Damsel in Distress

 I am getting ready for a day of tests at the Mayo Clinic, spring has come and green is breaking through the gray of winter.  I am confident they will show the cancer is shrinking, if not gone.  My last trip up here to Mayo in the end of February was not as positive, despite my positive energy at the time. 

Grace and I left too late in the day and it was dark as we made our way through the small Iowa and Minnesota farming towns. The occasional neon sign blinking "BAR" with a few pick up trucks parked outside dotted the roadside. The A&W was closed down for the winter, waiting for spring to serve its burgers, fries, and of course, root beer.  The wind was fiercely blowing snow on the road, in a battle to cover it before the cars driving over it would scatter it again. The wind was winning, causing several long patches of icey snow covered roadway. 

We finally got to the hotel and I was tense from the dangerous driving. I had used my best lawyering skills to convince Bill that I was feeling well enough to go to the Mayo Clinic by myself. I was only going for a few scans and my Keytruda treatment.  My fatigue and nausea had lessened and I really wasn't feeling that badly.  I WAS GOING TO DO IT MYSELF.  After months and months of people helping me I wanted to feel some independendence, some freedom, some control over my situation. 

I was excited to have Grace as my traveling companion. She was doing a school project and came with me to do some investigative reporting. She went to the Mayo musuem, talked to the doctors, and collected pamphlets to help her with her project.  She also got her nails done.  While she was exploring the workings of Mayo, Mayo explored the working of me. 

We were here three days. On the last day I really wasn't feeling well, but I didn't want to tell anyone and admit defeat.  As we got ready to leave Rochester, stopped to get Grace some food before we headed back through the Midwest farmland.  I quickly took some more anti nausea medicine hoping it would make me feel better.  We decided on Noodles and I ordered chicken noodle soup, after having been on the Mayo diet all day, which means fasting for tests, my stomach was empty and I didn't feel like anything heavy. 

Before my food got delivered, someone started spinning the whole restaurant around. The people were all moving and things were going out of focus. My stomach was in revolt. I walked as fast as I could to the bathroom, feeling like I was running inside a bouncy house, Grace wide-eyed watching me. 

I barely made it to the toilet before I threw up. I was in the handicap stall, door swinging open behind me.  After my stomach stopped protesting, I layed in front of the toilet, the cold tile floor felt good.  I had the urge to put my cheek against the floor, wanting the floor to ground me, and cause my head to stop spinning.  Although, the fact that I was in a public bathroom, on the floor, right by the toilet, tipped the scale for me to endure the spinning a bit more. 

Slowly my head came to stop, my face like ash, and I walked out to Grace talking on the phone. She called Bill. She sounded the SOS. I was a damsel in distress and I needed saving. One of our friends was driving Bill to come and rescue me and drive us home. I was defeated. I was exhausted. I was so sick. 

We went out to the car and I rested. With my equilibrium restored, stomach still churning, I put the car in reverse and started going towards my knight driving a Honda Odessey.  

I sit here now, realizing my quest for independence from cancer was foolishness. My life is forever changed. I have lost some of what was and frankly, I still fight the thought that I have cancer, not accepting it, pleading for me to wake up from this on going nightmare.  

Although it is a nightmare through which I have grown, changed and obtained knowledge. I appreciate the curious  Robin hopping around my flower bed with her head cocked to one side.  I enjoy the motherly service of cleaning Cheeto stained fingers. I am grateful for moments when we are all in my bed with the kids debating whose night it is to say family prayers.  I cherish the pre-dawn snuggle fest with my boys as they drink a sippycup full of milk. I have gratitude that I can see the wonder of tulips pushing their heads through not long ago frozen ground.    I am living life with cancer and it is mostly good. So, today with all my scans I am optimistic that a part of this nightmare will come to an end.  

Diapers and Depends

Life can be brutal, dealing us challenges like cards are dealt in Las Vegas, fast and furious.   The challenges of death, divorce, disease and of course, potty training your child, can almost destroy a person.  I have had the opportunity to increase the depth of my character five times, potty training my five very different children.  

With the first two I got a false sense of my parenting superiority.  “It is easy, you make a chart and you give your precious child an M &M each time they are successful,”  I preached on the playground to other mothers.  I wonder what they were doing wrong?

After my next two children, I had great compassion for parents who duct taped their monsters to the toilet.  “You are not getting off until you go potty in the toilet and not on the floor!”   At one point, I got so angry my poor son huddled in the corner with a look of terror, tears streaming down his cheeks, speechless, with me holding up another pair of soaked underwear and fire coming out of my eyes.  Not my best parenting moment.

So, with the last child in diapers, knowing that he was ready to graduate to the world of underwear, I knew I needed to embark on this last potty training expedition.  However, this time there was a kink, I had cancer.  I was really sick.  See, that is the problem with cancer, your life stops, barely moving,  consumed by survival and doctor visits, but the world around you moves on.  Your son progresses, he is ready to move from diapers to underwear, and you digress from underwear to diapers, literally.  

One of the unfortunate side effects of my unique situation is that I suffer from incontinence, which is just a really fancy word for saying that I pee my pants.   It isn’t constant, but goes in fits and spurts.  I was standing at the kitchen counter, peeling carrots, when suddenly…yup.  I rolled my eyes, and slowly walked upstairs to change my clothes.   I was sitting in the car, “Oh, no, oh, no, where is a napkin???”  I was laying in bed, not again, time to wash the sheets.  Every time I coughed, done.  I didn’t want to wear a diaper, I had my pride, I am only 41 after all!  After too many accidents and loads of laundry, I succumbed, I wore a diaper.  (Good thing Bill was infinitely patient and never had fire coming out of his eyes, otherwise I would have been in the corner crying too.)  

Now, I feel in case any of you out there need to wear adult diapers, I should write a review of the different types, you know, a consumer reports type thingy.  One of the reasons I didn’t want to wear a diaper is because I was convinced I would smell like a poorly run nursing home, like stale urine stained sheets.  Additionally, who wants an diaper line showing through their pants? Little did I know that technological advances have also hit the adult diaper world.  Bill bought me several different kinds and I learned you get what you pay for, spend the money folks, spend the money.  The best kind whisks away moisture, neutralizes the PH, absorbs all odors and can barely be seen through even yoga pants.  Apple got nothin’ on the incontinence diaper industry. 

So, one morning I was feeling a bit better and ambitious and decided I was home all day anyway, I might as well start Andrew on his diaper free path.  I was laying in bed and Andrew bounced in.  I looked at him and declared with a sunny voice,  “Andrew you are getting so big!  You are such a big boy!  Let’s get some underwear and put them on!”   He responded, “NO! I don’t want to.  I wear diapers.”  I was surprised by his response.  He is almost as big as Sam and thinks he is bigger, so why wouldn’t he want to wear underwear like his brother?  “Andrew, why don’t you want to wear undies?”  He walked over to my bed, getting close to me, looked at me with his big brown eyes and said, “Mom, I want to be just like you.”  

It took me a minute to understand what he was saying.  He must have sensed my confusion.  He pushed back my covers and pointed to my diaper, while also showing me his diaper and said, “See!  Same, same!  Same, same!”  Tears welled in my eyes.  I am not sure why, but they did.  So I dropped it, for the next month we made it a badge of honor, we were the same,  we both wore diapers.  Although, he asked why mine had a purple bow on the front and his didn’t.  I asked him right back, why did he get to have Elmo on his diaper and mine didn’t.

In February I had a good streak and graduated myself back up to underwear.  I thought Andrew might want to do the same.  I showed him that I wore underwear now.  Did he want to wear underwear too?  He agreed.  We went to the store, bought him some underwear and got him Star Wars toy as a reward for when he filled out his potty chart.  I am happy to report that Andrew hasn’t had even one accident; he decided and he was done.  I, unfortunately, have not done as well as my three year-old.  Maybe I need to print myself a potty-chart.