Category Archives: Other Random Thoughts

A new friend, a way to cope and a way to help Jenny

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We met a new friend last Sunday.
homesub1Judy from our church — Acts 2 United Methodist Church — stopped by to give Jenny a gift. Before Sunday, we did not know Judy. We actually recognized her immediately as someone we often saw at church services (especially before Acts 2 began offering a third service on Sunday — an early one; I don’t think Jenny likes getting going as early as Judy on Sundays).

We recognized her as a friendly face, but we didn’t know her.

But that didn’t stop Judy from going well out of her way to get to know us.

Judy called Jenny and wanted to talk to her about surviving cancer. She didn’t sugar coat anything, but she did make it clear that you can have good times in your life even while undergoing treatment. Judy is a survivor — first leukemia, then breast cancer.

She told the story of how her husband had bought her a stuffed bear as she began treatment years ago. She brought the bear and let us hold it.

It was heavy. That’s what happens when you attach dozens of metal items to a stuffed bear.

Judy told about how her friends and family offered pins, key chains and other assorted items that she could pin, glue, sew or otherwise attach to the bear. As she went through the four years of treatment with leukemia, and then — years later — the year of treatment with breast cancer, she kept the bear with her. The attached items helped remind her of all the people praying for her from all aspects of her life and from all around the world.

So here is the gift Judy gave to Jenny:

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It’s not a Teddy Bear. It’s better. It’s a Pillow Pet. (Words cannot describe how excited Brynlee is about this development).

Jenny is excited, as well. She likes the idea and plans on using it just as Judy described.

So she could use your help.

If you would like, we’d love to attach items to our new pillow pet. A pin, key chain or something similar that’s meaningful to you, Jenny or both — or it could just be something that looks nice.

As Judy says, each attached item represents a prayer. We already know there are lots of people praying for Jenny. That feels really good to our entire family.

The visual reminders and the soft pillow pet feel really good, too.

 

P.S. — if you want to mail it to us, that would accomplish two things. (1) It would successfully deliver the item to us; and (2) it would give me reason to walk to our mailbox and allow me to rethink my plan to cancel my mail, thereby avoiding an interrogation from the postmaster general.

Our address is 908 W. Mid Iron Way; Edmond, OK 73025

(In-person deliveries are welcome, too.)

Two steps forward

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I can deal with anything I will have to deal in this ridiculous adventure. I feel confident about that. However, I feel like I reserve the right to be bothered by things that are trivial in the grand scheme of things.

One of those things is that I won’t be able to get reconstructive surgery until after chemo and radiation. The surgeon estimated that to be a year from now. For some reason, that REALLY bothers me.

We faxed all of my medical records to MD Anderson this morning. I am waiting for them to go through them to make sure everything is there. Once that is done, they will schedule my appointment. They are looking at the third week of October in scheduling right now. That means that I would need to reschedule my surgery up here in order to get a second opinion down there.

One of the positives about going down there is that the surgeon, plastic surgeon, oncologist, etc. all work together as a team to develop and implement your treatment plan. Not so up here. It is very disjointed.

For instance, the surgeon yesterday told me that I would likely need radiation due to where the tumor was located; therefore, I cannot get reconstruction at the time of the mastectomy. However, she has never spoken to my oncologist (neither have I for the record – that appointment is tomorrow). Based on her assumption, she doesn’t intend to engage a plastic surgeon until next year when the chemo/radiation is done.

I just feel like she/we should at least ASK if it is possible that I won’t have radiation before we make that decision.

Going to MD Anderson will likely tell me the same thing. I mean, she has good logic behind why I would need radiation – it is likely sitting on my chest muscle because the tumor is very high up on my chest. They won’t take out the muscle so they need to do radiation to make sure they get it all. I get that. I would just feel better if she, the oncologist and the plastic surgeon had discussed and agreed that this is best.

But I also don’t want to wait until November to start what will dominate a year or more of my life. Let’s get this thing started!

So, I am postponing my “MD Anderson-or-bust” decision until they call me back with an appointment day. It isn’t like I can do anything now anyway.

Big decisions, folks. Big decisions.