There Are We Happy

I know you need an update.

And I know I could just list some things, instead of making you wade through all this muck below.

But the muck below is turning out to be my medicine for awhile. We really, really miss our family and friends, so we must get our mental medicine where we can.

Which reminds me, Cam mentioned that if I sent out another request for cheer, that he'd like to hear happy things happening in your lives or kindnesses people have done for you. I guess the joke requests were my idea. He does love and appreciate all the jokes, but all the same, wants to change it up.

So, some of you have indicated concern about last Saturday's post (the most recent post till now).  

I'm happy to report that there have not been any more problems with Cam's dialysis filter since they changed the filter brand immediately after his allergic reaction a week ago.

Sorry you didn't get that news sooner, but it would seem that we're perpetually onto the next challenge, and I may not always get back around to telling you things are okay with other here or there items of the past.

Dialysis is going more smoothly in general, with the exception of the really, really wicked headaches Cam always gets during the last hour and a half (as an expert at wicked headaches, I can confirm he's got all the signs of true wicked beating his head up). 

According to those who know, extreme headaches are a really, really rare reaction to dialysis. 

Oh, Cam. It does seem that everything that is meant to make you better surprises those who know by producing in you rarely-encountered side effects and complications.

But, for this week's challenges . . .

I'll be fair, reader, and tell you up front . . . my chest is pretty heavy today.

I was just at the hospital outpatient pharmacy to refill a prescription again, and since they didn't have Tylenol Cold and Flu, I headed to the Walgreen's right by the hospital.

Sometimes I forget that the life Cam and I are currently living is not normal. I mean, of course I know it's not, but the reality is that you just have to deal with things, right? You can't spend time lamenting this or that, you have to keep moving and just figure out what's next, you know?

Well, I requested a consult with the Walgreen's pharmacist. It was interesting to watch his face trying not to react to what I told him. 

It reminded me that all this is not normal.

And it reminded me of Back to School night in September: in walks Dr. Charles, the primary care physician we'd had and loved for 10 years -- until our insurance changed in 2011 and we couldn't see her anymore. It was so out of context to see her in my classroom and not an exam room, and without her white doctor's coat, that it took me a minute to register who this beautiful woman was who was smiling and shaking my hand, and who I knew I knew. You'd think that I would have realized prior to that moment that her child was in my class, since they share the same last name, but -- I hadn't.

After my surprise to see her was cleared up, I barely gave her a moment to shake my hand and ask me "how are you?" before I leaned in and said quietly, "Cam has Peritoneal Mesothelioma."

I suppose I shocked her by putting her out of context now. Surely not what she expected from her child's AP English teacher during a feel-good, welcome to the school year, here are the expectations night. Surely not the first words out of the teacher's mouth at that.

I'll never forget the silence and the startled look on her face -- although like the Walgreen's pharmacist, I could tell Dr. Charles was struggling to process what I was saying and manage her facial reactions. After a quiet moment that felt a lot longer to me, she said -- again, only letting a tinge of incredulity through -- 

"But it's so rare!"

"I know."

So. Today's Walgreen's pharmacist interaction went like this:

"Hi. My husband had cyto-reductive surgery and Heated Intra-Peritoneal Chemotherapy on December 10th. He has renal failure because of the heated chemotherapy."

I paused to take a breath and noticed the minuscule movements in his eyes.

"And he's on the antibiotic Flagyl because we just learned a couple days ago that he has C.Diff."

The pharmacist blinks rapidly a few more times. Minute (mine-ute, not min-et) eye brow flinch.

"He takes Tylenol for the pain from the surgery, and Zofran for the constant nausea since the surgery."

Breathe. Oh, no. Water in the eyes -- my eyes. I've been fighting it for over 24 hours. Oh, wait, I broke down sobbing when Sam, the sweet old hospital valet yesterday said that with what I had "going on," (insert sass), I didn't need make-up. Yup, I just totally lost it in front of a stranger because of a compliment. So he asked if his church could pray for me and Cam, I said absolutely, kept crying, and he just took my hands and started praying right there in the valet office, oblivious to his two co-workers. You can say all you want about the South, but until you've walked this road, you can't know how amazing it is to repeatedly have complete strangers offer to pray for you or remind you that God will help you. Never had anyone anywhere stopped in the middle of day to day life to pray with me like Sam did.

So man, I thought I got out all those nasty tears yesterday with sweet old Sam the valet. 

"Sorry," I told today's pharmacist. "I'm a little emotional today. We really want to get home to Los Angeles, and I'm just a little stressed trying to get ready for the trip."

The pharmacist gave a slight and sympathetic nod.

I blinked back the tears and leveled my voice to continue.

"So now my husband has a terrible head and chest cold, and I've consulted a nephrologist about what he can take that's safe for his kidneys, and the nephrologist said I should double check with you that this Tylenol Cold and Flu and Mucinex won't have any drug interactions with what he's already taking."

I'd only been speaking to him for 20 seconds, but my head felt dizzy with everything that I just  rattled off.

He assured me my purchase would be fine, quietly wished me and my husband the best, and I walked to the front cashier in a daze. Once out the door and in our borrowed van, I lost it. Again. But really this time. All the way back to the Family House.

But while driving back to my Cam, whom I could do so little to help, I thought of Natalie again. 

Natalie, whom I started to write about here in this blog three days ago. Natalie who is a wife who keeps a blog. Natalie who recorded the good and the bad about her husband's HIPEC for a different, but also rare, abdominal cancer. 

I thought of her, and reminded myself that I knew. 

I knew from the time I read her blog beginning to end in one sitting back in August that this was going to be a long trip -- a long trip away from home to get treatment, a long stay once here, and a long journey to recovery. And the long recovery was likely to be riddled with unforeseeable, unique complications. 

I knew, I kept reminding myself as I drove by the now familiar Southern homes and red-brick churches with white steeples. I sobbed, I bawled freely in the car, no one to hear me or hopefully see me. I felt so helpless to help this poor, sweet man lying in a bed, waiting for me to bring him yet another new medicine. 

Nate had one thing after another after his HIPEC in July. He just had surgery again three days ago to remove scar tissue. He's still dealing with the complications and effects of the HIPEC. 

I knew it would be long and complicated.

I suppose I should break here because you're getting impatient with my indulgent writing. What is C.Diff? some readers are still wondering, many paragraphs later.

Well, based on what those who know tell me, it's the intestinal bug that you don't want to pick up in the hospital. Not that you want any . . . but, you get the idea.

Funny. Sounds like what those who know told us about Cam's kind of cancer. I still don't know what to compare Peritoneal Mesothelioma to that's common enough for people to understand . . . but I suppose pancreatic cancer. You just don't, don't want it.

So, C.Diff. It's short for Clostridium Difficile. And although I make students use something other than Wikipedia, I'm going to use it. Again.

"Clostridium Difficile is a species of Gram-positive bacteria of the genus Clostridium that causes severe diarrhea and other intestinal disease when competing bacteria in the gut flora have been wiped out by antibiotics.

. . . C. difficile is the most serious cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) and can lead to pseudomembranous colitis, a severe inflammation of the colon, often resulting from eradication of the normal gut flora by antibiotics."

Then it goes on to say what other things it can lead to that are serious, and we just don't want to go there.

So the antibiotic Cam had in the hospital when Dr. Levine was concerned about infection, that antibiotic wiped out bad AND good bacteria in his gut and left him vulnerable to this thing that people are most likely to contract in the hospital or a nursing home.

And it's made him really, really, really sick. A week of vomiting tons of bile but rarely food; diarrhea that progressed to resembling chopped grass and smelling abnormally horrific, even for diarrhea, etc.

TMI, Krisha. (Readers over a certain age, that means too much information. It's text-speak, like LOL). 

TMI. I didn't need to know that.

Who says? Who says one of my readers might not be grateful one day, thinking, "Hey. Maybe this vomiting and diarrhea after the xyz procedure my family member/friend had in the hospital isn't normal. Perhaps we should ask the doctor to take a stool sample."

You never know. Life is unpredictable, and chances are, you will also want to become sharp about what to watch for. I certainly am grateful for the most minute (again, as in mine-ute) details that Natalie put in her blog about Nate. It all, in some way, prepared me to be a care-giver.

But because I can't bear the thought of making you sad on a Saturday or thinking that our lot is hard -- because honestly, Cam and I are daily humbled by all the things those around us are enduring here and throughout the world -- I have to leave you with some thoughts that have rattled around in my brain a lot.

First, my depressed and also prone to over-thinking friend, Hamlet. He welcomed his childhood friends to his castle, where only he knew that his father's ghost had recently appeared to him and told him that Hamlet's uncle had killed him in order to have the throne and his queen. And he told Hamlet that Hamlet had to make it right by avenging his murder. Oh -- and Hamlet's girlfriend had dumped him to spy on Hamlet for her dad, who was helping Hamlet's murderous uncle and also convincing Hamlet's murderous uncle that Hamlet had lost his mind.

"Welcome to prison," Hamlet said to his old friends in this particular scene.

"Prison, my lord?" one friend asked.

"Denmark's a prison. . . . there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me, Denmark is a prison."

So there you go, all this is only bad if I decide it is. If Cam decides it is.

And for another character who has outrageous circumstances: Romeo, though I can't call him a buddy. And I can't call his play a love-story, and neither should you. Two teenagers caught up in twitterpation (note: readers under a certain age, consult an adult about twitterpation because it has nothing to do with Twitter) who secretly marry less than 24 hours after setting eyes on each other does not have much to do with love. Anyone who has lived beyond teenagerhood can tell you that.

But to my point: there's a part in Romeo and Juliet where things look pretty bleak for Romeo.

Indeed, after just bawling his eyes out the evening before to the friar (think priest) that the girl he was crazy about had taken a vow of celibacy, he now is bawling his eyes out because after drying his tears with the friar the night before, he reluctantly crashed a party with his friends, fell in love again, married the new love secretly because their families were arch-enemies, resisted engaging in a fight with his now-wife's cousin who was incensed that Romeo dared show up at their party the previous night, saw his friend defend his honor and be slaughtered by his less-than-3-hour's wife's cousin, exploded in rage at the sight of his loyal and dead friend,  slaughtered his less-than-3-hour's wife's cousin for slaughtering his friend, ran away to the friar's place before the prince could show up to exact judgment, and has now just learned from the friar that he is banished. 

You know, before I even tell you the good part, I have to tell you . . . I don't think I've ever understood that moment like I do now. Usually I look at it and think it's over the top. That Shakespeare. Really? All that in 24 hours? To one person? Really?

Perhaps it was Shakespeare's way of saying sometimes life can really pile it on hard, and it just keeps coming.

Indeed.

So, the good part. When Romeo is curled up in the fetal position, crying his eyes out, and then gets the news about being banished, he sobs all over again: there's no life outside the only city he's ever known (and to be fair, waaay harder to relocate in Italian cities with walls in the 1600's), and there is no life anywhere without his beautiful new wife. A punishment of death would be more merciful.

And that's when the friar rocks it. He totally lights into Romeo. I thought about this scene over two months ago, in LA, on a walk one night with Cam. I reminded Cam of the context I just gave you for the scene, and I refreshed his memory on the friar's lecture that I'm about to tell you:

The friar points out all the good.

Your love, Juliet, is alive, whom you nearly died for. "There art thou happy."

Her cousin came to kill you, but you killed him instead. "There art thou happy."

The law that threatened death becomes your friend and turns your punishment to exile. "There art thou happy."

"A pack of blessings light upon thy back; 

Happiness courts thee in her best array; 

But, like a misbhav'd and sullen wench, 

Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love.

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable."

What I told Cam on that walk that night not all that long ago in LA: I don't want to be like Romeo. I want to be like the friar in this scene, where he sees all the mercy and blessings.

So I guess I'll end this post by saying I am grateful. For learning what has made him so sick this past week and getting medicine for it. For miracles I haven't shared with you yet that brought us here. For miracles that prepared us in odd ways for this.

For the miracle that my love is alive.

A pack of blessings are on our backs. Happiness courts us in her best array.

Oh. And Cam just noisily finished yet another box of Kleenex by simply remarking, "Well I guess it really had been awhile since my last cold."

Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Don't I have a great example from my husband?