A Leaf on The Tree

There is a resident in our neighborhood who at first exposure can seem pretty scary. A couple of weeks ago I heard yelling outside and looked past the blinds to see a young man in his mid-twenties with a thin goatee and pants worn in the current belt-at-the-kneecaps style, shuffling back and forth in the middle of the street. He would move out of the way for cars as they drove by, but then he would walk right back to the middle of the street and pace, all the while gesticulating with his hands. For two hours. He would occasionally laugh uproariously as he walked and I snuck a peak to see who he was laughing with. Nobody. It reminded me of ancient American history when bluetooth earpieces came out, and how silly people looked walking around without a phone to their ear, yet talking as if carrying on a conversation with their imaginary friend. I even remember overhearing one man as he told his imaginary friend that people were staring at him. As it got dark and the yelling and ...

My sweet Mom died a year ago today at the age of 96. And what a life she led! A member of a large family, she was orphaned at a young age, her mother dying, her father giving her and several of her young siblings up to the nearby Danish Children's home. She grew to womanhood there, finally moving out into the world where she met my Dad and was married to him within six weeks. They had 13 children together of which I am the 11th. They lost their first, a little baby girl named Ellen, to SIDS. Their 2nd born, Donald, was killed in a car accident at the age of 20. Their 3rd died of Leukemia at age 54 in 1999. They lost their last born, Byron, to an accident as a baby at 1 year of age. Mom lost Dad in July of 2000 after 59 years of marriage, and a week later lost her 10th born, Reyna to breast cancer. And then another few short years later she lost her 6th born, Kathy, dying of a heart condition. Through all of this, my Mom's faith in God did not waiver. She received strength and c...

My dad had a bit of a receding hairline. As a smart-mouth (please forgive me Dad!) teenager, I used to tease him about it on occasion, and since my Dad had a great sense of humor, we often had fun with it. One of his most common responses was to quote the Old Testament in II Kings where Elisha was taunted and threatened by some young men. "Go on up you baldhead" they had said, and Dad was delighted to describe how Elisha called a couple of bears out of the woods and those 42 youthful thugs were taught some respect for a biblical prophet! Well, Dad is having the last laugh right now isn't he? I made it 2 weeks into chemo and my hair began falling out at a high rate, so off to Great Cuts I went where my friend Mamie had graciously offered to shave my head when the time came.  I was warned a couple of months ago that my Lupron injections were going to make my skin more sensitive to the sun, and I needed to make sure I wore head coverings when I went outside. Of c...

I remember the first time I laid eyes on Juli. We were teenagers, about 16, attending River Road Baptist Church in Eugene, Oregon with our families. We had actually both attended Bethel-Danebo Baptist church as children, but neither of us remember meeting each other at that age, and even if we had I am certain that her girl-cooties would not have been acceptable to me. I was an unruly, rock-throwing, tree-climbing, bug-catching, Cowboys & Indians pretending patience-drain on my mother. Juli was a girl. All dolls and dresses girl. I mean she was smart, did her homework before it was due, obeyed her parents the first time they asked. She often reminds me that she probably would not have liked me very well as a little boy and I agree! Her family moved away for her dad's work, and my family started attending River Road Baptist, so when Juli's dad was transferred back to Eugene, it was a happy coincidence that they chose to begin attending River Road Baptist as well. Juli'...

Every time I come up with a description of my last 24 hours and try it on Juli, she says "No! No! No!" I was thinking about describing how my warehouse, The Chariot Concepts Warehouse (that sounds really official) only has two doors. A BIG door for the movement of large bulky objects, and a SMALL easily-unlocked door for free and efficient ingress and egress. I was inside the warehouse and somebody locked BOTH doors from outside. Or maybe I could put it this way... Remember in an earlier post describing the biopsy I underwent as feeling like the doctor was assembling lego ships inside my colon? Well, the fair Tradewinds of the West Undies blew that ship to the bottleneck. Or have you seen a freeway pileup on CNN where one big truck got hit by another big truck, and when they slid sideways they blocked up the entire freeway including the parallel side road? And then other trucks hit those trucks and pretty soon the cars got involved and before long even the motorcy...

I have really been hoping to work a Ralph Nader pun into this conversation and finally I can! I have begun the expected downward spiral into nadir, and finally felt enough concern for the gurgling in my tummy to take an anti-nausea medication, settling on the mildest of the three options I've been prescribed. The most potent is a narcotic and I'm really hoping I do not have to resort to that one! Juli and I attended a Chemo Class a couple weeks before the infusion so we would not be unprepared for the various side effects and the related actions that should be taken for each. Some instructions sounded like "tough luck, you're going to lose your hair, deal with it," while other side effects brought stronger rules to live by. Temperature for instance indicates fever, and fever indicates infection, a truly dangerous development if it happens since during nadir, the body is near defenseless. The friend we met on the Love Like You Mean It cruise wh...

It is now Chemo Day plus 2 and I do not know what to think. I have not experienced any nausea at all to this point other than a slight queasiness. Has God created my body in such a way as to tolerate this particular type of chemo well? Or has He chosen to walk with me with his hand upon me and his protection surrounding me? Is it "I am fearfully and wonderfully made, Your works are wonderful, I know that full well" or is it " You hem me in, behind and before. You have laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful, too lofty for me to attain!" Both from Psalm 139 I have been joking with loved ones that waiting for the nausea to strike has been like being in a murder mystery as the victim, just waiting for the deed to be done. You hear the music building and building in the background and you just know it's about to happen. But the music dies back down and the victim is safe. Or is he? Is THIS the time? When viewers relax and suddenly there is a cla...

So far so good. Well, so far, I've been hooked up to an IV in my forearm (They try to avoid joint areas) and I've been given an anti-nausea drug. Since then, I've been on hydration to keep the line open while they mix up the Taxotere, the chemo drug I will be creating special memories with. And now the Taxotere is flowing into my body, probably for the next hour or so. Two nurses watched as the flow was turned on just to watch me keel over. Well, actually to see if keeling over was a reaction. An allergic reaction is apparently immediate and obvious, so again, so far so good. We arrived on time today and as we walked up the sidewalk to begin this new phase of our adventure, we passed a young mother pushing a child by us in a wheelchair, joking and playing games with the wheelchair, child laughing, smile unseen behind a surgical mask. Arriving on the 3rd floor, we waited in the waiting area, speaking with an old friend that works in this department. Before our turn, we ...

I'm trying to remember the last time I went to bed the night before, or woke up in the morning with such awareness about an event planned for the day. I'm sitting here writing while experiencing a hot flash from the hormone treatments I'm on, and planning to drive to Sacramento with my bride in exactly 6 hours to voluntarily allow poison into my body. I've been pretty careful to avoid reading about all the things people have experienced on chemo. But Juli has done the opposite, and that beautiful bride of mine has spent hours and hours over the last weeks preparing our home by cleaning every corner of the house, researching the value of portable steam equipment for killing every mold spore in the shower, and prodding me with questions for days about what I'm going to try and tolerate for food, from Saltines to Ensure. Masks have been purchased, barf bags, and my Kindle is now loaded with several books I have been wanting to devour. That last item has be...