Raw wounds and scars

Many of you know that during my initial research on colon cancer two+ years ago, I found a blog on NPR called MY CANCER written by Leroy Sievers, who was fighting the "second coming" of his colon cancer. Leroy died recently from the disease and his wife, Laurie, has continued the blog. As a "griever," I'm glad she did. She's giving a public voice to "Now what happens?" Her post today was really good and addresses what I think of when people say to me "Time heals all wounds."

September 26, 2008
Healing The Giant Wound

It's this grieving stuff that's got me confused. There aren't really any rules. Granted, there's actually a book called "Grieving for Dummies." But for me that just adds insult to injury.

There are a lot of experts who can tell you how you're supposed to feel. There are groups you can join, bereavement sessions where everyone can speak about their individual pain. If you're not a "joiner," those seem a little odd.

For me, grieving is an attack on my soul, my core.

I look at it this way. It's a giant wound right now. And it's covered with a very big bandage.

As time goes on, those bandages will get smaller, until I'm left with a scar.

That scar will last my lifetime.

-- Laurie

A rough day

Yesterday was a rough day. I didn't expect to be as an emotional wreck as I was. The main part of my day was bearable because I'm swamped at work, but once work ended I cried at every thought of Jim...and my thoughts were filled with Jim. A whole year. That just doesn't seem possible. The lump is still in my throat, so I'm not in any shape yet to share what yesterday was all about, but I do want to say thank you to a few people who reached out yesterday in a myriad of ways:

Tonia & Ted
Auntie Cheryl & Uncle Bob
Aunt Dot & Uncle Don
Rozanne
Amy
Cheryl

If there's one thing I've learned over the past year about grief, it's what my Aunt Dot said yesterday "I hope people have learned that the old adage about not bringing up the person who died with the people who loved them because you don't want to make them sad, is a fallacy. By saying something, you aren't reminding them of it. They live with their grief every day."

I'm not the most thoughtful person - I can be when I think about it, but most of the time I'm just in my own little world, clueless. To those of you who remembered yesterday and reached out in a thoughtful way, you amaze me. I hope that I can learn by your example and as I travel forward in life, I can "pay it forward," becoming more aware of times when I should reach out.

September 17th, 2008 - one year

Love you...miss you...every day

We Fought Cancer…And Cancer Won.

There was a depressing and enlightening article on cancer in this week's Newsweek titled "We Fought Cancer and Cancer Won." http://www.newsweek.com/id/157548

It's a long aritcle, but worth the read. Beating cancer is like winning the lottery - most people who play never win, there's a fair number of winners of small prizes (NED less than 5 years), and very few big winners (NED 5+ years).

I'd read the studies when Jim was in treatment, but to see it again, made me so discouraged: "In the studies that led the FDA to approve Avastin, for instance, the drug prolonged life in patients with advanced colorectal cancer by a median of four months."

I also want to share a Web site that I found when Jim was sick - "Choose Hope" http://www.choosehope.com/money.jsp It's where I got our Swarovski Crystal Hope Bracelets in colon cancer blue and my Cancer Sucks baseball cap. They donate 10% of their total sales (before expenses) on a monthly basis to a variety of leading cancer research institutions. They make sure that their money goes directly to general cancer research. That way, every cancer gets a portion of their donations. It's small amounts - in August they donated $5,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and a $1,000 to standup2cancer.org - but the pennies add up.

Bad reality makes for bad dreams

Mark tells me I mumble and cry out in my sleep a lot. Probably once a week, I wake up and can remember the dreams. This has been going on for almost 2 years now. The dreams are no worse than our reality - Jim's there, then he's not. In my dreams, sometimes we're little kids again, sometimes we're teenagers, sometimes it's the years right before he died. But the ending of the dreams is always the same, I lose him somehow.

We went to Disney World when Sean was 5. As we were all outside waiting for the taxi, Kristen had to go to the bathroom and she went back inside the hotel. What four adults didn't see was Sean followed her. But he was far enough behind her that he lost her in the lobby, got confused and walked down a long corridor with shops. Kirsten came back, but no Sean. I was 100% terrified. I'd lost him. For 15 long minutes, 4 adults and Kirsten searched for him. Finally, he arrived back at the hotel with tears in his eyes, holding the hand of a Disney employee.

That panicked terror I felt when I lost Sean is the terror I feel in my dreams. But it doesn't go away, I wake up and Jim is still lost. There's no Disney employee holding his hand, leading him back to me. No waking from the dream to find a less grim reality.

I've kept this mostly to myself. Every once in a while, if the dream is bad enough, Mark will ask about it. He'll ask if it was about Jim, and when I say "Yes," that's all the explanation he needs. But this morning, Kirsten admitted to the same dream. She was sitting with Uncle Jim and Aunt Kate, eating and talking around Mimi and Papa's kitchen table. All of a sudden Aunt Kate gave her the strangest look. She said in her dream she thought she had food on her face, but when she turned back to Uncle Jim, he was gone and she knew what Aunt Kate's face meant. She woke up crying.

September 17th marks the one-year anniversary of Jim's death. I don't see the dreams stopping for any of us in the near future.