The Word For Today: Bleak

Today is Friday. 
I used to love Fridays. Fridays were days my husband and I would end our busy hectic week and have a "Date."
Date Night.
Fun dates for old farts?



We would get dressed up in our best. 
Pretty dresses with sparkles and sequins. 
High heeled stilettos. 
My husband always in a suit. Two people in love doing a simple thing. Enjoying a lovely dinner together and connecting. Romance.
 We found a quiet romantic French restaurant about 45 minute drive from our house or if we were both away, we would make the extra effort to save Friday for each other. Our favorite French waiter. Our very own special booth. Dark and cozy.  Candlelight. 
A romantic dinner. No discussing troubles of the week~ only absorbed in each other. It was like glue. It brought us back to us and our marriage and kept it exciting.
French Bread smothered in rich creamy butter. Baked Alaskan Salmon with a Lemon Mousseline Cream Sauce. Couscous. Grilled Asparagus. Shrimp Cocktail. Creme Brule.  
(Date Night is highly recommended even to those just dating or those married for years.) It doesn't have to be a fancy restaurant just time spent together.)

Today is an average Friday except....
Now my husbands throat hurts like mad.  The surgeon called me yesterday to check on him and told me he had to cut and used forceps during the biopsy to remove the equivalent of a shot glass full of cancerous tissue to allow him to breath until treatments start. 
De-bulked.
Pudding, scrambled soft eggs and milk shakes. Nothing romantic about that menu.
Today. Friday.  Right now. I am sitting in an Oncology Waiting Room while my beautiful husband is in a room away getting fitted for a Mask. 
Wait! What? A mask? 
After the Oncology Doctor told us untold horrors of what this radiation will do, he is set up with a mesh formfitting  mask to mark where the beams will go and more importantly hold his head and neck still when they clamp it to the table so the beams only go to the affected neck tumors.
Naturally, this lousy support system,  ME,  broke down and I had to race out of the room to sob into a very ugly painted hospital wall wailing and once again be a complete basket case.  I would never want me on my side in a crisis like this!  Strong? Ha! I'm pathetic.

Some of the symptoms of radiation to your neck and throat:
Severe sore throat.
Loss of hair
Loss of taste
Loss of saliva
Loss of teeth
Get a feeding PEG tube placed next week in the stomach to "eat" six to eight cans of Boost or Ensure a day. 
Loss of feeling in your mouth,  tongue and throat.
No shaving. (I used to love to watch my husband shave. It is such a manly ritual.)

No After-Shave. (I love to see and smell his face with Old Spice or whatever the cologne of the day is. Real men smell good)
No lotions, sprays or any other products anywhere near the head or neck to avoid extreme skin reactions. 
All of this five days a week for 7 to 8 weeks. Treatment to begin in a week or so after a trip to MD Anderson in Huston for a second opinion.
I don't paint a pretty picture, huh? The word for today is Bleak.
Well, this is just Radiation Oncology.... Monday is Chemotherapy Oncology. 
That's where the bad really begins...
I need to get my Big Girl Panties on and be ready for Monday.  Chemo is no joke either.
Watching someone you love and to see and know how bleak the future looks in regards to THEIR pain and suffering, is as difficult as it gets. My very heart is breaking.
If I could in ANY way take this cancer and it's difficult treatment and do all of this for him, I would jump at the chance.

Where ARE my Big Girl Panties anyway????

Blue-Capped Vial of Blood :(

I apologize for not posting yesterday. Yesterday was brutal. I took a day off. 
I wish Cancer would.
I can't stand that word. It makes me want to rage and pull my hair out and go kick someone right where it hurts. You see, we all go on living our lives in such a bubble of innocence. Sure, I have friends and heard stories of cancer and illness. Who hasn't? But when it comes to visit  YOUR house like some unwanted filthy houseguest to wreak havoc and steal your life, then you're changed forever.
Yesterday our office trip to Inner Vision for the PET Scan began at 7:45 am. 
Blood work, EKG, Chest xRay, another CT Scan ended at 3:00. 4:00 was the consult with the surgeon for the biopsy on Wed morning surgery. 
It's funny, the nurses give YOU the blood to take to the lab be analyzed. They also give YOU a CD that holds your life on a disk. All of your scans, reports and results are on this disk. I wanted to take it home put it in my MacBook and hit "Reject."  
Be gone you cancer bastard!


They gave me his 4 vials of blood to take to the lab. I had it sitting right next to me in the passenger seat of my car  like a VIP passenger. One 1st class ticket to the lab. 
I get it there safely and the tech tells me I didn't have the "Blue-Capped" vial of Blood. 


What the hell does that mean? 
I have this blood in a sealed bag with red and yellow stickers all over it. I stood there like some confused passenger that ended up in Shanghai when they were supposed to have landed on a beach in Monaco. 
I think my mouth was even gapped open in confusion as I stood there at the lab window.
The rude tech said "You didn't bring the Blue Capped Vial of Blood. Go get it! You have to go get it! I need more blood here, lady!"
I felt as tho I had failed everyone. I had one task to do and I couldn't even do that right. 
I stood there in the middle of the Medical Arts building in my wrinkled up linen suit and cried. 
I completely lost it.  
I don't mean tears running down my face, I mean full-blown sobbing and wailing.  It wasn't pretty. I can usually hold it together but I even failed at that.
I completely lost it. It took restraint to keep from throwing myself on the marble floors and curl up in a fetal position and cry...
I  did finally pull it together, went back to Inner Vision, got the nurse to enter the suite that my husband was getting his juice for the PET Scan, draw more blood and took it back to the lab. 
I truly wanted to pull a scene like from the movie "Carrie" and envision all that blood on that rude lab tech dripping down her head and say "Here! Here's your Blue Capped Vial of Radioactive Blood!"






These days I look at my husband and cry. 
I thought I was this strong strong woman. Boy, was I wrong. I have been thru some unspeakable things in my life. My childhood could be a really bad Made for TV Movie and I thought it made me like work-horse strong. I thought so many things about myself that I am finding to be horribly wrong. 
The thought of what lies ahead for him makes me shudder. 
If his prognosis is simply Stage 4 Squamous Carcinoma of the Throat, he is in for some really rough months ahead. If it is worse than that... I can't even imagine it.


Each and every note from all of you has gotten us thru and my husband and I appreciate them and your wonderful offers of Hope and Support more than you could ever know. 

I have been given hundreds of perfect stranger's home phone numbers to call and 


Offers....
I have had offers from people to come live with them during this.
I have had offers to come here to cook and clean for us.
Offers to do our laundry.
One sweet and wonderful friend has offered to let me call her at 4 a.m. or any time just to weep and she will listen in support.
I have had offers to drive us around to appointments.
I have had offers to take our two dogs until this nightmare is over.
I have had offers to call Doctors in Huston and pull strings for quick entry into the medical system there.
So many offers.
Most importantly, I have had thousands of offers to PRAY. 
Prayers from perfect strangers. What amazing people all of you are. I am so Blessed.
Truly Blessed.


Tomorrow is the biopsy surgery. If all goes well, we will have answers and options. 
If not, I don't know. The surgeon will put a probe with a camera down his throat. He will look inside his throat lungs, esophagus, stomach etc. They will hopefully get a tube past the cancer in his throat to breath for him during surgery. If the cancer has blocked that tiny hole then they will have to do a tracheotomy which is cut a hole in his throat to allow him to breath thru. I pray it all goes well.
Michael douglas went thru this and seems to be in remission. I am so Thankful for that.
His beautiful wife, Catherine Zeta Jones... She ended up in the looney bin. I can see why!
(I wonder if she ever dropped the ball on the Blue-Capped Vial of Blood?)

A Journey of Fear

Today I'm writing this blog more as a way to write a note to myself. I want to cry and scream and do SOMETHING! But what?
My best friend, my husband seems to be in trouble. I know I say things about him at times in my videos to be funny but this isn't funny. 
He has been my "straight man" for years now. You know, the one that laughs at my corny jokes and keeps it all in perspective but I see him laughing and trying to hide it. 
Poor man. He's had to live with me for so long. He tells me daily that no one laughs harder at my silliness than me and he's right. I met and fell in love with him because he makes me laugh. Daily. He is my light. He keeps me from spinning out of control.


Lately, he has had these spells where he coughs up blood but never says a word about it to anyone. (I see traces in the bathroom) Now bloody noses every day. His appetite isn't what it used to be, his voice is raspy, difficulty swallowing and most upsetting of all both sides of his neck have these massive lumps. The one on the left is the size of a lime! 
Finally, FINALLY,  this last Thursday he agreed to go see our family doctor. My husband never goes to the doctor and never ever complains. Ever! I stub my toe and will complain for a week. 
Our doctor was even scared. I could tell from his reactions to the symptoms.
He has a CT Scan scheduled for Tuesday. To say I am not worried is an exaggeration to say the least.
I looked on-line for signs and symptoms relating to what he is going thru and that scared me even more! I had to slam my laptop closed and cry. Michael Douglas.
His mom is 95 and in a nursing home. He is a workaholic and...
 Oh, there are so many things I could write to the good of this wonderful man but it makes me cry. I refuse to cry when he's around. 
I'm scared.
I can't even imagine his fears. The worst part is not knowing. This isn't happening to ME but I've never felt such fear.
Tuesday seems light years from now. I want to blink my eyes and have this all be a dream. Forever the optimist I pray for a good outcome.  
Dear God....