that limb if He is leading you there.
2. Dare to be uncomfortable. Start small. Brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand opens new pathways in the brain—so I’ve read. Sit in a different spot in church. You won’t die. Ask someone you’d like to know better to lunch. Open yourself to criticism.
3. Try something new. Join a book club. Join the choir. Audition for a play. Put yourself out there. Expand your territory. No one ever died from embarrassment.
4. Explore a hobby. Life is full of so many possibilities. A sport? Scrapbooking? Antiquing? Blogging? Hate sports? Buy a WII.

Don’t let life pass you by while you sit on the sidelines paralyzed by fear of failure.
Take a risk. Buy green bananas.

Living on the Edge

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp -- or what's a heaven for?" Robert Browning.

I am not a particularly adventurous person. I have never wanted to travel to exotic places, eat unfamiliar foods, climb glaciers, or jump out of airplanes. I am not a thrill seeker. I don’t skate on thin ice, ride on bald tires, or swim in the ocean at sunset. I don’t invite catastrophe. Although I respond well in a crisis, I wouldn’t go out of my way to create one.

My idea of living on the edge is eating raw cookie dough (I knew the appeal before Ben and Jerry), riding in the parking lot without a seat belt, or taking cough medicine beyond its expiration date. And once I belonged to a glue sniffing club.

Let me explain that last one. As an only child I had a variety of rather strange pastimes one of which was putting together model airplanes and boats. I had a best friend who was equally imaginative and definitely more adventurous than I. We had no idea in 1956 of the dangers of glue vapors. Sniffing anything--except maybe Vicks Vapor Rub—was a completely foreign idea. We just knew that we liked the smell of model airplane glue. So we formed a club. (We had exclusive clubs for everything in those days.). On rainy afternoons when we were tired of comic books, we would go into her grandfather’s radio room and squeeze small puddles of the stuff onto paper and inhale the fumes. Neither of us suffered any brain damage—well, sometimes I wonder about her.

If we had been warned about the dangers of glue sniffing, I assure you I wouldn’t have sniffed. I’m rule governed—a natural born referee, playing by the rules and expecting everyone else to do the same. My daughter cringes when we line up for a sale at Tuesday Morning, knowing that if someone dares to cut in line, I will glare at them, daring them to make eye contact, so that I can direct them politely, but firmly, to the end of the line.

My mother always said “Let a word to the wise be sufficient.” And I pretty much heeded those words, not wanting to learn anything the hard way. My only rebellion consisted of keeping library books beyond their due date, swimming in the gravel pits when my mother strictly forbade it (I never dove just jumped), and parking on lover’s lane with my boy friend. I figured I could handle the danger in the car, and was willing to risk the dangers outside the car.

I do sound boring, but before you mark me off your list of people you would like to know better, I’d like to say that though I am prudent, I am courageous when called to be. Courage is not lack of fear but acting in spite of fear. Think of all that you failed to accomplish because you were afraid. Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

I like to think of myself as a calculated risk taker, willing to step out in faith and risk ridicule, failure, or disappointment to accomplish a worthwhile goal. This behavior gets more difficult as we grow older and more set in our ways. Too often we get in ruts that inhibit our growth and self actualization.

When Jim was diagnosed with cancer we evaluated our lives and decided what was important. What things did we love to do? What did we hate doing? Could we eliminate some of those things that caused us stress and unhappiness to make time for new endeavors? When faced with a terminal illness, you realize how short life is--too short to let fear prevent you from pursuing your dreams.

In my next blog entry, I will tell you how to get out of your rut and make positive changes in your life.

Lucky Duckies

Memphis is famous for its barbecue, Elvis Presley, Beale Street, and—duck hunting. Each May, pork connoisseurs travel from far and wide for the barbecue contest; in February the Elvis fans gather from all corners of the globe to pay homage to the king of rock and roll; and in Autumn scores of men and boys in trucks and camouflage descend on the city for the activity that is as much a part of Southern heritage as football and grits.

As a transplanted Yankee, I’ve embraced most things Southern, but no one has been able to convince me that shooting helpless animals is a sport. I’ve heard all of the arguments in favor of the gruesome pastime, but I remain unconvinced.

As a bird lover, the only way I’ve been able to help is to provide a little respite for the ducks passing by en route to their natural habitats. I stop short of hanging out a shingle, but birds know that our yard—though not a five-star operation—provides fine dining, a heated pool, and protection from gun-toting rednecks.

Each year we have a pair of mallards who drop in for an extended stay. I don’t know whether they are the same birds or a different couple that has come upon the recommendation of the first. Apparently word travels fast in the duck community. Because ducks are monogamous (at least for a season), I like to think the pair books the honeymoon suite each year for their anniversary.

I am a bird watcher so having these guests in my backyard provides a close-up look. I love to watch their little webbed feet paddling under the water propelling them all around the pool like the wind-up toy my children used in the bathtub. In a murky pond, when you can’t see the source of their propulsion, it looks as if they are gliding on ice.

On the pool deck I scatter grain and bread crumbs to keep them fat and sassy. But my husband, Jim, the resident curmudgeon and pool-man, complains about the mess they leave. Unfortunately, they can’t read the sign meant for our human guests: “I don’t swim in your potty. Don’t potty in my pool.”

Recently we witnessed a blessed event. On a summer Sunday afternoon, we came home from church to find the momma Mallard and her brood of seven, happily paddling in the pool. In spring and early summer, to avoid human predators, ducks sometimes nest well away from the water. Probably the female laid her eggs nearby and brought the baby quackers to our “cement pond” for their first swimming lesson. The daddy duck was nowhere to be seen. Like many human fathers, the male takes no responsibility in caring for the offspring. He was probably out with his pals on the golf course.


When we approached, the momma duck swam vigorously to the opposite side, followed dutifully by her young family. But when she jumped out of the pool, the little ones flapped their wings to no avail. They were trapped. Getting into the pool was easy but getting out presented an unanticipated problem. Unlike the ponds she usually frequented, this one had no means of escape. The eight-inch jump from the water’s edge to the concrete was easy for Momma but impossible for her babies.

We had to come to the rescue. The ducks couldn’t stay there until they grew big enough to make the jump. “Grab a kickboard,” I called to my husband, but the kickboard had to be held by human hands and the wary mother wasn’t coming close. “How about a rubber raft?” Same problem. Jim went into the garage and brought out a large piece of plywood making a handicapped ramp for the brood. We chased the mother toward the board, but at the last minute she veered to the right or left and hopped out the side. Obviously, she didn’t understand our escape plan.

Finally, amidst much squawking and trauma, Jim chased the mother duck out of the pool and swept the babies up into the leaf basket. The distraught mother must have thought the ducklings were to be the main course for our Sunday dinner. They tumbled out onto the ground and waddled away, under the wooden fence, back to their nearby nest.

Maybe next year, I should direct the Mallards toward the historic Peabody Hotel where the accommodations far surpass ours. At the Peabody, ducks receive the treatment they deserve. They have their own duck master who literally rolls out the red carpet for the feathered celebrities as they waddle from the elevator to the marble fountain where they swim all day in climate-controlled comfort. The lucky ducks enjoy the same amenities as the hotel patrons—excepting alcoholic beverages. At night they retire to their sleeping quarters on the roof with a view of the city. They rest safe and secure because the only shots being taken are by the scores of photo-snapping tourists.

When cancer returns

When I was finishing "Cancer Journey: A Caregiver's View from the Passenger Seat," we just found out that Jim's lung cancer had metastasized for the first time. In one of my preliminary drafts, I wrote that a recurrence is not as difficult as the initial diagnosis. Lynne Eib, one of my endorsers, suggested that I might want to qualify that statement, because many people find a recurrence or metastasis much harder to handle.

This weekend at a conference in Chicago, I was talking with a man whose prostate cancer had come back, eleven years after surgery and treatment. He was devastated. For five years he believed he was cured, only to learn the cancer had returned.

What a blow it must be to have cancer reappear--like a soap opera character who, after a thorough search, is given up for dead, eulogized, and laid to rest, only to show up years later, resurrected, causing havoc in Pine Valley.

In 2008, when Jim had his first recurrence, I had been looking over my shoulder for five years waiting for cancer to come back. Therefore, as I said in my book, the recurrence was not so shocking. Even in 2009, when the cancer metastasized to the bone, I was not caught completely off guard.

But, I must admit, if it rears its ugly head again, I will be crushed.

The solution? Do I protect myself by refusing to accept the miraculous remission that we are enjoying? Must I continue to look over my shoulder to keep from being blindsided if the cancer returns?

I would rather not. I have made a conscious decision to adopt the philosophy of the cockeyed optimist, claiming and believing that Jim has been healed--even if that means making myself more vulnerable if I'm wrong.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The Good Old Days

When we were sorting out the contents of my mother’s home, my eight- year- old grandson pointed to a small mahogany chair with a needlepoint seat cover and asked, “Gigi, why does that chair have a desk on the side instead of the front?” I realized that the “telephone chair” was as foreign to him as the black dial telephone it was designed to accompany.

“Time was,” I explained, “when we were bound to the six foot area near the wall where the phone jack was placed. We couldn’t multi task while on the phone. No cooking, driving, or throwing in a load of clothes.”
The phone chair was most often located in the living room where you were tethered to the telephone chair for as long as the conversation transpired. For teenagers, this could be a lengthy time, particularly if you had a boy friend who attended a different school.

The phone chair had a desk on one side with a shelf for phone books. We didn’t have numbers on speed dial, so after we dialed them daily over a period of years, they became forever imbedded in that computer prototype--the human brain. To this day, I can still repeat the seven digit numbers of my best friends. (We didn’t have area codes.) We never called our next door neighbors. Why call when we could open the door, walk out on the front or back porch and speak directly to them?

The little desk held not only the phone but the phone dialer, a plastic stick with a ball at the end that fit neatly into the dialing holes on the phone. These were a necessity for women who wanted to preserve their manicures (home manicures. I never knew anyone who had their nails done at a salon.) Usually there was a message holder—the fifties version of the answering machine—in our case a small wooden block, a wooden rod, and a clothespin attached, to hold important messages. Mine was a craft project from Girl Scouts, painted white with a pink plastic flower glued to the base—one of my more useful creations.

In the early fifties, we had a party phone. Unfortunately, we didn’t make the invitations to the party. Most often the other members on the line were eavesdroppers and phone hogs (according to my parents) who didn’t take the hint when you picked up the phone several times during their seemingly interminable conversations.

Every night like clockwork, we had calls from certain individuals—Aunt Ann, Uncle Bill, my mom’s best friend. They were taken right in the living room where everyone could hear at least one end of the conversation, unless it was drowned out by Bonanza or Dragnet. There was no such thing as a private call until I had a phone in my bedroom, which wasn’t until I was well into my teens. Even then you ran the risk of someone picking up the extension.

We didn’t have call waiting or beeps to indicate another incoming call. If a love struck teenager monopolized the family phone, the caller would get a busy signal—very annoying and apt to be reported to the adults in the family who, when the line was finally clear, were greeted with, “Who have you been talking to? I’ve been trying to call for an hour.”
If the phone rang during dinner, Dad would jump up from the table and run into the living room. There were no telemarketers. No one called during dinner unless it was an emergency because all of our friends and family knew that we ate precisely at five p.m., every night of the world and dinner was not to be interrupted.

A long distance call was a rarity, even in families where money wasn’t a major concern. When I drove back and forth to college in the early sixties, we had a system to let my parents know I had arrived safely—without incurring the extravagance of a long distance charge. The routine went like this:
I dialed zero.
Operator: “Can I help you?”
Me: “Yes I’d like to place a collect call to Madison IL.”
“What # are you calling?”
“876-7771”
“Your name?”
“Cyndi Zahm”
Ring Ring. Dad would pick up.
Operator: “You have a collect call from a Cindy Zahm. Will you accept the charges?”
Dad: “No, I’m just a workman. The family is out right now. (He didn’t want the operator to know he was a tightwad intent on beating the system.)

There is no longer a need for telephone chairs. Seldom do we sit to take a phone call. We can reach out and touch someone from the tub, the table, the traffic, and, alas, the toilet. Unfortunately, it works two ways. There is no escape.