My Week, the fun, the good and the sad

Another Sunday has passed and here I am with my sister again. We have had a good visit and I spent several hours with my niece, Lee.

Last week in Hayesville, I was a guest for Mountain Wordsmiths, a Zoom event hosted by Carroll Taylor and sponsored by NCWN-West. We had about 15 people sign in and I was so happy to see the names of many of my friends and family there. I recorded my reading for one of our members and when I played it back I was not happy with the way my voice sounded. I think it is the poor microphone I have to use and perhaps how I sat while reading. 

I read a couple of memoir pieces and a short story, as well as several poems. Some comments were "I like to hear you read about real people." I read a piece about my aunt and uncle who had their farm taken by the government in 1962 so that a large military base could be built there. This was imminent domain. If you ever knew anyone who had to sell out because the forces that be said their home was needed for the good of the community or the country, will understand the emotional effect of my story. My sister said she and Stu listened to my reading and fought tears.

The next day I loaded my car and drove to Roswell, GA and it felt so good to enter my second home. When I am here I feel like I am on vacation. 

It seems that wherever I am now, I continue to hear sad stories from people I know and love. One friend said her daughter had been in four different hospitals in the past ten days. Another friend said her daughter has been diagnosed with cancer. I ache for my friends. My heart hurts for them. I don't have children, but I do have beloved nieces and nephews and I worry about them as if they were my own. 

Having lost five brothers and sisters and my husband and three in-laws as well as both my parents, I know grief all too well. 

Having faced cancer with my beloved husband and my dear brother, Ray, I feel the worst kind of fear when I hear that word. I will pray for my friends and their daughters and I will ask others to pray for them, but I prayed for Barry and Ray and so did their church families. 

I am feeling uplifted by another very dear friend who is fighting cancer with all her might, heart, and energy, and is actually feeling better now. I do believe that doctors are not the entire answer to healing cancer. Positive thoughts, energy healing, spiritual energy, and constant love by others have a strong effect, I believe. Sometimes this only gives more time and not complete healing, but remission of any kind is wonderful. 

You can tell I am sorrowful tonight even though I am feeling well physically. 

My knee is fixed and I have no pain since the surgery has healed. I seldom have the need for a cane or walker anymore. I will see my knee surgeon next week for his final examination and I am sure he will be pleased at the progress I made. Dr. DeCook at Northside Hospital in Cumming, GA does a terrific job with his patients. His staff is on the spot with follow-up care as well as preparing the patient before the surgery. The prep exercises are an essential part of a good recovery.

My sister is surprised and overjoyed at the improvement in my health compared to this time last year. I am grateful for my life and my friends and family who are there for me when times are tough. I deeply appreciate you, my readers. 

I hope I have not brought you down with this post. I seem to have a need to share my sorrows as well as my happiness with you, my faithful readers. 

Let me hear from you and have a great week. Until next time, much love.

Fighting loneliness when you are ill

I am re-blogging this post from Writing Through Cancer.   https://writingthroughcancer.com/2019/01/14/for-january-14-2019-loneliness-its-bad-for-your-health/

So many older people, after having lost a spouse, find themselves alone and lonely. This is an excellent article on why we should fight loneliness in order to take care of our own health.  We have to reach out to others. Many people are lonely in this country. Maybe that is why we have so many people on social media today. They want someone to listen to them.

Please read the blog post in the link above, and let me know what you think.

Writing is our lifeline when tragedy befalls us

I have certain blogs I visit on a regular basis. One of them is https://writingthroughcancer.com/

Writing Through Cancer.  One might think this would be depressing and would not want to read the posts, but the writer, Sharon A. Bray, teaches writing to cancer patients. The patients, like all of us who write, find it helps them deal with what is happening to them or happened to them. The blogger writes very well and she uses quotes from writers and poets in her posts. 

I recommend this blog for anyone who has known someone with cancer or anyone who is a survivor of cancer. I have had two members of my family diagnosed with cancer, and I know what it does to the patient and those who love him. 

Without writing, I don't know how I would have survived Barry's tortuous lymphoma ordeal. Tonight I came across a rough draft of a poem I wrote when he was sick. The caregiver, in an effort to protect the patient, becomes ill as well, emotionally and physically at times. In spite of my  pain, you can see I have hope for both of us.


Bowed and broken, he forgets
that I suffer, too.
I suffer his losses and my own.

He forgets I have needs, someone to share
my fears with, my anger, my grief.

Beside the lake, water brings calm
to my spirit that has been torn, crushed and shoved
under his illness that becomes mine.

Somewhere the sun shines behind the clouds.
I see a small glow over western peaks,
a promise that we'll reach a joyous place
again one day. 

The Big C - No matter what you call it, you finally have to own it.

Sharon Bray has written a powerful post on her blog: Writing Through Cancer 

I'll never forget the moment I heard the doctor tell Barry and me that my husband had cancer. I felt the young man was cavalier, uncaring, until he asked, didn't you already know? He thought, because I was there in the office with Barry, that we had already been told.

Barry Beall

In the post from the blog Writing Through Cancer, the blogger writes about how doctors feel when they must give that bad news. She also writes about the patient's feelings and suggests to us to write about when we first heard those words, you have cancer. 

Although I was not the patient when I heard those words, I was one half of the patient, the man I'd shared my life with for 45 years. Nothing can prepare you for those three words. The fear that rises inside you is unstoppable. Even if you are reassured, "This is the best kind of cancer you can have. It is treatable," you catch your breath and begin to worry about the outcome. 

We fear that word, that disease above almost any, because not only is it often terminal, the treatment practically destroys our bodies. 

I watched my brother, Ray, in his last year of suffering. His eyes spoke first of the sadness inside him. His eyes had shown the defeat from the the first. He did everything short of chemo to keep going and get well, but he had been told he only had three years. I think he believed that, so in three years, he died. 

Before his diagnosis. He was happy. Such a good and sweet man.

The day he came to my house with Gail, his wife, and told me he had something serious to talk about with me, I immediately felt a big heavy rock settle in my stomach. I had no idea he was sick until he said he had multiple myeloma, and then explained what it was and the prognosis. The doctor had told him he could expect to live three years if he did not take chemo.  

As we often do, I have tried to look back and find the good things that happened during those three years. Because he reused to take chemo, he was able to travel. He visited China. He didn't give up. He visited me on several occasions, alone, so we had opportunities to really talk with no interruptions. I treasure those times. I had always loved and enjoyed him, but he was next to oldest of the seven of us. I was next to youngest. I realized during those visits, he had confidence in me, believed in me and felt I would help hold the family together as he had done for many, many years. 

I have faced the fear of having cancer. More than once, I've had to have second mammograms to be sure there was no tumor. The morning I awoke to find a large bump on the side of my breast, I almost panicked. I was at the doctor's office before he opened his doors. It was a benign cyst, thankfully. Another time I found a small lump and doctors said it was so small we would just watch it.

Well, that is fine for the doctor to do - watch it. But after a month, I was in the hospital having it removed. It, too, was benign, but I slept much better knowing it was gone. 

Barry and I often referred to that awful illness as the Big C as if we could avoid it by not giving it a real name. You know, like not naming the stray cat so it would not really be your cat. I have a friend who feeds two stray cats, but doesn't claim them.

The Big C creeps in when we don't know it is there, and when it is found out, it seems to jump from behind the curtains dressed in the most fearsome costume, one that brings chills to our hearts, and ripples up and down our spines.

If you have never had to hear the words, you have cancer, I hope you never do. If you have heard those words, and I know some of my readers have, I pray that you overcome it, fight it as hard as you can, look for the best doctors, and hospitals for your kind of cancer. Strides have been made in the medical world today that can prolong life and even put cancer in remission. Some people, like my brother, Rex, who had a slow growing cancer, go on with life and die of another disease or illness.

The post by Sharon Bray made me pause and think about the doctors who give this diagnosis over and over and how they must feel when they do. It helps me feel empathy for the men and women in white coats who tried to help us during Barry's fight for his life. 

A Poem for My Brother

I was thinking  of my oldest brother, Ray Council, today. He died several years ago from complications of multiple myeloma, a  cancer that forms in the plasma cells. He fought it for three years. I'll never forget the day he and his wife, Gail, came to my house and told me they had some bad news. I couldn't believe it. He was the rock in our family. His bravery touched me. He never showed one bit of self pity. 

He was diagnosed too soon after his retirement. He and Gail had made plans to travel and enjoy life. I wanted him to have time and freedom to play, have fun, since he had always worked hard even as a young boy. He chose not to take chemotherapy that would ruin his quality of life. He had planned to go to China, and they did before he was too sick to make the trip. 

I moved to North Carolina, and he came up every summer for the festival on the square. We had wonderful visits with other family members who joined us. He became a big fan of a local group, Butternut Creek and Friends, and wanted to see them perform when he came up from south Georgia.

The times I cherish most are those trips he made, alone, to see me. We spent hours talking, sharing and planning my role in our family business when he was no longer here. Although I had worked with him in many capacities through the years, I'd not known how much trust he had in my abilities. 

I wrote a poem during the last days of  his life. I want to share it with my readers.

Early Morning Hope

                    for Ray

Fog like a band of cotton

obliterates the lake.

Gunmetal faces of mountains

float against a pale sky.

Naked arms of December trees

fade into the ashen scene.

Winter's late this year.

In the front yard, a red oak

clings tenaciously to leaves

that should have fallen long ago.

You still hang on, hairless,

face puffed from steroids

arms and legs, bones barely covered.

You question, wanting good news,

knowing you can only borrow time.

The clouds lift. We see more clearly

the silvery blue water on Lake Chatuge.

Truth hits us square in the eyes. 

Cancer floor at Emory Hospital

Tonight I'm just pouring out a stream of conscious writing as I can't get focused on anything but the swirling of decisions, choices, fears of mistakes, that have overwhelmed my world since last Tuesday when my dear love and I were admitted to the hospital. I say I was admitted because even though he has the malignant leg, he and I have taken every single step of this journey together and we will until the end. We had a scan, we are on a pain pump, we have great nurses, we don't like arrogant doctors, and we will deal with all of this as one.
When you have been with someone for 45 years, you cannot imagine being separated from each other. I have spent each day and each night beside his bed, waking when the inevitable medical person slams through the door to his room at midnight just as his breathing has settled into a sweet rhythm that tells me he is in a good deep sleep.
My anger at that kind person who only wants to check his BP and make sure he is doing well, seeths awhile after she leaves, stealing my badly needed sleep.
The TV high on the wall runs constantly around the clock. No sound emits from the mouths of the faces there. Today an old Bonanza brought smiles as Little Joe and Hoss turned jokesters on Pa. The young nurse from Tennessee had never heard of nor had any interest in the Cartwrights. She tends to seriously sick people who come and go and come again to the rooms on E floor.
Each night I see the woman in the red striped pajamas pushing her chemo contraption as she gets in her twenty laps before bedtime. Last night she told me her story. In a couple of weeks she would begin the chemo treatment that would destroy her immune system, killing her cancer cells but also her good cells and prepare her for the stem cell bone marrow transplant that would save her life. She fully expects this procedure to give her time to see the babies of her lovely daughter who walks with her on her nightly rounds.
Although we'd never met before, the five minutes we talked sealed a bond between us. She, pale and bald, her blue eyes naked of brows and lashes, hugged me, encouraged me, and promised we were at the best place in the world to cure us from this cancer. She was convinced she would survive and wear pink at the Relay for Life races every year with her granchildren. I wished I felt as sure - not just for us, but for her - for that lovely daughter who supported her mother all the way.
If there is one thing I've learned over the years of caring for loved ones, there is no sure bet when it comes to medicine. The elderly woman who was at death's door waves from her wheelchair as she leaves with her son. The nine year old who was laughing yesterday, lies in a pool of sweat tonight with robotic electronics blinking and beeping around her bed.
The woman's family had been called in. Doctors shook their heads and said there was no more they could do.
"It's a miracle," exclaimed a young resident as the wheelchair disappeared in the elevator. "No," said Dr. Smith. "It's God's way of showing us we don't know S--t."