Re-focus

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.


~St. Francis of Assisi, 13th c.

¿Cómo se dice...?

Sometimes I tempt myself with the convenient fiction that a witty t-shirt would make breaking the news easier, simpler, plus facile.

It's not that I'm embarrassed or ashamed to tell anyone. Sometimes I've worried about the effects of the news on certain recipients - my parents, for example, whom I held off telling as long as I could. Sometimes - as with my potential roommates here in SF - I selfishly worried the knowledge might nullify the pending transaction (as it indeed did, in some cases). And sometimes I've shrunk from the instant notoriety of being added to a dozen prayer lists around the world.

Now most of those closest to me know - friends, family, colleagues. But sometimes I still have to drop the C word to new people I meet, inevitably cracking a glacial crevasse in the pleasant conversation.

At its heart, I don't want the diagnosis to define me. I cling to the quintessentially American ideal: judge me by my actions; not by my parents, my family name, my hometown, my college, my degree, my church, the wealth or poverty of my background, my appearance, ethnicity, gender, or any of a hundred other categories that divide and define us. Judge me by how I live my life.

(I have always thought it curious that Americans find sola gratia so tempting, given the American preoccupation with self-definition through one's actions. Perhaps it is that obsessive focus on works which reveals to us the ultimate insufficiency of our actions in the face of divine sacrifice - or perhaps our frustration at consistently imperfect actions bolsters our hope that God can help us faithfully live out our idealistic natures in demonstrable ways. But I digress.)

It is the duty of men to judge men only by their actions.

So how do I tell these folks I meet that I have cancer? Quickly, bluntly, and honestly, tossing off a joke into the awkward silence, and moving on.

Before the storm

I distrust calm seas. I distrust warm, clear sky, windless days; fog clinging to the horizon at sunrise; steady barometers; water silently slipping around you, leaving no wake, only gentle ripples. I distrust easy answers and apparent good fortune. I distrust inaction.

The first two days of OCS (Officer Candidate School) were a rush of flights, luggage, taxis, paperwork, barbers, rushing here and there on a campus filled with hills (and I suffered through in 3-inch heels), weigh-ins, piss tests, uniform fittings, new faces, new names, leadership assignments, and several lectures I forgot as soon as I heard. And then it stopped.

We knew Indoc week was coming. We’d heard the rumors. The oh-dark-thirty wakeups, the screaming, the midnight pushups, the drill, the stress, the room tossing, the reversion to bratty-toddler preschool status. We knew it was coming.

But that intervening weekend was preternaturally calm. We gingerly crept out to the base exchange and post office, and found nobody was tailing us, or cared where we went. We nervously ironed shirts and shined brass and polished shoes, and then the “priors” told us it wouldn’t be good enough anyway, so we stopped. We carefully hid our flashlights as we stayed up late to write letters home…and discovered nobody was watching. It was incredibly nerve-wracking, this calm before the storm.

Things are going well here. I finally have an appointment with a doctor at UCSF, next Wednesday morning, April 30th . (I’m trying not to think about the trip to Tampa I could have made: the challenges and rewards of being underway; the camaraderie; the early, early morning watches where there’s nothing but a sheet of glass between you and the star-spangled sky and the inky black sea rushing past…) I found a great apartment right where I wanted, with the perfect set of amenities; and I couldn’t ask for a better roommate. The ideal couple looks to be renting my house; I’ll know for certain this weekend. Everyone at my new unit is friendly, laid-back, hardworking, and welcoming. I’m not feeling sick and I have few responsibilities. It’s unnerving.

Because I know what’s coming.

Perspective

My prospective roommate confessed to me today that she's been reluctant to commit because she's not sure she'll be able to watch me, someone she's come to care about already in just a few days' time, do battle on a daily basis with the twin ravages of chemo and radiation.

I realized, ashamedly, that I've only looked at this so far through my eyes. How I'll feel. How I'll cope. What activities I'll do to prepare myself, or while I'm undergoing treatment, or to build back my strength during and afterward, physically and emotionally. How I'll interact with those around me. How I'll get my career back on track. How I'll put my life back in order.

On the rare occasions, ever so briefly, that I've considered others, it's been through my prism as well: how I can manage the breaking of the initial bad news, predicated on the expected response of each concerned party; how those responses will affect me.

But I failed to consider how heartbreaking it inevitably is to live with someone who is physically, mentally, and emotionally struggling each day to beat back their disease and the side effects of their treatment. An almost unconscionable lapse on my part, arrogant; because for years I have been wedged in those cramping shoes, and they hobbled my walk. How can I expect someone else to have the fortitude to pleasantly endure what I struggled so hard to face?

Here I'd been focused so exclusively on this great apartment, hitting it off with a really neat roommate; and all the while so blindly failed to view the telescope in the other direction, shrinking all this glittering possibility to the smallness, the entrapment of watching one you love slowly, violently slip away beside you, even if only for a time: and you, powerless.

Housespotting

Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage.

Trying to find a place to live is a strange cousin of speed-dating. The basics are agreed by abrupt emails and hurried phone calls. Male/female, young/old, gay/straight. A time and location are set. If you're really interested, your email exchanges are longer; you send pictures. You dress up in anticipation of making a good impression (but not too fancy, in case they're gold-diggers); you pace outside, arriving early in eager anticipation but wanting to appear busy, fashionably late. You size up each other, and the place, instantly. Does the reality match the pictures? Will you hit it off? You might know already: the vague "I'll call you", the excuses that shouldn't be, the "other appointment" you need to make as you duck out discreetly.

Or maybe there's a possibility, maybe this might just work out, and you graduate to beers on the back porch or the playoffs on TV in the living room while you awkwardly cut to the chase. Where do you work? What hours do you keep? What music do you like? Where do you like to go on evenings, on weekends? Do you like to work out? Are you outgoing? Do you like to cook? All the while, probing for the questions you can't ask: are you anal or a complete asshole? Will you stiff me on the bills, leave a mess, embarrass me with your wild behavior? Do you have some intimately peculiar side of yourself you might reveal at the most inopportune moment? And then the always uneasy, unasked question of balance between siblings and strangers that roommates inevitably ponder.

(My college degree has played a strange role in this delicate dance. Normally, I avoid mentioning its provenance or specific subject, unless the question is asked specifically. I don't want it to influence what people think of me. But here, it seems to be my entrance fare into San Francisco's young, hip, professional world. Until I mention it, I'm just another face in the crowd. But pointing it out, their eyes light up: now I am worthy of consideration; now I'm reassessed; now - now, I might just work out. Odd.)

When it's over, if you're lucky, you make tentative plans for another date. Maybe there's a proposal to sign papers the next time around. Start moving your stuff in. Maybe you can leave, reassured, to make a few grateful phone calls to your backup list, trying to soften the blow as you cancel their appointments. But you have to be careful. You don't want to commit too early in the game, or look too eager to seal the deal, and neither does your counterpart. You have to see what's out there first. Especially during the Open House, which is a sanitized term for Housing Meat Market. You think you've made a connection, then here comes Mr. (or Ms.) Hotshot to steal away your object of interest. You're back to picking sides in a silent grade-school kickball game: "No, don't pick her! She sucks! I'm who you want! Pick me, pick me!"

The good news is that after weeding through some definite "no's" - the one who wanted me to cook us both dinner every night; the high-rise condo still under construction where, while I was there, a fire started and I was trapped by staircases leading nowhere, finally emerging into a crowd of firefighters and fire engines; the "great deal" all to myself...except the owner would sleep on the couch every other weekend; the woman who wanted to mother me - after all that, I found a terrific place at a reasonable price with a great roommate...someone who seems to like me as well. And simultaneously, I was contacted by the ideal renters for my house in Mobile, a couple who was as excited and surprised to find the "perfect home" as I was to find the "perfect renters".

Here's to a home sweet home for us all.

Checking in

It’s so much more fun when you’re hunting down a bucket of prop wash or the keys to the sea chest, or (my new favorite) some relative bearing grease. A two-page spreadsheet of names, extensions, and building numbers hardly competes. And I get lost in buildings with mazes of cookie-cutter cubicles, circular hallways, extraneous doors, and mirror-image stairwells. I keep looking for frame numbers and wondering what traffic pattern I should follow.

The last two days have been a mind-numbing parade of hellos, handshakes, and repetitions of why the hell I’ve showed up at the unit without a job. (The petty officers are amused, the chiefs and warrants concerned with how I’m coping emotionally, the junior officers secretly excited that I’ll lessen their workload, and the senior folks overjoyed at the prospect of a wayward JO for random tasking and special projects. Several units and divisions have already tried to poach me, including one that offered admittance to a group Indiana Jones screening and a dessert taste-test contest - both in progress at the time - to sweeten the deal.)

Amidst all this revelry, I’ve made multiple trips to the Coast Guard clinic to check in with various folks, explain myself, make yet more copies of my medical record, negotiate with Tricare (military insurance), and keep pushing for staging appointments. I received an official referral to UCSF Medical Center; they are currently reviewing my medical history. By Monday, UCSF should be ready to schedule me in – I heard rumors that appointments could take weeks, but luckily the Tricare liaison shortcut that for me.

Everyone I’ve met has been uniformly helpful and supportive, even if their enthusiasm is sometimes misplaced, like the one person who empathetically listed all his relatives who had been diagnosed with cancer…only to point out that most of them had died soon afterward.

The pragmatic base chaplain said today that he’s intrigued to see what my “faith journey” will be throughout this process. Well. That’s a topic for a whole different post.

Right back where I started from

…in a manner of speaking, that is. True, I’m a Southern California girl, but today that’s just a technicality.

Today, on the long flight from Charlotte to San Francisco, I drafted a list of the things I’ll miss about Mobile:

1. My friends & colleagues
2. My job aboard ship
3. My house & my hot tub
4. Bluegrass jam sessions
5. JazzFest (in New Orleans)

It’s a short list.

While my California “valley girl” speech patterns have returned with a sudden vengeance, freed suddenly of the lazy vowels and y’alls I absorbed down south, I discovered today at the airport that I’ve adopted certain elements of Southern custom. Or military manners. I wait patiently, out of the crowd, for luggage and shuttles and older ladies shuffling with canes. I offer assistance to the elderly man and the woman with a baby slung on her chest. I address those senior to me as “sir” and “ma’am” – even though they’re civilians. And I am more content than I thought I could be with unscheduled time, with letting things happen as they may, with opening myself to unexpected possibilities and pleasures.

Or maybe I’ve just grown soft.

Welcome and FAQ

Welcome to all! There are a lot of new folks looking at the site, so I figured it was time to take a few minutes and answer some of the questions I’ve gotten lately.

Q. What’s wrong with you?
A. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It is a common and very treatable form of cancer. There’s a lot of information about it on the web. Here’s one site: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/hodgkin

Q. How did you find out?
A. When I was in Key West in December, I found a little lump by my collarbone. After almost three months of all variety of inconclusive diagnostic tests, a biopsy was done on one of the lumps in my neck. I got final confirmation of the diagnosis in late March, when I was up at school in Rhode Island.

Q. Why are you going to the Bay Area?
A. My command was incredibly supportive of encouraging me to select a place for treatment based on proximity to family & friends, and high quality of care. Those were my top criteria in requesting the Bay Area, and luckily the detailer agreed to send me there.

Q. What is the best way to reach you?
A. Until I find and move into a new place in the Bay Area, mail can be sent to my Mobile, AL, address. I still have the same cell phone number I’ve had for the past few years. I don’t really want to post either on this site, but if you email me at indyhealth(at)hotmail.com, I’d be glad to pass along my “snail mail” and/or cell phone numbers. I might not be checking my work email much, so that’s not the best way to get a fast reply. Of course, you are very welcome to post messages here on this site. I try to reply to messages posted here.

Q. Why didn’t you tell me?!
A. I deeply apologize if I hadn’t told you yet and you found out through a third party. I hate writing mass emails and I was trying to let people know one by one, but I just haven’t gotten to everyone yet. Or, maybe I didn’t have your contact information – or I could have forgotten entirely. Again, I’m really sorry you had to find out some other way.

Q. Can I share this website?
A. Absolutely! Please do. It is the best way for folks to find out the latest news. I’m trying not to post too much identifying information about anything (last names, unit names, specific contact info, etc.) so there should be no problem with anybody looking at it.

Q. Why the blog?
A. I figured this was the best way to keep everyone informed. I really do abhor mass emails. It gives everyone the chance to post and interact if they like. (Feel free to scroll down to previous posts and read/leave comments there also...) And, it forces me to keep the situation in perspective.

Q. Can I do anything for you to help out?
A. Do you know anyone in the Mobile area who wants to rent a house?! ☺ If so...I've got a great place I'm trying to rent out. Other than that, I can’t really think of anything right now, but if I do I will let you know!

Q. How long will this take? How bad is it? What sort of treatment will you be getting? What will your schedule look like?
A. I don’t know yet – once I get staged, I’ll have more details, which I'll post here. I seem to be fairly asymptomatic right now. If everything goes smoothly, I can hopefully get back out to the fleet in another year or two...and pick up that dream-job OPS ride I was slated for.

Again: thank you so much for your concern, and welcome.

To yieu, and yieu, and yieu

I am spectacularly poor at saying goodbye. It doesn't matter what I'm trying to do - write the ending to a story or the finale to a piece of music...heck, I have problems ending phone calls. I either get flustered and hang up abruptly, or taper off uncertainly into that last "click". How about just going gentle into that good night?

I always worry about saying too much, or not enough, or simply none of the right things whatsoever. It's so much easier when the goodbyes are scripted: a moving speech, a tearful hug, a wistful wave as you fade into the distance to the deep, scratchy "Here's looking at you, kid."

"Oh, but your watch, but you shouldn't. You're gonna need this!"
"It's ok. It doesn't work."

Compounding the problem, for me, is a farewell pungently seasoned with recognition. A "good job" or a "thanks" at the moment, a barely imperceptible nod and smile, a passive "that was nicely done"... these I appreciate and (maybe later, on reflection,) welcome. But anything more and I'm uncannily embarrassed. My leadership philosophy is outlined well in the Tao Te Ching:

The great ruler works without self-interest
and leaves no trace
When it is all finished, the people say
"It happened by itself."

That sort of ideal meshes uncomfortably with recognition. But thank you anyway, thank you for all you've put into me; and I hope someday to pay it forward.

I fly out Wednesday. Time for the next chapter.

"Though I must go, endure not yet a breach, but an expansion..."

Quick Update

I just got orders. Medical support billet in the Bay Area. That means I don't have a specific job; my "job" is just to attend medical appointments and get well. Once I get better I'm sure they will find me an actual job out there, until I can get my dream job back in the afloat fleet.

I will be flying out there early next week, in order to check in with Coast Guard medical and get a referral to a civilian hospital for treatment. And...to find a place to live (I have a short list of places to check out).

En attendant HQ

I am a very impatient person. I hate to wait.

"I'd like to get in, get on with it, get it over with, and get out."

I also hate uncertainty, situations I can't control. Yeah. I'm in for a treat with this one. I'm still waiting on orders. Not only am I waiting for a specific job assignment, I also don't have firm confirmation on which city they might send me to. So I can't make medical appointments or look for housing.

My life feels like it's in freeze-frame right now. My house is empty (I put my furniture and bulky items in long-term storage when I was still expecting to go to Hawaii, and my few other possessions - clothes, musical instruments/sheet music/CDs, and kitchen utensils, mostly - are in a local storage unit) but for the few pieces of furniture I'm including when I rent the house, some half-used condiments in the refrigerator, and a lone sleeping bag on the floor. I'm afraid to make plans more than 48 hours out, in case I get orders and I have to drop and run. I don't want to pack up all my stuff on the ship yet, because I might be coming to work for a few (or several) more days. And I hate not being busy, but I'm afraid to take on too many responsibilities at work, because I don't like leaving tasks undone or half-finished.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I: I look at the unplanned days and weeks ahead (until I can get in and get treated) and anxiously want to fill them. Of course, I want to start treatment as soon as possible; but if I have to wait, then I want to have fun, be busy, and work hard in the interim. In particular, our ship has an underway period coming up, and I want to make the trip. A classic case of "Hurry up and wait" - except I'm not very good at that.

"Alors? On y va?"..."Allons-y!" (Ils ne bougent pas.)

Diagnosis

So this is a Reed-Sternberg cell. Apparently, I have a few of these friends hanging out inside of me. Normally, I'm all about friend preservation, but these are definitely some folks to whom I'll be glad to bid adieu.

I'm still waiting to find out where I'll be going for treatment. If I get a billet in the Bay Area, they've tagged the San Francisco University Medical Center. I've found a couple of nice places to live in the area too. Now if I can only get orders!

Thanks to everyone who's expressed their concern, support, and prayers. To everyone who's asked if there's anything they can do for me...honestly at this point, all that I ask is to be treated as normally as possible. I'm not dead yet! :) I want to work hard, live hard, and do all I can while I still have the chance. (I'll save Horace and the metaphysical poets for another post.)

It's odd; the picture above reminds me of a sort of Rorschach test or fractal art. Or maybe one of those dizzyingly annoying "Magic Eye" posters that were so popular when I was in junior high. Cross your eyes and "look deeply"...