Living Strong

Five and a half years ago we entered into one of the scariest times in our lives. My wife Lolly, doing her monthly breast check discovered a lump.   Obviously concerned, she made an appointment with our doctor and had the usual precautionary tests and a mammogram.   This time however was not the same.  There was more concern in the doctor’s voice and a seriousness we had not seen before.  The usual, “results will be in next week” wasn’t there.  It was, we need to see you tomorrow kind of scare.

Well the news was bad.  It was a tumor and it was breast cancer.  She needed to schedule surgery as soon as possible to remove it and discuss options.  The options were keeping the breast and going through chemo  and radiation or a mastectomy and chemo.  Man, I remember how scare I was, but couldn’t even imagine how scare Lolly must have been feeling.   All I could picture in my mind was the image of James Caan playing Brian Piccolo screaming in the bathtub in the TV movie, Brian’s Song.   It had been many many years since I saw the movie, but I remember thinking back then, this cancer thing is a very very scary.  I couldn’t and didn’t want to imagine my Lolly going through that. I had no idea what to expect.

With her family history, she looked long and hard at these options.   We talked and cried and prayed over this decision.   Lolly had caught it early enough and with the doctor’s advice along with some great counseling from the folks at St. Als, she decided to forgo the mastectomy and just do the chemo and radiation.

So began this horrible journey.   Lolly had the surgery to remove the lump, ironically almost 20 years to the day I first laid eyes on her and knew I had met my wife.  I took her to the surgery and waited.   When the it was done, I took her home and we prayed.   For one of the few times in my life I was didn’t know what do, feel or say.   We had let our sons know some what, what was happening, but tried to keep the morale up and keep things as normal as possible.   At the time James was about to turn 11 and Nick was 4.  Lolly was strong as ever.

I had to pull off an 11 year old’s birthday party and keep my spirits up while holding back the huge fear inside of me.  I could sense the boys knew something serious was up, but they held their own, brave little guys.

Lolly had a port installed in her chest which was supposed to make the chemo treatments go easier (yeah, right) and faster.   I can’t imagine the pain or the fear of having that device stuck in chest next to my heart.   Lolly was brave and strong.

The first morning came for Lolly to have her chemo treatment.   She was going to have six total throughout the summer into fall.   It was a Thursday.  Lolly kept a brave face up as well as I, but I knew both of us were scared.   For some reason the the port did not work, so the staff at St. Als used another device in her arm to inject what we so lovingly call “the poison”.   While there in the treatment room with others also receiving their chemo treatments, we watched as others were in various stages of treatment.  One lady was on her last one.  There were others there with loved ones and some alone, all brave.

We kept our humor and made jokes with each other as we have always done in tough times.  It’s one of the reasons I love her so.   So they prepped her and started the treatment.   How can you calmly anticipate putting something in your body that you know is going to make you horribly sick and miserable.  As we both said, “…poison into your system”.   It’s because this stuff will save your life that’s why, but mentally it doesn’t make it any easier.   You have to be brave and strong.   I watch as they injected the first bag and the second. Damn she’s was strong.   We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding on a personal DVD player they had.   We laughed and joked.   It took our minds away to younger more carefree days.   When she was done, we went home and she went to bed.   They told us that she would be in for a couple of hard days (as this is the pattern).   She slept on Friday and was out of it on Saturday and Sunday.  She was so brave and strong.

One of the great things that came out of this (yes there was some great things) was we experienced the warmth of the people of Boise.   We had only been living her for four short years, but friends from work, church and scouts brought us meals, watch the boys and helped both Lolly and I during this time.   We felt very humbled and blessed by the generosity of all these very kind folks who became family.

A very good friend even ordered the Livestrong bracelet, from Lance Armstrong’s LiveStrong Foundation.  Then my entire department at Micron wore the bracelets in support of Lolly.  Wow is all I can say.  I was very touched by this.  This also was the inspiration of our family mantra, Be Good, Be True, Be Strong.

About a week or two after the first treatment, I got a call at work from Lolly and she sounded like she was going down fast.   I rushed home and found her completely out of it.   I gathered up the boys and got Lolly to the emergency room at St. Als.  I rushed her in and she was seen immediately.  Lolly’s port became infected.  She was going to have to spend a few nights there.   Of course seeing their mom with tubes in her and iodine on her arms scared my little guys.   I did all I could to reassure them Mom was going to be okay, even as I try to convince myself.   Please Lord, don’t take her away.

This also happen to be Fathers Day weekend.  James wanted to make bobble head football players as a gift.  He thought doing this with paper mache would be fun.  Me, not knowing any better took this on.  Lolly later laughed and told me not even stay home mom’s do paper mache.  Would have been nice to know.

After the next treatment, Lolly started losing her hair.  She had already had picked out a wig and somehow took this with good humor.  She wanted me to go ahead and save her head.  As we did this, we had a little fun by giving her a mohawk.  I think this made the boys a little more comfortable, but I knew a they were scared, but we had a good laugh.

The third treatment was one of the toughest.  Lolly did not want to go.  Who would?  I told her she didn’t have to like it, but she had to go.  She could have the day to cry, but this needed to be done.  Her boys and I needed her.  She couldn’t give up.  She went reluctantly.  Our normal routine during the half day event was to watch a movie, laugh and let her sleep when we got home.  The few days she was out of it, sleeping and sick.  She was so strong and brave.

She went through this three more times.  I don’t know how she did it.  All I know was that she was so strong.  I can’t imagine knowing this stuff  going into your body will make you feel horrible and sick…and you had to do every 3 weeks or so.  I went with her every time.  I was always amazed at how she handled it.  She is my hero.

When she was done with her chemo treatments, she commenced on her radiation treatments.  She had about 22 of these to do.  This was to last throughout the fall.

She is a teacher and took a leave of absence for the semester.  One of the other good things that came from this was that she was able to take our little one to kindergarten everyday.  She would have never had this opportunity because she teaches.  She got to do this with James because James attended the same school where she taught in Arizona.  And now she got to do this with Nick.

The radiation treatments left her a little burnt and tired, but once done we felt grateful that this chapter was finished.

Lot has happened since then, Lolly at a new school, me with a new job and the boys becoming young men.  We had fun and challenges throughout.  So today, Friday, December 4th, we celebrate 5 years of her being cancer free.  She is living strong and cancer free.  She is my hero.