So Long to a Fellow Survivor

Tyler was my age. Ten years ago, he was diagnosed with a rare form of throat cancer with a high mortality rate. (He never smoked.) Tyler went to my friends at M.D. Anderson, where he received radiation treatment, followed by surgery to remove the tumor. He went about the business of surviving.

Three years ago, after an argument, his wife killed herself. He had spent the night at a hotel and came home the next morning to find her sleeping. He noticed that her head was lying at an odd angle on the pillow, but thought nothing of it. Tyler went out to run some errands and came back to find his wife had shot herself. When the autopsy was completed, he was told that she apparently took an overdose of medication and, waking to find that her suicide attempt was unsuccessful, she pulled a gun out of the bedside table and shot herself.

Tyler struggled to regain his equilibrium the past three years. I'm not sure that he ever really did, though. As a suicide survivor, I know that road is long and treacherous. I can't imagine how it's possible to recover when your wife shoots herself, in your bed, after an argument. He went on and tried to find a new life.

Every year since his surgery, Tyler had to go back to M.D. Anderson to have scar tissue from the surgery removed from his throat. He had his last surgery about three months ago. He left a message on our machine a couple of weeks ago, wanting to hear how I've been doing. It was something Tyler did regularly.

His message sounded almost like he was on a respirator. I could hear his labored breathing in between phrases. There's only so much you can do with scars. Ultimately, removal of scar tissue only creates more scar tissue. For Tyler, the scars finally made it impossible for him to breathe and he died in his sleep.

Here's to you, Tyler, to your long struggle to survive. Here's to your will to endure your wife's death. We walked the same paths, but now you've left me far behind. Would you have guessed that I'd be crying for you? I am, just as I'm celebrating your courage and tenacity.

So long, Tyler. We'll all see each other soon.

The Kielbasa Report

The Crazy Land fete didn't disappoint. Kielbasa suggested that we maintain a charged-up defibrillator for occasions like this. Death food abounded and the Sausage partook heartily, given the fact that she's swaddled in spandex.

In brief, Owner offended many times.

*He corrected one of our foremen when he made the mistake of using "ain't." There was general grumbling from all of us about Owner's need to browbeat. This from the guy who calls me on the intercom regularly to use me as his own personal dictionary and Thesaurus.

*Owner made a snide comment about Kielbasa's hubby (childhood friend). He insinuated that Hubby is bitter about the divorce from 35 years ago. I was baffled and speechless, a rare event. Again, the natives were mightily offended.

*He compared the Information Superhighway's older son to a former University of Texas coach not known for his comeliness. Superhighway was furious, having already been irritated by Owner's previous snottiness.

There were a couple of additional offensive comments, but I'm too befuddled by cholesterol-laden food to remember what they were.

The luncheon was further enlivened by the Shunner displaying the stitches in his hand from a recent surgery. Noel, noel!

There was lengthy discussion about Mitt Romney, Mormonism and everyone's dissatisfaction with our choices for President. As you know, these subjects are required fodder for any festive occasion, brimming with opportunities for people to be aggravated. Luckily, no one was choked or beaten about the head.

In a surprising turn of events, death and layoffs were never mentioned. That's how you know it's the holidays.

The Kielbasa jingled from all appendages and was thoroughly amused by Owner. The hand was good, too.

New Weblog

I have a new weblog, but if you don't like poetry, don't bother. (It's not my poetry. Be grateful.)

This So Voiceless Flesh
(from a poem by Kenneth Patchen)

Hark, The Festal Sausage Cometh!

"Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully." ~ Max Eastman

Today, I'm stuffed into what used to be known as "foundation garments." I remember, as a kid, trying to figure out what the hell those were because, in the olden days, you never saw bras or girdles on television commercials. It was too risque even to offer a definition. It seems so quaint now.

I saw my physical therapist yesterday, which is a tantamount to paying someone to abuse me. All of my scar tissue always hurts (and I have a lot of it, everywhere), but after she finishes massaging and pinching, I'm ready to start confessing to things I've never done. I'll say anything, but please don't torture me anymore.

This morning, I woke up feeling more than a little ragged. I'm exhausted and it seems entirely possible that an army of little demons stabbed me with forks all night long. I am not at my best.

PT told me that, if I wore my special compression bra and girdle (the one I wore 24/7 for three months), I'd have a lot less pain. Damn. I was in no shape to be stubborn about it today, so I'm packed into my underwear like a kielbasa. "Less pain" is the operative phrase here; I have a lot left over, despite my discomfort.

I wore one of my festive shirts today, the one with a reindeer who's holding a martini while he has one hoof perched on a beach ball. It's a little loose, but you can still tell there's something weird going on under there. We're having Owner's birthday party today, so I wanted to amp up the merry for the occasion. Not feeling particularly convivial, I knew special effort would be required to get through the Crazy Land lunch. I'm not sure the shirt's going to help much, but I've done all I can. I'm a kielbasa with a reindeer and jingle bell bracelet, earrings and necklace. Hark, the festal sausage cometh!

PT gave me some new exercises to do, specifically aimed at regaining strength and range of motion in my rotator cup and pectoral muscle. The exercises feel just dandy, too. I've added them to my daily 25 (25!) minutes of stationary bike and 20 minutes of yoga. After I finish with those activities, I have self-massage to do. That takes another 30-40 minutes. In a way, my life is still all about breast cancer. Not that I'm whining. All of this is far more bearable than the chemo and recovery from multiple surgeries. Nonetheless, how annoying. How very un-holiday.

When I got home yesterday from physical therapy, after getting stuck in college basketball game traffic, Hubby was hanging around waiting for me to make dinner. I'd gotten some tamales, so all he had to do was cut a couple of holes in the packaging and stick the damn things in the microwave. The brown rice was microwaveable, as was the refried beans. I'd already mixed the salad. Would any of this be hard to do? If your wife was being tortured, wouldn't you want to microwave the damn dinner for her? Yes, you would.

Not my Hubby. My level of pain made it hard to focus on what exactly needed to be done and in what order. While I wandered around the kitchen, getting things together, Hubby was in another room checking his email. Santa will be delivering a lump of coal for Hubby if he doesn't shape up. During dinner, I mentioned several times how exhausting the pain is after physical therapy. Hubby made a sympathetic face, but I assure you that, if it were he who was suffering, there would be no tamale dinner. There would be plenty of whining, though.

That will be about enough from me, too. Here's hoping for a fun, if not jolly, Crazy Land lunch. Owner's been in a funk the past several days, so he may be entertainingly annoying. Mr. Moneybags is weighing in with some serious crotchety, too. The cake has already arrived. Oh God. I just heard the dulcet tones of Loathsome. Looks like we're headed for some choppy waters. The Kielbasa* will keep you posted on the Crazy Land festivities.

*Finally. I think I've found my very own nickname: Kielbasa. Or Sausage. Hey, Mimi, it's the answer to the question you posed so long ago! I've officially earned my own Crazy Land nom de guerre.

News Flash

"Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space." ~ Dave Barry

Completely unrelated to this post: I spent three hours on Saturday trying to get my mom's DSL set up. There were problems with the provider, so the entire three hours was spent on the phone with a couple of guys from (probably) India. Their names were Barry and Brian, though. It's nice to know the Indian people have started giving their kids names we can pronounce.

News flash: I got a bonus. I never get a bonus. I've been missing so much time the past two years that just getting paid was a huge bonus. They didn't have to pay me for all the time I missed. I'm grateful. Now I can build that new swimming pool (see National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation).

On Wednesday, we're celebrating Owner's birthday. He was a Christmas baby. He has specifically requested canned frosting on his cake. Other than that, I have no idea what we're having for lunch. Just checked intra-office email and there's no word on the food choice. Isn't it sad what I've been reduced to? I always used to scoff at the people who lived for those fabulous office lunches. I may have boycotted a lot of Crazy Land festivities, but never ever have I missed the cake.

I have one more gift to get. It's for my mom. I tried really hard to get her to sign up for another session of Tai Chi (I paid for the last session as a birthday gift). She's having none of it, though. That means Plan B is in effect--a cd player and her favorite perfume. Now if I somehow manage to make these purchases without her knowing it, Christmas will be a fait accompli.

I wrapped up my Crazy Land shopping on Sunday. Foot Lady's getting a calendar with Lhasa photos. She got her Lhasa at about the same time as my two original huskies joined the family. The Information Superhighway's gift is a sterling silver angel for her charm bracelet (she really is one of my angels). Loathsome mentioned months ago that he drinks chamomile tea every night and I think I revealed in an earlier post that he's a faux Buddhist and has a shallow love of all things Asian. I marched myself over to the Chinese healing/Buddhist/Hindu/new age store and bought some Chinese chamomile tea in a lovely little tin. For the son (IT Boy) and daughter, chocolate. Those are the only two impersonal gifts. I have no idea what to get them, so I finally gave up trying to dream something up.

It's a beautiful day today and Christmas songs provide a festive oasis here in my office. Yep, I'm wearing my jingle bells again. Sometimes I'm just insufferably merry.