Category Archives: Route 53 – Life is A Highway

Just ramblings about my everyday life. I often wonder if other people think these things too. Some day my children can read these thoughts and maybe the will say, “Hmm, so that is what dad was really thinking” or, “At least I would know what dad would do if he were in my situation”

And the Beat Goes On – My Bucket List

14 Tuesday Oct 2008

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“I think we have a better persepective right now”

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the most expensive places in the country right now is an interesting study during this down economy.  Many people are talking about selling their homes, holding on to their jobs, downsizing, etc.  There still is a lot of materialism going on, people are contemplating which option to choose for a new leadership and yet for us, the world seems to be at a standstill.  All of these factors seem inconsequential right now and my wife said it best tonight, ” I think we have the best perspective right now”.

She’s right.  We have plenty to be thankful for.  Tonight I went for my first complete run in a while and the cold wind against my heated face felt so refreshing that I almost didn’t want to stop.  At this point, I’m refreshed with the perspective that I’ve lived about half my life expectancy and I need to start dreaming of what I want to do as well.  Just like a kid who dreams of being a fireman or an astronaut when they grow up, it is time for my bucket list.  The DVD we watched this weekend had a special piece about the guy who came up with the bucket list concept and mentioned that it is different for everyone depending upon their point in life, but here is my list with a little different organization:

Bucket List

  1. With my children – visit their ancestral countries of origin and provide a deep respect for those countries – Italy, France, China
  2. For my children – leave them with lessons for living a happy and productive life
  3. For my children – provide a healthy respect for parenthood and the love of their parents
  4. For my children – a childhood filled with laughter and pleasant memories
  5. With my wife – provide her with the self-confidence and self-esteem that makes her great
  6. With my wife – help and remind her to enjoy life and savor it.
  7. for me – play golf really well (break 80?)
  8. for me – learn to play a new instrument
  9. for me – learn some new Hawaiian cooking recipes
  10. For my family – play golf as a foursome in a beautiful setting. (at least play Pebble Beach with my son)
  11. For my family – Visit an inspiring natural state park
  12. General – provide a positive legacy for a community
  13. General – let friends and relatives know they are respected and loved
  14. General – Inspire someone to do the right thing

Well that is it for now.   That’s a lot to do before I kick the bucket!  I’ll add more later if needed

Breathing Deeply – A Loving Fight Against Breast Cancer

13 Monday Oct 2008

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“I can’t tell you anything else to tell you how much I love you”

After the good news to end the week, it was easy to take a deep breath, smile and be thankful.  Have we dodged a bullet?  Maybe, but we will be dodging it for a while.  I think that is why cancer victims rally and stick together.  The treatment time is for many years.  I might be wrong, but I’ve not noticed this kind of camaraderie and community of survivors for heart attack survivors or by-pass surgery survivors.

The weekend was filled with our children’s sports events (soccer and golf) as well as concerts, the Blue Angels, Fleet Week, and professional sporting events.  Our 9-year old golf prodigy son lost against an 18 year old in a golf match and although he’s tough on himself and had very little chance to win anyway, he gained a great perspective.  As a dad all you try to do is encourage your child and make sure that kind of event doesn’t damage him.  Afterwards I patted him on the back and told him how proud I was and that he was very poised and gracious in defeat.  He laughed and said, “Dad, he was twice my age.  It won’t be the last time I lose a match.  There are more important things if you know what I mean.” Nothing can make a parent more proud than to try and teach one’s child a life lesson and to be reminded of one of the more important lessons in life.  You just don’t expect to get reminded by a 9 year old.

That afternoon at the soccer match I caught my wife sitting on a grassy hill (making sure she didn’t get accidentally hit my a soccer ball)  She had her eyes closed and I wanted to make sure she wasn’t suffering from more exhaustion.  She smiled and replied, “I’m okay.  The sun feels good.  It has never felt this good.  I just want to soak it all in”.  It isn’t like she’d been out since the surgery, but I knew what she was doing.  Something she hadn’t done in a while.  She was smelling the roses.  The good news had taken a huge weight off her shoulders (something she hadn’t been able to express).

She looked so peaceful all by herself with the Blue Angel pilots flying over head during Fleet Week.  I’m sure she didn’t even hear the planes roaring.  We’ve aged so much in the last few months.  Maybe we haven’t aged, but we sure haved lived a lot.

I watched the “Bucket List” again with her and she sobbed.  It meant more to watch it now.  Her perspective changed now that the chemo was not in her near future.  She could laugh now.  Her own bucket list would now be more thoughtful.  Her sobs were of relief.  Of sorrow. Of joy. I had been afraid to hold her til now.  I didn’t want to hurt her.

Today was her fourth meeting with the plastic surgeon.  We’re almost done and he said that a middle of November final surgery for the swap would be likely.  It will give her time to rest before Thanksgiving.  The recovery time might be about 2 weeks and only 5% of all patients need drains afterward.  Along with the hormone therapy we decide on, it will be the last mile of this journey.  It will be a long last mile but a journey worth traveling.

Turning the corner – One Month after Surgery

07 Tuesday Oct 2008

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“The Longest Month Ever”

I gave my wife a kiss and told her it has been a crazy month since her surgery and she looked at me and said, “Its only been a month?  Wow, it is the longest month ever!”  I agree that it seems like we have come so far in a month.

Things continue to evolve emotionally and physically.  Yesterday while at the clinic she ran into an old co-worker.  They hugged and sobbed as soon as they saw each other there.  They hadn’t seen each other in 7 years, but they had a new bond and have already shared their stories with each other as well as numerous emails.  Having someone she personally knows going through it with her at the same age is a comforting thing for her.  It’s all the little things now.  Even yesterday when the Plastic Surgeon stood back, took a look and said, “I think it will all come out nice”, she took a mental note.  “Nice” isn’t always the most glamorous of words to describe something in a positive manner, but it worked for her.

Today was also a day we had been waiting for.  She finally heard an indication of what the test results said about her chance of recurrence for cancer.  This is an important outcome as it indicated the type of treatment plan you should follow with your oncologist.  When she called me at work, I picked up the phone with trepidation.  It was like the day she called to tell me she had cancer and I rushed home.   Those aren’t fun calls.  The day she called to tell me that my dad wasn’t breathing was just the same.  As I picked up the phone she said, “I hope you are free on Saturday as you and your son qualified for the Northern CA Family golf tourney in the 2nd flight!”  It was good news!  Not the news I was expecting but it was great and our son was going to be happy.  We talked for a few more minutes and then she continued, “Oh and the Dr. wrote me an email saying my scores came back low for recurrence”.

First I was  happy and could feel her smiling through the phone.  Then the psychologist in me said, “Wait, she gave you news about a golf tournament before she told you about her breast cancer”  I asked her if everything was alright and she said she felt like she was turning a corner and ready to get through this thing.

We watched a 45 minute video tonight to help us with her decisions she is going to have to make regarding her treatments.  Is it hormonal therapy, chemotherapy, both, or none? The clinic is pretty hands off and likes to let each person make their own decision so it is good to get educated. I told her that I was pro-choice on this and I didn’t want my own feeling to get in the way if she wanted to make the decision alone, but it is hard to look at your own health as one big statistic.  We haven’t made many decisions without each other for 22 years and she wasn’t about to start now.

So the oncology meeting is in a couple days.  We think they are going to tell her chemo is not really going to be beneficial and that Tamoxifen a hormonal therapy treatment with side effects will be her best plan, but who knows.  It is more of a sit and wait game again, but this time the wait is going to not be so stressful and the next month will go even faster.

We’re a Family Again – The Highway of Life

06 Monday Oct 2008

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“Let’s keep our batteries charged as things usually get worse before they get better”

Almost a month since surgery and we seem and more importantly, feel, like we can do some normal things again.  As we had no appointments this past week, there was nothing to break up our schedule and we had what we might term to be a “normal family weekend”.  As we sat around the table at our favorite sushi restaurant on Sunday night, we had our team meeting about what we had going on this week (playdates, practices, appointments, etc.) we reviewed the past week with our children to ask them how they were doing and what they enjoyed.  Our son said he enjoyed playing in his first golf tournament.  Our daughter said that she enjoyed “being a family again”.  When we asked what that meant she said she enjoyed going out to dinner, going to her soccer game, and even playing a family board game  with all of us present.

She was right.  It was the first time we had energy to do things together rather than split up or outsource parenting to our friends and family.  We were smiling and laughing again.  The sushi dinner was never mentioned as such, but it was our first real time we had gone out together in a month for a meal and thus served as a bit of a celebration.  We needed the break, the laughs, the down time and I think we really needed to lavish our children with much needed attention.

They have seen and heard so much and partly because of their naivety and partly because they are mature for their age, they were able to process their feelings. Unfortunately, I think it wore on them to see their parents not having the fun they used to have and seeing their mom’s sunny disposition remain sunny, but at a cost of her strength.  Our daughter’s comment raised some flags for us to make sure we focused on them during the coming weeks especially if chemo becomes part of the equation.

Today marked the third of 5 appointments with the plastic surgeon post-surgery.  He says she is progressing okay but we’ll have to see how things are going with chemo to know our full schedule.  We have our 1st appointment with the oncologist on Thursday morning so we are a bit nervous.  I just wish we’d know a little more before we go in the first time to meet with her.  She’ll definitely tell us about the Tamoxifin (sp?) but all we are worried nabout now is the Oncotype score reading.  We are bracing for her to tell us she will need chemo and agreed that we just need to get our batteries charged and braced for the coming months ahead.   It is just natural to assume things will get worse before they get beetter.  In a peverse way we both agreed that everything so far has actually not been as bad as we thought it would be, but we have run across some things we never thought we’d encounter.

On this highway of life, cancer has been more than a bump in the road, but  a very windy detour that we hope leads back to the main road and let’s us get back to destinations unknown with many life adventures to discover.

We're a Family Again – The Highway of Life

06 Monday Oct 2008

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“Let’s keep our batteries charged as things usually get worse before they get better”

Almost a month since surgery and we seem and more importantly, feel, like we can do some normal things again.  As we had no appointments this past week, there was nothing to break up our schedule and we had what we might term to be a “normal family weekend”.  As we sat around the table at our favorite sushi restaurant on Sunday night, we had our team meeting about what we had going on this week (playdates, practices, appointments, etc.) we reviewed the past week with our children to ask them how they were doing and what they enjoyed.  Our son said he enjoyed playing in his first golf tournament.  Our daughter said that she enjoyed “being a family again”.  When we asked what that meant she said she enjoyed going out to dinner, going to her soccer game, and even playing a family board game  with all of us present.

She was right.  It was the first time we had energy to do things together rather than split up or outsource parenting to our friends and family.  We were smiling and laughing again.  The sushi dinner was never mentioned as such, but it was our first real time we had gone out together in a month for a meal and thus served as a bit of a celebration.  We needed the break, the laughs, the down time and I think we really needed to lavish our children with much needed attention.

They have seen and heard so much and partly because of their naivety and partly because they are mature for their age, they were able to process their feelings. Unfortunately, I think it wore on them to see their parents not having the fun they used to have and seeing their mom’s sunny disposition remain sunny, but at a cost of her strength.  Our daughter’s comment raised some flags for us to make sure we focused on them during the coming weeks especially if chemo becomes part of the equation.

Today marked the third of 5 appointments with the plastic surgeon post-surgery.  He says she is progressing okay but we’ll have to see how things are going with chemo to know our full schedule.  We have our 1st appointment with the oncologist on Thursday morning so we are a bit nervous.  I just wish we’d know a little more before we go in the first time to meet with her.  She’ll definitely tell us about the Tamoxifin (sp?) but all we are worried nabout now is the Oncotype score reading.  We are bracing for her to tell us she will need chemo and agreed that we just need to get our batteries charged and braced for the coming months ahead.   It is just natural to assume things will get worse before they get beetter.  In a peverse way we both agreed that everything so far has actually not been as bad as we thought it would be, but we have run across some things we never thought we’d encounter.

On this highway of life, cancer has been more than a bump in the road, but  a very windy detour that we hope leads back to the main road and let’s us get back to destinations unknown with many life adventures to discover.

Life is A Highway

04 Saturday Oct 2008

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“Today almost felt normal”

This morning raindrops turned to sunshine and we all got up and packed for a morning at the soccer field for our daughter.  Everything worked well as we got a good parking space in a difficult area, our daughter scored two goals, and we had a good time with the other parents.  Afterwards we came home, washed up and changed, and then went to the baptism of our friend’s adopted beautiful daughter.  Of course the usual questions came up about how we are doing and some of my best friends finally had the chance to see us for the first time in weeks.  It was good to just see them and say hello rather than talk to them on the phone.

Our life really had taken a detour.

We didn’t stay at the party long in order to conserve energy.  We both needed it as we fell asleep with afternoon naps before I had to gt up to get a long-needed haircut. 

While dinner seemed normal, it was anything but normal.  It was the first time she had made a meal in a month.  It cost her a lot of energy, but she did it (I did the dishes) and she was very happy to contribute to our daily life,  Tonight before going to bed with her normal dose of pain medication she said, “Today almost felt like a normal day”.  I couldn’t have agreed more.  I still feel like I’m tip-toeing and walking on eggshells to make sure she doesn’t get hurt or fall down, but we are slowly building back up to a comfort level.

We have three more consecutive Monday meetings with the plastic surgeon as well as our first meeting with the oncologist coming this week.  We are both a little nervous about that as we still haven’t heard how our oncotype scores have come out.

Right now the pain comes when she has been upright too long.  I don’t think this is going to change until she gets swapped out with implants.  It looks like we will be living with Vicodin and Adavan for a couple more months.  Hopefully we can both find more distractions to keep our minds busy over the next couple weeks.