Six Years Post-chemo

I’m six solid years post-chemo. Beginning with the first note of the "The American Idol" theme song every December, I feel a familiar anticipatory nudge. When I heard that music in late 2009, I knew I would be done with chemo at the airing of the first episode in early January 2010. Now, I privately revel at the beginning of every "Idol" season. It’s still a quiet milestone for me. With this being the last season of "Idol," I may need to break out reruns next year in early January to mark the occasion.

Unlike this annual reminder, every day when I look in the mirror, I see these crazy chemo curls. They are like another creature that is part of me and over which I have no control. I'm amazed that they have stuck around after all this time! Often I think about how much money I spent on perms in the 80s to get curls like this.

I just read “A Midsummer Night -- #nofilter” with Will and Liam. It's a broken down version of Shakespeare's play told via social media -- tweets, statuses, emails, and chat rooms. That sprite Puck will never change! My twisted locks look like a home for mischievous sprites like him and sassy fairies like Tinkerbell – all whom like to grab hold of slender sections of my hair and spin like mad from top to bottom.

A few months ago, my stylist lifted the top third of my hair and just started laughing at the sight underneath. “There are just layers and layers of tendrils under here!” She handed me a mirror. They looked like vines hanging in spirals from trees in a remote rain forest. I was as amazed as she.

Fighting for control and attempting to stay cool, I regularly wrap these shoulder-length tendrils into a clip and let the curls fall and disperse at will over the top. Until last week, when the New England temps finally plunged and my ears stuck out into the cold. It was time for a new style. Or at least a new length. “Cut off four inches and layer it. I don’t want to look like a blunt ski mountain.”

I walked in with a pony tail. The sprites were rebelling against the tight elastic band and the four stoutly anchored bobby pins.

I watched 3-inch pieces fall to the ground. She must have thought four inches would be too much. Those little creatures’ twisted ropes were a quarter shorter than when I woke up that morning. As the stylist prepared the goo to keep my locks curly and smooth, I peered into the mirror. The curls were still there, just shorter. She diffused my hair for 10 minutes, and the tight tendrils sprung into bouncy curls. “My hair is happiest big.” She nodded and grinned in agreement. And it really is happy, those strands I refer to in third person atop my head.

Home to free-spirited sprites and fairies.

West Point

We spent last weekend in New York; Will had a gymnastics meet at West Point. Thanks to the organizing of many team parents, we had a hotel together, ate meals together, watched football together, and toured West Point together. The one-hour bus tour was just enough to keep the kids engaged and this particular adult fascinated. One stop was the West Point Cadet Chapel. Famous for the largest pipe organ in the world – with 23,500+ organ pipes throughout, the Chapel is where Protestant services are held. “Chapel” is West Point-ese for any place of worship on the grounds, be it a church or a synagogue: it’s a chapel. This particular Chapel felt like a cathedral, belying the smallness of the term “chapel.”

The Gothic architecture of this building sets the tone for the whole campus, but the style is tweaked with tall walls and “crenelations” – those notches in the tops of walls that suggest a Medieval castle or a place of defense; hence West Point's buildings architectural style of “Military Gothic.”

On ornate Gothic churches, spires shoot toward heaven. Military Gothic inspired buildings are missing that last aspiration upward. Their soaring walls stop heavily and abruptly with notched parapets that seem to have the sole purpose of looking downward to protect.

The architecture of the interior of the chapel was spectacular, but honestly, the books in the pews drew my eye more than the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows. Their sheer perfection made this perfectionist-in-non-stop-recovery-mode grin.

Row after row, the hymnals and Bibles were in perfect line. And I couldn’t help but assume that this is how the worshipers put them back after every service. Surely the sexton didn’t need to straighten these. This was West Point; people here know what to do after they get something out. They put it away.

On the way home, while I was thinking I should implement more routines in our daily lives, Will declared, “I am never coming here.” Coincidentally, this morning after breakfast, Will cleared all his dishes and put the cereal and milk away -- which gave me a bit of a jolt. ...Thank you, West Point?!?

A Half-hour List

“Mom, I’m only concerned about me right now.” Liam with a sore throat and a doctor’s appointment on the near horizon. Me trying to tell him the plan for the weekend as related to sitting through his brother’s 6-hour gymnastics meet. I’m unsure how to feel about the brutal honesty of my newly 10-year-old son. I could find 100 quotes for and against this premise. At the beginning of the New Year, I’m perched squarely on a wide fence, pondering: give freely to the world vs make yourself happy.

I carry a small notebook around with me. It holds more necessities than my calendar. If I miss an appointment on my calendar, someone will call me. As for the list book, it’s my direction for the days and the weeks. Jobs I can do in 15 minutes or less around the house. Grocery lists. Chores for the boys. Weekly breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus for three different appetites. Notes about special projects: what have I done or who have I called to make something happen. A list of story ideas. Summer Camp dates.

And my most creative – and eventually, very labor-intensive list: 47 ideas for December’s Advent calendar. That list takes up four pages. Trying not to create a 24-day supply chain of sugar, I scoured the internet for ideas, finding sayings, science experiments, and holiday activities to do with the kids. On Day 19, the previous two Advent days had been un-opened by Will and Liam. I didn’t force it. While I was doing it for them, it was exhausting me, but I was very proud of it. Gold star Mom – for 19 out of the 24 days of Advent. But I digress, for the Advent calendar is another story.

I’m cleaning out my list book and have another one ready to go for 2016. Most of the lists are garbage at this point. However, I’m left with the annual dilemma of what to do with those pages I really need. Tear them out and try to file them with the appropriate subject in that ever-changing non-filing system I have implemented in our house? No, those pages would probably be better off left intact in the spiral bound book. Perhaps I will remember to look in it for important information this coming year. Then there is my niece’s Christmas list. Seeing me writing in my book, she asked what my book was. Hearing “list book,” she asked if she could write her Christmas list in it. Can I ever part with that bit of magic written in her 4-year-old hand? Doubtful.

When I’m traveling, I like to write a different type of list: deep-cleansing lists. Generally, this happens on airplanes and in airports during layovers – plenty of those on the trip to Iowa! (Click here for details!) Away from the normal routines and every day responsibilities, these lists are like flyovers of our lives. Do the cars need new tires? Did we ever completely finish the paperwork for our will? What little jobs projects around the house need to be done and can be done in 15 minutes? How can I make better use of time in a day? In a week? What loose ends need to be fixed? In some crazy way, this list freshens daily life for me and shakes up the goals – or rather re-establishes goals forgotten. Or never set?

I found a single page in my book titled “1/2 hour goals – daily.” I remembered writing it; I hadn’t implemented it on a daily basis by a long shot. The goal: for ½ hour a day do one of the things from the short list. It was supposed to be a longer list, but I hadn’t revisited it. Embroider. Read. Write. Send birthday cards. A very short list of things I enjoy doing.

In 2016, the Puritanical guilt needs to take a sabbatical. Surely, it’s OK to say for a half-hour a day, “I’m only concerned about me right now.”

I’ve been writing for an hour today. It feels good.

Happy Hump Day.

Getting to Iowa Christmas 2015

Two feet on solid ground, once again, in Massachusetts. But it’s been a long journey. A Goliath-sized journey to Iowa and back. The plan was to wake up Christmas morning in our house, then spend the weekend relaxing at home before flying to Iowa on Monday. At the end of the school day the 22nd, Liam said, “Tomorrow we fly to Iowa, right?” No. I reviewed the schedule with him: we fly to Iowa the 28th. Will, hearing our conversation in the background, replied, “But I’ve been waiting for a week already!” A perk of the 18th as the last day of school for him. “But we are only going to be in Iowa for FIVE days! That’s not long enough!” Next Christmas, perhaps Will and Liam can plan our travel schedule.

Sunday evening, we receive an email: our 2 p.m. flight on Monday has been canceled and rebooked to 4 p.m. the same day. Snowstorm Goliath is wreaking havoc across the country, thankfully with no flooding but with snow in the Midwest. Canceling over 1,600 flights into Chicago.

In the lounge, we watch the screen for hours. Finally, around 6 p.m. the 4 p.m. flight is canceled, and no flight information is available for the next day. “I am not leaving this airport! I want to see my cousins in Iowa! Now we will only be there for FOUR days!” Will.

After eating dinner at Legal Seafood in our terminal, we checked with the ticket agent. No room on current Tuesday flights, but surely they will add more flights to accommodate passengers – check after midnight. We traveled home to sleep in our own beds.

Travel" is derived from the word travail. To travail means to engage in painful and laborious effort, like a woman in labor.

Tuesday at 6 a.m., I spent an hour on the phone waiting to talk to someone. Finally, an agent reviewed our options. No flights to Chicago. No flights to anywhere in Iowa. Not Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, nor Des Moines. We couldn’t fly to Iowa until Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. “What about Minneapolis? Can you get us to Minneapolis?” Yes. With another airline. A 2 p.m. Tuesday flight would get us there early evening. We would drive four hours to Mom and Dad's. I scampered to re-book the car rental – putting my fingers in my ears and singing “la-la-la” to drown out the price of picking up a car in one city and returning it to another.

A few hours later, we arrive at the Minneapolis gate and see the flight has been delayed from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. “What?” Will. Equipment problems; the plane is in the hangar. Around 5 p.m.: "The plane is on it’s way over!"... "Oops, wrong plane… yours is still in the hangar."

We decide to have a late lunch – at the Legal Seafood in today’s terminal. Back at the gate we get wind of un-official news, “We don’t have confidence in this plane flying today.” Will: “I AM NOT LEAVING THIS AIRPORT! WE'RE ONLY GOING TO HAVE THREE DAYS IN IOWA!”

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the Middle English word "travail" is via Old French from the Medieval Latin word, "trepalium": an instrument of torture. Tre = three. Pallium = stake. To impale yourself on three stakes.

Around 7 p.m., it’s confirmed that this plane isn’t flying, but a plane arriving from Minneapolis later this evening is going to head back with us on-board – at 9:30 p.m. We have dinner at Legal Seafood’s. Again. And book a hotel in Minneapolis -- free with Bill's travel points -- for our midnight arrival. That becomes a 2 a.m. arrival Wednesday morning after a very late 11 p.m. departure.

On the umpteenth update-call to Mom and Dad, Dad says, “I don’t know about the person who made these Christmas plans!” Gotta love him; he would’ve liked us there December 1st. I told him perhaps he and Will could sort out arrangements next year.

This trip is unfolding as a scene from one of the Home Alone movies or Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Powerless. Given immovable obstacles and left with the challenge of overcoming them. Powerless children were the most challenging.

Facing long drives, I used to tell the kids that to get to the good stuff sometimes you have to do things that aren’t pleasant – but worth it for what’s at the other end. For if we hadn’t had Goliath, we wouldn’t have had snow in Iowa, and snow was on the most wanted list for Christmas in Iowa. When I pointed this out on the way home, Will saw the necessity of Goliath. Without it, none of our outdoor four-wheeling, sledding fun would have happened. To my nephew's urging, "Show us how much farm girl you have left in you, Aunt Linda!"  He's the second one left in the dust... with a little help from Will.  

Travel today holds many more immediate rewards than it did in Medieval times. The wounds from impalement heal much quicker.