Because no else should have to walk in these shoes

I am participating in Strides for Melanoma Walk for Awareness to help raise funds towards melanoma patient support, prevention efforts and education. Melanoma is a serious and potentially deadly form of skin cancer. In North America, one person dies from melanoma every hour. But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

My husband, James, was initially diagnosed with melanoma in June 2014. By the time it was diagnosed, it was Stage III and already traveling outside the primary site. Surgery removed the tumour on his face and 42 lymph nodes in his neck. By August 2016, it had metastasized to his brain, liver and bowel with a terminal prognosis. In an effort to buy time, James suffered multiple hospital stays, surgeries, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation treatments, post-seizure ambulance trips, and multiple blood transfusions. Our last (and last) anniversary together was spent in a hospital room. All this, James did with his typical positive attitude and jokes. James, succumbed to this dreadful disease in January this year, just 2 weeks before his 40th birthday.

He left us to carry on without him and I struggle every day with this profound loss. As part of my grieving and healing process, I work to raise awareness around the prevention and diagnosis of melanoma. If James’s primary lesion had been caught sooner, if the metastatic tumours had been caught sooner, he might still be here or at least have had a better chance.

I was witness to James’s cancer journey from the beginning in 2014 to his very last breath. I would never wish this suffering, his or mine, on anyone. If I can play a small part in the fight against melanoma then it I must do it. It is what James wanted.

We hold on (posted Oct 9, 2016)

For more information visit (and support!) one or all of the following:

Melanoma Network of Canada

Melanoma Research Foundation

AIM at Melanoma

The beauty of old things (or What the driftwood taught me)

I was walking along a rocky beach with a friend on her 49th birthday. We were enjoying a girls’ weekend at a cottage with BBQ, wine and hiking. We had celebrated my 49th the month before. As we picked our way over shifting stones, trying not to roll an ankle or stumble headlong into the line of driftwood at the high-tide mark, we discussed how we would be turning 50 the next year.

Fifty. That number, that age, is weighted with tears and laughter, music and silence, pauses and experiences. Some scars and wrinkles we bear with shame, some with pride.

As I stop to get my bearing, I balance on two semi-solid, salt-grey stones. I notice a long, slim piece of driftwood a little ahead of me and to my right. I step carefully, making my way over to pick it up. I examine it as I lean on it for balance. I am 5’8″ and it reaches my armpit. A slight notch at the top fits my hand comfortably.

It is warm from the mid-morning sun and beautifully marked as if some master craftsman had delicately and lovingly attended each part to make it so. I test its strength and it is sturdy and unbending, slightly bowed as if honouring the wind that once tickled its leaves. It is capable enough to bear my ample weight as I try to balance on the wobbly rocks. It’s solid enough to steady me even when my leg betrays me, the one that had been broken and fixed with a plate and screws 16 years before. It’s strong in spite of all that it must have been through on its journey to meet me on this beach on this day as I contemplate my own age and weathered frame.

The face of the wood is partly smoothed by sea, sand and stone, while artfully etched and aesthetically scraped in random spots. It was once young and supple supporting leaves, perhaps fruit, and woodland creatures. It gave and received life until, felled by an axe or storm, it landed in the sea and was tossed about on the waves. It had been bleached by burning salt and sun, ignored by the sea that beat it about. The sea’s strange creatures were oblivious to the existence of this forlorn stick. It wandered adrift and alone without the anchoring roots that once nourished and provided support. It had made its way up a rocky shore to be battered, reshaped and cast down. The cold, churning water left it there, foaming and roaming off to find another body to break, unaware of the mess it leaves in its wake. I don’t know how long the stick had remained here. I found it this day among the flotsam and jetsam. With the other driftwood and castoffs of humankind, it waited. As it wept the loss of its roots and leaves and woodland friends, it lingered.

We meet on that shore, the steadying driftwood and I. Subconsciously, I recognize a weary soul in need of purpose, lost and still adrift on solid land. The rest of the walk is stepped with more confidence. When my friend and I arrive back at the cottage and start packing the car for the trip home, I cannot leave this driftwood behind. I feel a need of it, even though my walk on the beach is done. So home it came with me, to stand in the corner of the room where I get ready for work each day.

Maybe it knew something I did not at the time in the way that loss and sorrow can attune one to the cosmic way of things. It may be, somehow, it was aware that in one month’s time my husband would start to get headaches, that the cancer he fought two years before had returned. Perhaps it knew that, even as I walked on that lovely beach, laughing with my friend, the metastatic melanoma was growing inside my love’s right frontal lobe.

That beautiful piece of driftwood had been one of the first things I saw as I prepared myself for each day of the next seven months until my husband was gone. He has been gone six months and it has stood silently in support as I continue to grieve.

I am weathering the storm of sickness and loss with the help of a silly stick. It reminds me each morning that, in spite of age, of storms, of drifting without touching ground, through waves of pain and love and sorrow, the seasickness of hope and despair, that this old body and heart can offer strength and balance to another, to myself. I still have a beauty and a purpose, though I will always mourn the loss of my nourishing roots and my wind-tickled leaves.

Forward into darkness

When you lose someone who has been such an essential part of your life, of your everyday, of…you, it shakes you to the core of your being. You are shattered on the floor in pieces and, at last, you understand Humpty’s predicament. There are no horses, no king’s men, no king.

You wrap up the business of dying, the paperwork, you’ve sorted through most of the pieces of your loved one’s life, the friends and family who gathered to support you have gone back to their lives and you sit alone. Very alone. You realize that an expansive, dark abyss exists in front of you. You slump at the weighty greatness of it. It has a terrifying beauty of its own. Your eyes widen just to try to take it all in.

This is the bulk of the dim and drab years ahead of you. The rest of your life without The One. Your future was woven and stitched together with the life of Your One. Now, you begin to pick at the glittering stitching and unravelling artful threads. Like the canker sore in the mouth, you continue to poke and pick in spite of the pain, maybe even because of it. A reminder that you still live, you exist, if only barely.

Some days the abyss gapes and you get dizzy at the stretch of years yet to come before you can rest from the agony of that damn soulful ache in the arms of love once more. Miles to go before I sleep.

Other days, the warm sun shines, the vivid flowers bloom, the sand and sea kiss and tickle your toes and you can focus on just today, just this moment. Then, without warning, you remember that The One loved days like this. Your hand clenches and unclenches. Nothing there. You hear laughter on the wind and gorgeous, excruciating memories swirl and buzz like gnats inside your head. Again the spinning void opens and vertigo swirls. The One is not there to catch you and yet…they are. They stand firm in your memories, your heart, your soul.

You know them – every smile, every turn of the head, every sound they make means something. You know. You know what they would do and say right now if they were standing beside you. You steady yourself and take a tentative step forward.

We hold on

I have been absent from my blog for a while – 10 months according to WordPress.

I’ve had a busy year. I was hired at a great job in April and learning the ropes and getting back on a workday schedule took much of my time and concentration. Basically, I was at the top of my game – a new job perfect for me working with databases, married to an amazing, loving man, and a cute, little house for two. With two solid jobs, we started planning for trips and adventures to celebrate our milestone birthdays next year. We got ourselves on a new healthy regime of exercise and simple, organic foods. We couldn’t be happier. And we held on to dreams.

In August of this year, my husband started getting headaches. We attributed it to the humid summer that Eastern Canada was experiencing at the time. While asking our pharmacist what to do about the persistent pain, he got physically sick in the store. I drove him to the local ER. They treated him for the pain and nausea and sent him home. The next day his regular doctor sent him for a CT scan of his head. With my husband’s history of melanoma in 2014, his doctor just wanted to rule it out. I was at work when my husband called. “They found a lesion on my brain. I need you.” And we held on to hope.

Our world since has been a blurry whirlwind of scans, x-rays, surgery, and more bad news of cancer in the liver and bowel. The tumour in the liver is inoperable. It is just too large and in a delicate spot. When the doctor said to my husband, “This WILL take your life in 6 months to a year,” my heart froze, then it broke. It shattered like a rose fresh from a liquid nitrogen bath that has been dropped to the floor. The doctor quietly dismissed himself from the room. We held each other so tight and sobbed. We whispered our love and promises between moist, gasping breaths. And we held on to strength.

Since that day, there have been hospital stays to combat nausea, too thin blood and pain, doctor appointments, blood transfusions when his hemoglobin dropped too low, more surgery, then chemo, immunotherapy and radiation in an effort to buy a couple extra months or even just one more day. And we held on to love.

Today is the 11th anniversary of the day we met. I felt that meeting coming in my solar plexus for months, like the wild excitement before a big vacation away. We met at Christmas time at a bar. At the end of the night, we were slow dancing, oblivious that the music had stopped and the lights had come up. My friend gently pulled us apart and held up my phone number for him. On Boxing Day we had our first date. The rest, as they say, is history. I have told my love that, for the rest of our life together, he never has to buy me a present. There is no way he could ever top the first present. Him – Best. Present. Ever. And we held on to each other.

And we hold on. We will keep holding on until he let’s go. And then I will hold on to memory.

Update: My beautiful, funny James passed away with his loving family by his side on January 21, 2017. He will be missed. He will be loved. He will be remembered.

Choose the Pebble

It was June when I was first heard, “Your husband has advanced melanoma.”

After receiving this news, my husband and I cried together while we absorbed this information. We kept saying, “We can beat this,” but my mind rushed to all the worst places it could go and, as an administrative assistant, I immediately started planning for worst case scenarios. Then, after a few days of planning his funeral in my mind, I realized, “Gee, he’s taking this quite well.” And I started to watch him. I looked for signs that my alpha-male husband was cracking under the pressure; that he was just hiding his true thoughts and feelings to spare me. I slowly realized that he wasn’t. In his mind, he had already beaten cancer.

Now, I have worked in the healthcare industry and I had done my research so I was well aware that, since he also has lupus and a blood-clotting disorder, he has a less than 40% chance of survival. I started thinking he was living in a fantasy world and I was angry with him for not facing this situation with me. I became like a pebble in his shoe, nagging him to do this or think that or read this research that explains how likely he is to die from this type of aggressive cancer. But he would crack a joke or just ignore me, which made me angrier. I felt like I was fighting for his life on my own.

Then I noticed that, emotionally, he was starting to pull away from me, and it occurred to me that I could lose him before cancer even has a chance to take him from me. I knew something had to change and it wasn’t him. Who was I to tell him he’s wrong in having a positive attitude? So I changed MY attitude. It’s a struggle and I’m certainly not a constant ray of sunshine.

After all, I have read the research and cancer websites and I am aware that my husband’s chances aren’t great. But, there is a chance. And soon, instead of seeing this as my husband’s final months on earth, I started seeing this as, just an awful situation that we have to get through, but that we would get through it…together.

The doctors are amazed that we joke around while we wait for our appointments. They don’t usually hear laughter coming from waiting rooms filled with cancer patients. These doctors also seem relieved to work with people who are not angry with them or panicking. And they start to smile and spend a little more time with us to discuss options and answer our questions. One doctor even joined in when we were coming up with cool and funny stories to tell people about where my husband’s scar came from. “Tell them you tried to stop a bank robbery and got stabbed! Or you got hit by a car while saving a baby in a runaway carriage!” Not to mention the great Halloween costume ideas we started coming up with: Frankenstein, Phantom of the Opera, a zombie…including a built in scar on his face and neck.

I like to think that, for these doctors who deal with frightened, angry people and death each day, we are a bright spot in their day. Perhaps they talk to colleagues over coffee or to their family over dinner about this hopeful and goofy couple.

Like a pebble in a pond, perhaps our hope and laughter will continue to ripple outward and inspire someone else, and their ripples will reach out to more people. We may not change the world, but, our ripple may, eventually, inspire someone who will. Maybe someday the ripple will even make its way back to us again when we need a reminder to keep going.

I told you all that so I could say to you: Life and work will not always be easy. However, you will find that you can get a lot farther, and it will be much less painful for everyone if you choose to be a pebble in a pond, not a pebble in a shoe.

[Written Oct 3, 2014]