Difficult Seasons

Late Monday afternoon, we received really good news from Dad’s doctor.  The pathology report on the tumors and surrounding tissue removed from Dad’s bladder last week turned out to be a noninvasive, non-aggressive type of cancer, and it had been completely removed.  That means that he doesn’t need additional surgery or chemo or radiation and can just be checked every three months for reoccurrence.

As my daughter Sara said on hearing the news, “The quality of life just got better for all of us.”

We’re certainly rejoicing in this unexpected good news.  Our thankfulness is hard to even express.

But my joy and thankfulness is tempered by awareness of what is happening to others.

• That same evening Eloise and I attended the viewing for a dear friend, spending some bittersweet time with his wife. They were like extra grandparents for our kids when they were young, even keeping all three to allow us a special trip to Amsterdam.  Less than a week elapsed between his cancer diagnosis and his death.
• At the same time as our good news was being broadcast in our church’s prayer email, the news was also sent out that a friend’s mom diagnosed with lymphoma six weeks ago was going home with hospice care.  She passed peacefully last night.
• I did chaplaincy rounds yesterday afternoon at M.D. Anderson, spending time with several people who have not received good news.

My awareness makes me realize all the more how special good news is, and it fuels my thankfulness.

My awareness also makes me more compassionate to friends and sojourners whose news is not good.

And I understand better that life is a bittersweet mixture of rejoicing with those who are rejoicing, and mourning with those who are mourning, and that both can be happening at the same time.

This promises to be a busy week helping Dad with his medical things.

Monday morning Dad’s having a colonoscopy.  He’s had some concerning symptoms, so my prayers are for negative findings, and safety during the procedure.

It’s also probable that we’ll get the pathology report Monday on the two tumors removed from Dad’s bladder last week.  We’d love for it to prove his doctor’s opinion that the tumors are an aggressive cancer wrong, but should it not, it will start in process setting up appointments for followup diagnostic testing and consultations.

He also has an appointment this week with his audiologist.  We’re hoping his hearing aids can be tuned or repaired to get his hearing back to where it was a few months ago.

By the way, for a guy that’s nearing 85, Dad’s amazing in so many ways.  He bounced back from Wednesday’s procedure in rapid fashion, took care of several business items himself later in the week, and was at worship and class this morning doing his regular visiting with lots of folks.

And also, we’ll actually celebrate Father’s Day sometime during the week.  Today he was on his liquid diet and doing the prep for tomorrow’s procedure.  I suspect he’ll be ready for a nice dinner one evening soon.

Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers as we navigate some new territory for us.  I’ll post updates as we progress through the week.  Thanks for reading, and I hope your week is blessed.

This week started with a migraine headache on Sunday morning.

We were driving to church, and about half way there, the aura began.  So we made an unplanned stop to buy some Advil, the medicine that works best for me.  I took some, and we went on to church, then a meeting with our family caregiving support group, and then to lunch with Dad and Sara.  The migraine wasn’t gone, but it was dulled.

It bounced back on Monday, and again on Tuesday.  Not bad for a migraine, like they used to be when I was younger.  But migraines anyway.

I’ve always accepted migraines as a message — one that says I’m not doing a good job taking care of myself.  I already knew that before this week’s warning messages.  I’ve been writing about and working on self care for a few weeks now.  But it takes some time and effort to turn things around.  And other things don’t wait for that to occur before they happen — like my Dad’s cancer diagnosis last week.

So this week, I’ve redoubled my efforts at self care.  And I’m getting some support from my friend Jon Swanson, who’s writing about his approach to the same issues.

Having worked as a life coach, I know the elements of self care well.  Practicing them is often more difficult.

Self care starts with getting rid of Tolerations, those things that we are putting up with, but which bug us, bother us, upset us, worry us, and so forth.  Most people can write a list of 25 tolerations in less than 5 minutes, which is quite telling in itself.

So Monday I made a short list of tolerations that also had a urgency component, and started working on them.  Between my headache and generally bad attitude, it was sort of like slogging through knee-high mud.  But I kept at it and made some progress.  Tuesday I picked back up where I had left off, and made some more progress.  And Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday and today — more of the same.

I’d made enough progress by Wednesday that the headaches went away, and, my attitude about things was much improved.  I was feeling good about some of the things I had gotten handled, hopeful that I could handle what was to come.  We capped the week by cleaning and reorganizing the garage.  The car even fits again.

Getting rid of tolerations — many of which involve clutter and disorganization — is a big piece of self care.  It’s amazing how much more peaceful we feel when things are in order, when things are where they’re supposed to be, when the stuff we don’t need has been disposed of.

It’s taking care of stuff like cleaning the garage.  And cleaning out our closet, getting rid of the stuff we no longer wear, organizing the things we do wear.  And cleaning out my office, filing the piles into folders so that they can be easily retrieved, throwing out what is no longer needed, getting rid of things that I might find a use for some day.  And the list goes on.

Why does working on tolerations help?

1. We’re working on things we have some control over, and we can see progress.
2. We’re simplifying and organizing the things that otherwise bother us every day.
3. We’re spending time and effort taking care of ourselves.

There’ll be progress reports as I keep working on it.

“Your dad has cancer” are words we never want to hear.  But in fact, those are the words the doctor spoke when he called me Friday.

My dad, who is approaching his 85th birthday, is happily quite independent.  We went through a spell a few years ago when that was not the case.  He was quite dependent on me.

But for the last year or so, he has been functioning quite independently.  That includes scheduling and going to his own doctor’s appointments.  In fact, I was unaware that he was visiting his urologist on Friday.

So the call from the doctor’s office came out of the blue.  I was in the process of mowing, and was just taking a break when the call came.

Mr. Hughes, your dad is here, and this morning I scoped his bladder to determine the cause of his frequent urination and urgency.  He has a tumor in his bladder.  If you asked me to guess, I’d say it was an aggressive cancer.  We’ll schedule a procedure to remove it and get a pathology report.

I asked a question or two, and asked that he also talk to my daughter, a nurse practitioner at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

It’s Sunday night as I write this, and I’m still in the early stages of processing what I heard mid-day Friday.  But here are some of the things that have been running through my mind.

• This is more evidence that life’s not fair.  Dad has survived two wives who both died of cancer.  It doesn’t seem fair that he should have to battle cancer too.
• I spend a lot of time with cancer patients.  I really don’t want my dad to be a cancer patient.  I don’t want to be a cancer caregiver.
• Maybe because I know a lot about cancer, this won’t be as hard as if I were a novice.  Then again, maybe it’s gong to be harder because of my knowledge.
• None of us gets an exemption from life’s struggles.  Being an oncology nurse practitioner doesn’t exempt your family from cancer.  Serving as a lay chaplain to cancer patients doesn’t get an exemption either.
• Dad’s doing better with this news than I am.  He’s been expecting everything that comes along to be cancer.  I think that’s because he saw Mom develop it, and then his second wife, Carol.
• We really don’t know what to expect until we get the pathology report.
• I’m going to have to work a lot harder on my own self care.  I’m going to have to take my advice more seriously.
• This is not a good time for me to take on additional care giving duties.  I’m already kind of full up.  I don’t guess that matters a whole lot, however.

I’m trying to take this news as much in stride as I can.  I’ve spent time in prayer about it.  I’ve asked my church family to also pray about it.

Because through all of the other thoughts I’ve had the last few days, one predominates.  Dad is in God’s hands.  This whole situation is in God’s hands, as are all of our situations.  Whatever is ahead, we will be sustained.

I’ve been writing about self care.  You might want to look at this and also this as background.

We live near an elementary school.  So when I step out on the back porch during the day, I’m often greeted by the shrill delight of school children enjoying recess.  I suspect some of the activities are organized games, as the sounds I hear are cheers.  Other times, I’m pretty sure it’s just kids doing what they do at recess, and expressing their joy at the fun they’re having together on a break from the serious stuff they’ve been focused on in the classroom.

A couple of things generally occur to me as I listen to them.

1.  The noise coming from the school playground can best be described as pure joy.  They’re having fun, and they’re expressing their joy with squeals and screams and they’re loud about it.

2.  I find myself wondering why they get to have recess, but the rest of us don’t.

I remember recess.  It was a long, long time ago, and my memory is not the kind that generally remembers specific details.  But I remember recess, both in my early school years in Abilene and later elementary years in Sioux City.  In fact, as I try to remember my elementary years, specific memories can probably be counted on both hands — and recess pictures are about a third of the total.  It was that important.  I’ll bet if you just close your eyes for a moment, you’ll be able to remember recess too!

So if recess was that important, why isn’t it still important?  Why does recess end with elementary school.  Does the need for recess end?  Does the value of recess end?  I don’t think so.

Just because attention span increases a little, and our ability to sit still increases (again a little), our need for breaks that that make us squeal with joy don’t end.  But seemingly, we’ve structured life as if it did.

As part of good self care, I’m challenging myself — and you — to re-establish recess in our lives.

So if we’re going to re-establish recess, what are some of the ground rules?

1. Recess is something we have to do with other people.
2. Recess has to be doing something that brings squeals of joy, of delight.
3. Recess has to be fun.
4. Recess has to occur daily.

Since it’s been a long time since I’ve been part of recess, maybe you can help me think of some ways we can have recess now.  Comments are open!