Boxing with myself

Let's get the obvious out of the way... Cancer Sucks.

Wow Jim, you started a blog for that, geeze, way to be brilliant :)

Summer 2007,  Mary is 5 months preggers with Grace,  Buck and Lucy are soon making the switch to high school, and I have the nerve to get diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer at age 41.  Sitting alone in the little room and hearing the news is beyond me, even three years later.  Mad, sad, alone, bitter, the black goo of unhappiness just starts flowing and like a river, it moves your insides around to serve its own course.  I have been thru seed radiation, lasers, and enough tubes, needles, etc to make Dr. Frankenstein blush.  I have become a science project at the same hospital where my father died in 1975.  Venting does not begin to help.

it's hard to be the face of sickness in a home where a new baby is the focus.  Life and the beauty of a new life was a harsh contradiction to my case. I wanted to wallow in my own troubles, but there is still a house to care for, meals to cook, and a pregnant wife that i want to be a help to.  Mary was sharing the creation of new life with me and i was being attacked from the inside of my own body.  A conflict of emotions and spirit that I do not yet fully understand.  I went thru treatments while mary was on maternity leave and in jan. of 2008, I took over care for Grace while Mary was working 45 - 50 hours a week at her newspaper.  Wee snapper Grace in her little pink car seat and me, hauling off to doctor visits, grocery runs, and anything else I had to get done.  As 2008 went on, I was told the cancer had spread to the Ureters in both my kidneys, the kidneys would fail, and I should not expect more than 2 years of life.   Damm dark bullshit for a family to take while celebrating new life and the joys of cloth diapers. 

I managed to care full time for Grace thru all of 2008.  I don't know how i did it, but when Mary got home from work Grace was safe and dinner was cooking.  I needed and still need to handle the house, cook, clean, shop, etc.  I want the burden on Mary to be less.  She would be up early getting the kids ready for school and being late for work on my weaker mornings.  But once she left for wok, i wanted to be able to take over and have her come home to as little fuss as possible, she works hard at her job, no sense having her come home to more. 

Lets take a pause and admire the Irish gift for run on sentences. look at em go.....

In dec. 2008, I was getting to sick too care for Grace every day. She began day care 3 to 4 days a week and i was spared taking a 14 month old baby to more doctor visits.  Grace is still in care 3 days a week, i do 2 weekdays, and the local daycare has been good for Grace.

A big jump ahead to summer 2009....... The cancer is letting go of my right side kidney , but I am developing serious back and mobiltiy problems.  It is discovered that I have Spinal Stenosis, a narrowing of the spine.  Nerves and Discs are getting damaged in the process.  I start to lose 3 or 4 days at a time, stuck in bed.  I have had my fun despite the illness, but i have missed so many family dinners and birthdays for my nephews and nieces.  mary's family has been fantastic to me ever since 1983, they have been my help and support. It sucks being well enough to keep the house clean, but too ill for travel and family parties.  Because of all the young kids and a few older folks, I was not allowed much family contact during radiation.  My skin still heats up and itches for no apparent reason.

Summer 2010,   the cancer is out of the right side ureter and kidney. the cancer in my prostate is mostly slow and boring.  As I win that battle, the spinal troubles increase to limit my walking and moving.  I have not been on my bike for 2 years and long car rides, once a habit of mine, are vanishing.

I tend to be a defensive type anyway, but being attacked from the inside of one's own body is hell.  I fight myself?  How fucked up is that. But i fight. Sometimes I get weak and fight those who care for me, and I am sorry for those times.  Vision gets blurred and one forgets that not everything is against you.  I still try to learn a good way to fight an internal enemy.  I can feel my spine burn some days and i don't know how to even live those days, but when you have no real say in the matter, you stagger forward and hope for the best.

I am lucky for my family and friends, they take my faults and help me to keep going. Thanks.

I really want some time off for Mary and I.  We took the girls to Ireland in April 2009, it was one of the great times of my life.  Went to Philly and Chicago for three grovvy ass Dead shows in May 2009.  Since then , not much fun.  Had to be sent home from visits up to see family in Ontario due to poor health.  Susie and David are lovely to put my sick ass on a plane home, but i miss the ability to really road trip at my desire. 

The world of 2010 for me is pretty small,  jewel, target, doctor, repeat.  Like all of us, i want more of a break. 

Welcome to Jim's blog, complaints from the obvious that most of us share......

hey, thats the beauty of it.  For all the pissy complaints, we all desire the same basic things...  home, love, safety, and a bit of fun when we finish our chores.

It is a small world and we are all more the same than different.  Lets end on the warm and fuzzy of humanity's shared desires and go have some coffee.

And while it's currently a drag, the journey is the reward, and the troubles are worth the joys.

Jim

next entry will be Football / Packers