Christmas Signs

It's December already. I can hardly believe it - life has been moving at absolutely rocket speed. I can barely remember Thanksgiving.

It's been a full month. At the end of October, I told you about two events in our family - Diane Ottenweller's death and Lisa Goad's new diagnosis of lung cancer.

Diane's family is working through their grief. There's a "Thank God" moment in it all - for many years, the family was living a bi-continent lifestyle, with Diane and Mark in Jo'burg with their daughter Leslie and her husband Tony, while the other two kids were living in the States. They were finally all living on one continent when her death occurred, allowing Mark and kids to grieve together, rather than alone, separated by literally 10,000 miles. That is absolutely a blessing.

Lisa is still in the hospital, but we have great hopes that she'll be out this week. She finally, FINALLY, got her chemo a few days ago. This isn't a failing on the part of the docs - many things had to happen before she was able to get the drugs. First, she had a gamma knife operation on the brain lesion. (Frankly, if it wasn't true that this cancer stuff is freaking scary, it is also absolutely fascinating! The Gamma Knife is truly revolutionary. Remember in Ghostbusters when it was baaaad to cross the streams?? That's what this technology does - it takes two streams of radiation, which on their own are benign, and crosses them at the lesion site. There's a milimeter of miss in the device....just a milimeter. Amazing!) They don't know if they got all of her tumor, but they gave it a good shot.

Then came the radiation to her back. It took about 2 weeks; Hermann Hospital in the Med Center, where she is, doesn't have the radiation facilities she needed. Memorial City, west of town, did. It's where my treatments were. Every day, Lisa was loaded into a private ambulance and driven about 14 miles to receive radiation. Now - hold onto your hats - get this: for the first week or so, every day, these private ambulances would get lost. Yep - that's right. Lost. They couldn't find their way to (1) the hospital (it's a big hospital, I promise you) and then, once they did, (2) the radiation facilities. Lisa's dad started riding with her to treatments and between the two of them, they helped the drivers find where they were going. I assume these folks were new to town...maybe to Texas... who knows. I was incredulous when she told me - how can an ambulance service not know where a big, prominent, as obvious as a sore thumb, hospital is?? It says a lot of Lisa that, by the time her treatments were done, she and the ambulance staff had bonded. They gave her a present and big hugs when she was finished.

But then, I'm not surprised. For those of you who've not met Lisa, she's a woman I can only describe as embodying grace. You'd be so proud of her - she's been in the hospital for 8 weeks now, being poked, prodded, in pain, away from her family and children, stuck in one bed for hours on end, and her peace remains. Serenity is hers, for the most part. Don't think for a moment that it is total - please trust me, this disease attacks serenity and faith as surely as it eats at your tissue - but her faith is doing its job and she's doing pretty well. I think she'll do even better when she makes it home.

We've had her's and John's two girls for a few weekends while Lisa's been at Hermann. I wish we could have had them more often - I know they're my family, but they really are wonderful kids. Hannah's the oldest. She's 9, and she's rolling with this situation very well. I not only love my niece, I also like and respect her. I'm very proud of the way she's been handling herself through this. I have sooooo much fun when they're here! Last weekend, we had a neighbor friend over to play, as well as my wonderful 14 year old niece Suzie, who's the daughter of Charles' sister Jean, and we moved the dining room table to in front of the fireplace, and then proceeded to sit around, enjoy a toasty warm fire, and work on Christmas stockings. I had a BLAST.

And then they go home. I think I like this aunt thing a whoooooole lot:)

So - I guess I should talk about where things are at for me. In a word - crazed. Look - I'm trying, very hard, not to put myself through the ringer and do too much, but I'm too awful at it! I don't know I've overcommitted myself until I'm standing in the middle of the room, wondering where the floor is. I'm working on my project at the Medical Museum - still loving every bit of it - but have hired a science writer to help wrap it up, just to take some of the load off while the Universe is giving me my turn at playing "Job". (No, not "Jobs"...that would be a different type of torture...:) I'm also doing some projects for HexaGroup, which include some web writing, project managment, and script writing.

Also, I did an interview with the father of one of my good friends last week, Mr. Gilbert Baker, founder of the AFP Group here in Houston. His firm is paying me to write the article for a local newspaper, in celebration of his 50 years in business. I can say, without equivocation, that this is one of the finest men I've ever had the grace to meet. The article will only be difficult in that I won't be able to unrestrainedly gush about the guy - I mean, I am being paid and it would sound like just so much tookus-smooching, but honest to God.... He's a man who totally lives by his ethics and creed to better his community. His company provides financial planning services for people - that's how we know them. His daughter Ann is not only one of my favorite people, she's also been our planner for the past 5 years. (She jokes that she's the 3rd person in our relationship, since Charles and I can't make a financial decision to save our lives!)

Gil loves helping people plan their futures, because he's seen first hand how his work saves lives. Yeah - saves lives. Never knew a 401k had that kind of power, huh? But he's helped 3 generations of clients save for retirement and planned for those unplanned eventualities - like what Lisa, Mark and I are going through - and knows that what he's doing allows families to continue on in dignity, with room to do what they need to for their loved ones and grieve, without relying on someone else's charity. That's very powerful. So, I'm enjoying the project.

My cancer treatments continue... we'll have to see about tomorrow's abraxane dose, tho. I've had a WHOPPER of a cold, an absolute head stuffer - bad enough that the doc office put me on cipro because I'd developed a sinus infection as well. Bleh. That's the stuff that kills absolutely everything - it's what they give folks exposed to anthrax. I spent the day in my pjs, kinda just mooching around the house... until, at 4:30, when we HAD to go get dog food (he was totally out) which woke me up, which meant we ran a few more errands, which meant I found a christmas tree, which meant we had to take care of it when we got it home...and I ended up pretty wound up....and now blogging at 11:3o at night.

We were coming home from a christmas party last night, listening to an irish music program as we cruised down the highways towards the house. We were on the North Side, coming through barrio areas. The elevated highway gave me a bird's eye glimpse into the neighborhoods as we zoomed past.

Beneath me, the humble dwellings were merrily festooned with christmas lights. I could see distinct yards as we passed, draped with zillions of little lights. The Irish music tilted along in the background - an earthy, centered music, that matched the humble state of the those homes I watched. It seemed to me so incredibly beautiful that these people, who have much less than we do, spend their time and emotional energy so lovingly on hanging those lights. They took such joy in the effort... these are people who's son and daughters are in Iraq. They joined the armed services for a way to pay for a new life, go to school, provide for their family. And their families back home were putting out christmas lights - not just as a cumpulsory activity for the season, but as a sign of Hope. The coming of the new year, new times, new decisions, new family moments. Hope of good family times to come. Hope in their God for protection for those they love.

That essence of hope came home with me last night, and amazed me with it's power. It's so easy to forget Hope, to instead become mired in the everyday dirge that has to be done and cleaned up, without realizing that Hope is waiting outside the door, ready for us to break free of our trying times and discover new life.

......wowoo...look at all the pretty swirly colors... I take it my Ambien has kicked in:) nighty-night.