Tag Archives: breast cancer

Some Mondays Don’t Go as Planned – A Loving Fight

25 Tuesday Aug 2009

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“It Ain’t Over til It’s Over” – Yogi Berra

Gifts from our UCSF Decision Services group

Gifts from our UCSF Decision Services group

As I start this entry we are waiting for the nurses as my wife waits on what we hope will be her final surgery, almost a year to the date of her original breast cancer surgery.

This summer has been a rough one with my father-in-law in the hospital on the opposite coast for 6 weeks fighting a staph infection that laid him up with severe back pains and a high fever which made him hallucinate.  Trying to entertain kids on their annul summer visit while juggling a couple hours in the hospital each day was not a fun chore for my wife.  On top of that her longtime neighbor and family friend died of lung cancer while we were visiting.  My wife loves going home to visit friends and family, but this time despite the pending birth of our new nephew, I think she was happy to get back home.  She hadn’t even gotten the chance to mention that she was about to undergo her 4th surgery in a year.

Four surgeries in a year is not a badge of honor and at the same time it is not even close to the amount of surgeries many people have gone through with breast cancer, but looking back on it I still wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  A total of 22 hours in surgeries so far and the 4th only expected to be 90 minutes and I can only imagine the toll all the anaesthesia takes on the brain.  Maybe its old age but I can already sense some memory issues with my wife.  She’s been through a lot and I have all the respect for her approach to this last one.

This morning our kids were cranky about having to get up early and were giving my wife a hard time.  It really didn’t make me feel good to have to pull each of them aside and remind them how lucky we are.  For two young kids who have had nothing but cancer and hospital visits all around them for the last two years, they instantly knew this was not the time to be acting up and realized how fortunate to have what they have.

(Move ahead 15 hours)

Well my wife had a bit of a temperature today and they didn’t want to operate on her for fear she might be getting sick and there could be a resulting infection.  They knew my wife and I would be disappointed when they broke the news.  We had waited 4 months for this date, but now have to wait more.  After such a hard morning  getting there it was a bit disheartening.  I could see my wife was bothered.  I was bothered too.  A little for me and a lot for her.  Tonight I just felt I had to apologize as I think she could tell I was not happy with the delay as well.  We just want to get all of this overwith.  One last surgery we hope.  Now the wait again.  A wait for another surgery date.

We can’t be angry though.  My wife and I tried to console each other and subtly reminded each other of how lucky we are to be where we are today.  It hasn’t been easy and this wasn’t going to end easy either.  We’d been patient this far and couldn’t take this personally.  It is so easy to lose your cool when you can taste that chance of moving to the next step.   What’s a few more months…heck we still have to wait a few more years to be considered cancer (and Tamoxifen) free.  The cancer clinic itself has been great.  Just a couple weeks ago during her pre-op appointment they gave her a framed article from the Wall St. Journal that she had helped with (she took photos with the physicians) as well as a huge bouquet of flowers.  They really care for her well-being and would rather err on the side of conservatism.  Getting to know people on a first name basis makes things so much easier on the patient.  I remember seeing them having to look at the charts to remember my wife’s diagnosis and name.  Unfortunately they know it real well now, but that sterile feeling of being “just another breast cancer statistic” is gone.  Being able to ask your sugreon about their kids and how they are liking their new school just helps to ease the tension.

On a side note, our son’s classmate’s father who was given only a few weeks at the beginning of the summer is still holding on.  He is weaker now, but he really wants to see his kids start the school year.  It will help them and I think he will make it to that goal.  It is really sad, but in a small way having their sons back in school with such a supporting community will make the eventual loss not as lonely.  Just last year this happened with another schoolmate when they lost their mother after her six year battle and the school rallied to make meals all year long.  I had a chance to see the father at the pool this summer and he said it had been a long year but it taught him about patience and forgiveness with his two young boys. They had lived with this cancer with their mother for 6 years and he said the highs and lows were rough.  This year was very numbing without her. Knowing that my wife was in a similar situation, he just put his hand on my back and let me know I could talk whenever I needed.

Yep.  Patience.  Practice before and after.  Take one step at a time. There is no rush when it comes to cancer because it is a long road.

Some Mondays Don't Go as Planned – A Loving Fight

25 Tuesday Aug 2009

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“It Ain’t Over til It’s Over” – Yogi Berra

Gifts from our UCSF Decision Services group

Gifts from our UCSF Decision Services group

As I start this entry we are waiting for the nurses as my wife waits on what we hope will be her final surgery, almost a year to the date of her original breast cancer surgery.

This summer has been a rough one with my father-in-law in the hospital on the opposite coast for 6 weeks fighting a staph infection that laid him up with severe back pains and a high fever which made him hallucinate.  Trying to entertain kids on their annul summer visit while juggling a couple hours in the hospital each day was not a fun chore for my wife.  On top of that her longtime neighbor and family friend died of lung cancer while we were visiting.  My wife loves going home to visit friends and family, but this time despite the pending birth of our new nephew, I think she was happy to get back home.  She hadn’t even gotten the chance to mention that she was about to undergo her 4th surgery in a year.

Four surgeries in a year is not a badge of honor and at the same time it is not even close to the amount of surgeries many people have gone through with breast cancer, but looking back on it I still wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  A total of 22 hours in surgeries so far and the 4th only expected to be 90 minutes and I can only imagine the toll all the anaesthesia takes on the brain.  Maybe its old age but I can already sense some memory issues with my wife.  She’s been through a lot and I have all the respect for her approach to this last one.

This morning our kids were cranky about having to get up early and were giving my wife a hard time.  It really didn’t make me feel good to have to pull each of them aside and remind them how lucky we are.  For two young kids who have had nothing but cancer and hospital visits all around them for the last two years, they instantly knew this was not the time to be acting up and realized how fortunate to have what they have.

(Move ahead 15 hours)

Well my wife had a bit of a temperature today and they didn’t want to operate on her for fear she might be getting sick and there could be a resulting infection.  They knew my wife and I would be disappointed when they broke the news.  We had waited 4 months for this date, but now have to wait more.  After such a hard morning  getting there it was a bit disheartening.  I could see my wife was bothered.  I was bothered too.  A little for me and a lot for her.  Tonight I just felt I had to apologize as I think she could tell I was not happy with the delay as well.  We just want to get all of this overwith.  One last surgery we hope.  Now the wait again.  A wait for another surgery date.

We can’t be angry though.  My wife and I tried to console each other and subtly reminded each other of how lucky we are to be where we are today.  It hasn’t been easy and this wasn’t going to end easy either.  We’d been patient this far and couldn’t take this personally.  It is so easy to lose your cool when you can taste that chance of moving to the next step.   What’s a few more months…heck we still have to wait a few more years to be considered cancer (and Tamoxifen) free.  The cancer clinic itself has been great.  Just a couple weeks ago during her pre-op appointment they gave her a framed article from the Wall St. Journal that she had helped with (she took photos with the physicians) as well as a huge bouquet of flowers.  They really care for her well-being and would rather err on the side of conservatism.  Getting to know people on a first name basis makes things so much easier on the patient.  I remember seeing them having to look at the charts to remember my wife’s diagnosis and name.  Unfortunately they know it real well now, but that sterile feeling of being “just another breast cancer statistic” is gone.  Being able to ask your sugreon about their kids and how they are liking their new school just helps to ease the tension.

On a side note, our son’s classmate’s father who was given only a few weeks at the beginning of the summer is still holding on.  He is weaker now, but he really wants to see his kids start the school year.  It will help them and I think he will make it to that goal.  It is really sad, but in a small way having their sons back in school with such a supporting community will make the eventual loss not as lonely.  Just last year this happened with another schoolmate when they lost their mother after her six year battle and the school rallied to make meals all year long.  I had a chance to see the father at the pool this summer and he said it had been a long year but it taught him about patience and forgiveness with his two young boys. They had lived with this cancer with their mother for 6 years and he said the highs and lows were rough.  This year was very numbing without her. Knowing that my wife was in a similar situation, he just put his hand on my back and let me know I could talk whenever I needed.

Yep.  Patience.  Practice before and after.  Take one step at a time. There is no rush when it comes to cancer because it is a long road.

Shared Decision Making for Breast Cancer Patients

04 Tuesday Aug 2009

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Patient Doctor Consultation with Decision Services Representative on hand

Patient Doctor Consultation with Decision Services Representative on hand

In today’s Wall St. Journal there is an article on the Decision Services offered at my wife’s breast cancer clinic, the Carol Franc Buck Breast Cancer Center at UCSF: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203674704574328570637446770.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Decision Services is a great resource when you are overwhelmed with all the information and emotions when first diagnosed. At the time I thought nothing of the services. Now that I look back on it, the resources and advice for helping to manage our experience were invaluable:

– My wife and I watched many DVDs, pamphlets and other articles together,
– Prepared countless questions for our visits
– Reviewed stats together
– Went over online research made available to us
– Reviewed our notes of our meetings and prepared follow up questions

In this information age, services like this are so important to have. Patients have so many questions and thoughts running through their head that they sometimes miss what is being said to them, forget to ask the questions that they wanted to ask and feel frustrated and left out. Many times my wife would hear one thing and I would hear another. We’d just review the notes taken by the notetaker and we’d have our discussion resolved. I could even use this in my everyday life.

The service provided interns who took great notes during our visits before, during and after our visits to make sure we understood everything that was said in our visits and to help us get more informed answers from my wife’s doctors. We often submitted laundry lists of questions before each visit and they were prepared with their answers before we came in for each appointment. We all know how we forget what they tell us during those visits because we are so worried, but they provided great notes from our appointments.

Yes, that is my wife featured in the article’s photos.

As we reach the aage of health reform in the US, services like these will become more invaluable as we help put some control back in the care of the patients. There are many early adopters of such services such as the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, The Wellness Community, the Mendocino Cancer Resource Center, Breast Cancer Connections, the Humboldt Community Breast Health Project, and (abroad) the Edinburgh Cancer Centre.

The entire team at the Breast Care Center, led by Laura Esserman, is blazing new trails in health care. Check out https://www.breastcancertrials.org/bct_nation/home.seam and http://www.athenacarenetwork.org/ for other innovations from this group!

UCSF Breast Cancer Videos

27 Monday Jul 2009

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Both my wife’s surgeon, Dr. Shelley Hwang, and her oncologist, Dr. Hope Rugo, are part of the team at UCSF’s Carol Franc Buck Cancer Clinic in San Francisco and have put together a series of videos (Dr. Rugo is also part of Breast Cancer.org’s panel of Medical Experts). The videos are reflective of the care my wife is receiving.

The videos discuss bisphosphonates, Tamoxifen, AI, OS, and DCIS research as well as alternative approaches to care for those who have discovered DCIS.

They are both very interesting or at least can help you in your dialogue with your physician or even your spouse. Sometimes it is hard to communicate to others what is going on and I know I personally found these easier to digest than having an emotional discussion with my own wife and physicians.

One thing you will notice about the demeanor of both physicians is their sense of community with the patient as well as their keen sense for wanting to find both the causes and the cures for this disease. It is my hope they will not only uncover many of the keys to solving breast cancer, but other cancers as well.

– Shelley Hwang on DCIS

– Hope Rugo on New Frontier of Hormone Therapy

Don’t Blink – A Year With Cancer

21 Tuesday Jul 2009

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So I’ve been tryin’ ta slow it down
I’ve been tryin’ ta take it in
In this here today, gone tomorrow world we’re livin’ in

– Kenny Chesney’s Don’t Blink

  A year has now passed since that day I walked in and found my wife sitting at the kitchen table and she calmly told me that her doctor had found a lump.  You would think that will all of this upheaval that this is the year that could have seemed like it would have taken forever but it hasn’t.  While it has been filled with surgeries and hardships, we’ve tried to fill it with other events and highlights to mix it up.  The journey was tough but before we knew it we were through a surgery, on to recovery, back in to surgery, more recovery, etc.  Three surgeries later and we still have at least one more, but we are moving on.

  It is hard to move on though, because we have to respect where we’ve been.    As part of our 15th anniversary, we spent some time away and took the time to reflect on the past year.  You’d think that in a lifetime that this would be a throwaway year and one that you would want to chalk up as one you sweep under the rug and forget, but we agreed that our love grew for each other and our respect for each other and for ourselves grew as well.  When your relationship takes a step forward you don’t throw out that year.  So while in some ways the scars are still fresh and the dull aches are right there to remind us of what we’ve been through, the year has gone by some immensely fast.  We’ve actually have done quite a lot and accomplshed quite a bit.  I think it is because we didn’t procrastinate and sweat the little things.  We just went for it even if we had to stretch a little further to get there.  That said, time might have flown but we must have aged somehow.

  I had to laugh this morning when I went to grab one of those Sunday-Saturday pill boxes to take a Centrum cardio pill.  My wife told me I was grabbing the wrong one.  I was grabbing the PM pill box and not the AM box.   Last year we had no pill boxes and now we have one for AM and for PM!  We sure get old and become our parents in a hurry!   We had just had this conversation with some old classmates at a 30 year grammar school reunion.  We were all complaining of aches and pains (everyone looked pretty good quite frankly)  and it turns out several of my classmates also had gone through breast cancer recently.  At the same time several others were now in their early forties and still having babies.  Amazing.  early 40s is not too young to be having breast cancer and still not too old to be having babies.  Makes you scratch your head.  

  Meanwhile the beat goes on.  My wife is prepping for another follow up surgery at the end of the summer yet stiill undergoing her monthly examinations and her clinical trial.  They found some small indications of early osteoperosis but luckily her clinical trial has her taking medication to increase bone density.  This is so crazy what they can find these days.

  Speaking of aging I spoke with Dr. Ken Dychtwald, the reknowned gerontologist, today.  We were talking about the recent rash of celebrity deaths and he reminded me that in previous generations these people would have died 15-20 years earlier but with the extended lifespan we are all enjoying through the miracles of modern medicine and science that instead of deaths happening ‘in threes” we will be seeing deaths in larger groups. “There are just simply going to be more people dying every day,”  he said.  I nodded and he smiled and continued, “That is why we live life harder every day.  The secret to living longer is to live happier!”  That coming from a man who gets remarried to his wife every year. to renew his vows.

Don't Blink – A Year With Cancer

21 Tuesday Jul 2009

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So I’ve been tryin’ ta slow it down
I’ve been tryin’ ta take it in
In this here today, gone tomorrow world we’re livin’ in

– Kenny Chesney’s Don’t Blink

  A year has now passed since that day I walked in and found my wife sitting at the kitchen table and she calmly told me that her doctor had found a lump.  You would think that will all of this upheaval that this is the year that could have seemed like it would have taken forever but it hasn’t.  While it has been filled with surgeries and hardships, we’ve tried to fill it with other events and highlights to mix it up.  The journey was tough but before we knew it we were through a surgery, on to recovery, back in to surgery, more recovery, etc.  Three surgeries later and we still have at least one more, but we are moving on.

  It is hard to move on though, because we have to respect where we’ve been.    As part of our 15th anniversary, we spent some time away and took the time to reflect on the past year.  You’d think that in a lifetime that this would be a throwaway year and one that you would want to chalk up as one you sweep under the rug and forget, but we agreed that our love grew for each other and our respect for each other and for ourselves grew as well.  When your relationship takes a step forward you don’t throw out that year.  So while in some ways the scars are still fresh and the dull aches are right there to remind us of what we’ve been through, the year has gone by some immensely fast.  We’ve actually have done quite a lot and accomplshed quite a bit.  I think it is because we didn’t procrastinate and sweat the little things.  We just went for it even if we had to stretch a little further to get there.  That said, time might have flown but we must have aged somehow.

  I had to laugh this morning when I went to grab one of those Sunday-Saturday pill boxes to take a Centrum cardio pill.  My wife told me I was grabbing the wrong one.  I was grabbing the PM pill box and not the AM box.   Last year we had no pill boxes and now we have one for AM and for PM!  We sure get old and become our parents in a hurry!   We had just had this conversation with some old classmates at a 30 year grammar school reunion.  We were all complaining of aches and pains (everyone looked pretty good quite frankly)  and it turns out several of my classmates also had gone through breast cancer recently.  At the same time several others were now in their early forties and still having babies.  Amazing.  early 40s is not too young to be having breast cancer and still not too old to be having babies.  Makes you scratch your head.  

  Meanwhile the beat goes on.  My wife is prepping for another follow up surgery at the end of the summer yet stiill undergoing her monthly examinations and her clinical trial.  They found some small indications of early osteoperosis but luckily her clinical trial has her taking medication to increase bone density.  This is so crazy what they can find these days.

  Speaking of aging I spoke with Dr. Ken Dychtwald, the reknowned gerontologist, today.  We were talking about the recent rash of celebrity deaths and he reminded me that in previous generations these people would have died 15-20 years earlier but with the extended lifespan we are all enjoying through the miracles of modern medicine and science that instead of deaths happening ‘in threes” we will be seeing deaths in larger groups. “There are just simply going to be more people dying every day,”  he said.  I nodded and he smiled and continued, “That is why we live life harder every day.  The secret to living longer is to live happier!”  That coming from a man who gets remarried to his wife every year. to renew his vows.

The Spring Fix and Clean

29 Friday May 2009

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 April is a promise that May is bound to keep.  ~Hal Borland

The other day I received a nice thank your from the representatives of Phil & Amy Mickelson’s Foundation in response to my letter about dealing with breast cancer in a family with young children.  It really did put a little spring in my step.

I was spurred to write that note to one of my favorite golfers when I read about the hard time that he was having dealing with the thought that his wife was suffering at home and he was in a sport where he was traveling away from his family.  He was tormented and reacting on instinct.  I just thought he needed to know about some of the resources available to husbands of breast cancer sufferers and I’m glad I reached out.

Phil is one of those husbands who give men a good name.  When it comes to breast cancer, let’s face it, men just have a rotten name.  It isn’t that they don’t deserve it.  Some men have just not “done the right thing” by not being understanding, leaving their wives at a hard time, or just running from it al .  And those few men have made it hard for men to be understood.  The emotions flow and rage enters the picture.  I totally understand and empathize with these women and also with their husbands at the same time.  I guess that is because I know where both sides are coming from.  These women think their husbands might be insensitive or not understanding, but there really is some “reasoning” for some of the behavior.

Recently I got into a discussion with some women online after a woman’s husband was insensitive.  At first I read about it and thought, “here we go again, another man ruining the name of husband”.  Then I said to myself…wait, I’m not much better.  That could very well have been my own wife complaining about me.

Cancer is a tough ordeal.  For a man who has to watch his wife suffer with breast cancer, there is no greater feeling of helplessness.  We’re men.  We like to fix things and there is nothing more that we want to fix is the broken pieces of the only woman in our lives that means more to us than our own mother.  For me, the drains, the blood and the visits to the doctors (things I was not comfortable with) were just part of the healing process.   Most men don’t want to talk about their fears and especially with their own wives who don’t need to hear from their husband about how scared they are when right now they might need a rock or a sounding board and not a whimpering husband.  Heck, they’ve got cancer, not us!  When we aren’t that rock or sounding board though, then we get that bad rep.  Quite frankly I think my wife got tired of all that smothering.  She didn’t want to be thought of as sick and my fawning all over her just reminded her of her illness.

The monthly doctor appointments are continuing shots and side effects of her cancer trial drugs have become a normal part of life that get acknowledged quickly before we go to bed at night. 

“How did it go?”

“Okay, I only waited for 45 minutes.  The shot was easier this time.”

“Great. Good night.’

It really has become casual in conversation because of her desire to ease my burden and not have my attention focused on her.  Similarly I have to pay extra special attention to let her know that I do know she isn’t out of the woods.  She needs to know that if she wants that attention, I will give it to her.

So back to the discussion, the husband was asked by a wife about what her thought of her recent construction.  The husband was pretty dismissive and understandably the wife was a bit upset.  At first I wanted to jump on that bandwagon of saying what a jerk the husband was.  Now I love my wife and “not just her breasts”.  They has always been an asset for her before cancer and she’s been always conscientious about their appearance, but I do find myself trying to remind her that I don’t mind her focusing on them health-wise, but it is heremotional well-being that I care about more.  So in my case when asked about her scars and if the neckline on her dress is too low and her scars show, I do want to tell her she looks beautiful, but a woman knows her husband and what he feels just by looking in his eyes.  She knows that I know they look and feel different.  A woman after reconstruction knows that a husband might not look at her bare breasts the same way (better or worse in appearance), but I know for me it was her eyes, her mind, and other parts of her which remained untouched…or maybe untouched by human hands but they are still the same ones that were part of her when we got married.  I will at some point look at her reconstruction as part of her and without hesitation.

Just like your scars, it takes time to heal and feel comfortable again for you to discuss them with your husband.  Actually, while I don’t mind discussing with my wife about the cancer, I just don’t want her to focus on the appearance of her new breasts.  I do want her to be happy with them, but I don’t want to obsess about them.  My wife would rather me tell her how beautiful she looks in her new dress without prompting than to have a 20 minute discussion on if her scars are fading, if I see rippling, or other imperfections.  I’ve had those discussions and while productive, the conversation did not seem natural (no pun intended).

The reconstruction part of cancer recovery really does belong in the domain of the woman.  I didn’t want to look like one of those husbands who “shaped his wife’s looks”. In the end I took my wife “for better or for worse”.  My wife chose her option and I am happy with it as long as she is happy with it. As I look at it, as husbands we have no choice in what your original breasts looked like, we have no choice in marrying women who were stricken with breast cancer, and we should not be a major contributor in deciding what your new body should look like.  What we do have a choice in is being sensitive to our wife’s emotional  feelings and we do have a choice to love them unconditionally.

I mentioned that human hands did not touch my wife’s eyes, mind and spirit, but they have changed through cancer too.  She is more proud and confident of where she is because of what she has been through.  I find her strength to be the biggest turn on.  It makes her more beautiful than ever.

Last weekend was the unofficialbeginning of Summer with MemorialDay and we took that time for the whole family to clean the house and continue with our post-cancer journey.  We threw out the old cancer information pamphlets, the left over get well cards, the sample drain pump and the tons of bedside reading material that was accumulated.  We’re all moving on.  We’re cleaning those cupboards.  We’re fixing our lives and coming on stronger than ever.

A Very Special Mother's Day

10 Sunday May 2009

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A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.  ~Honoré de Balzac

This Morning's Flowers for Mom

This Morning's Flowers for Mom

Today is obviously a more special Mother’s Day than any other for me.  Even though I am so happy that I get to celebrate Mother’s Day with my own mother, I am even more grateful that my children get to spend it this year with their mother and for many years to come.  Although they probably didn’t the magnitude of how special it was and how we were staring straight into the possibility that this Mother’s Day could have been one without a mom or one with a bit more urgency than we had today, it was not lost on me.

As we got up at 6 am this morning to get breakfast and flowers while their mother slept in, it was nice to spend some time with the kids and ask them what they appreciated about their mother.  Here is a lst from a 7 and a 9 year old in no particular order:

  • She’s a good cook
  • She smells nice
  • She drives us wherever we want to go
  • She plays games with us
  • She let’s us have play dates
  • She’s smart
  • She’s nice
  • She’s pretty
  • She let’s me paint my toenails (daughter)
  • She helps us with our homework
  • She kisses us and tucks us in for bed

They didn’t say it directly, but I knew what they were thinking.  They said that it would be sad though for some schoolmates who did lose their mother to breast cancer this year.  After they said that, there was silence in the car and when we got back home they each made an additional card for their mother before she woke up.  The hugs around the breakfast table seemed more meaningful and sincere that the daily ones and for that I am so appreciative of the moments we still have together.

Last night we had a rare chance for one of our date nights.  Dinner and a movie seems so simple but I can’t remember the last time we held hands all movie long.  Dinner was filled with pleasant conversation especially over the relief that our son had played a decent baseball game.  She had hugged our son, wished him good luck and accidentally told him to get some hits for mommy before his Little League game.  As soon as she said that she looked at me with the horror of putting pressure on her son.  Fortunately he came through and had a couple of hits on his best day ever in baseball.  He was so excited to come home and tell his mother that he got two hits.  The smile on his dirt covered face not only made her laugh but was a big relief.  Some day he’ll probably tell us it was no big deal, but we were hoping he wouldn’t put any pressure on himself.

Tonight we’ll spend part of another Mother’s Day with my mother.  Although the appreciation of still spending that extra time with her had somewhat dissipated each year beyond her battle with cancer, this year it has been renewed.  Since my father’s passing she has visibly taken on much of his persona as well.   She’s adopted his adventuresome attitude and more than anything become not just a loving mother that she already was, but a thoughtful icon for me and my siblings to come to in times when we aren’t quite sure about what is right or wrong and reminds us of what our father would want us to do.  I can see in her latter years that she more than anything wants her children to spend more time together and makes a strong effort to make that happen on a daily basis.

Mother’s Day has become more than that Hallmark Holiday. It is also now a call to awareness to the plight of mothers and their battle with Breast Cancer.  I am glad that even baseball has really taken the time to appreciate mothers and use Mother’s Day to bring awareness to Breast Cancer Research.  Watching major league baseball players use pink bats and wear pink wristbands tells you that it isn’t just the days of playing catch between a father and son that forms the foundation of future baseball players but also those mothers who drive their sons and daughters from field to field three days a week.

While my wife and daughter celebrated with a spa day, I took my son to play 9 holes of golf and were paired up with a 30ish son and his dad. You never know why people are out at a golf course on Mother’s Day without their moms on Mother’s Day.  The two men played in silence, but idle chit chat revelaed that they were native San Franciscans and were all aums of the same high school.  As it turns out they had recently lost their mom/wife to breast cancer.  It was a tough day for them and they were honoring her memory on this day.  My son did not hear the conversation, but it really cast more light on the specialness of the day. 

I smile as I look back at this entry because all I’d want for Father’s Day is a nice round of golf myself ….. At the same time, I want to say how much I appreciate all those moms out there for how much they do for their children whther they are 4 or 40.  And for those who have lost their moms or have moms or relatives who are sick, please enjoy what you have and savor it.

A Very Special Mother’s Day

10 Sunday May 2009

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A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.  ~Honoré de Balzac

This Morning's Flowers for Mom

This Morning's Flowers for Mom

Today is obviously a more special Mother’s Day than any other for me.  Even though I am so happy that I get to celebrate Mother’s Day with my own mother, I am even more grateful that my children get to spend it this year with their mother and for many years to come.  Although they probably didn’t the magnitude of how special it was and how we were staring straight into the possibility that this Mother’s Day could have been one without a mom or one with a bit more urgency than we had today, it was not lost on me.

As we got up at 6 am this morning to get breakfast and flowers while their mother slept in, it was nice to spend some time with the kids and ask them what they appreciated about their mother.  Here is a lst from a 7 and a 9 year old in no particular order:

  • She’s a good cook
  • She smells nice
  • She drives us wherever we want to go
  • She plays games with us
  • She let’s us have play dates
  • She’s smart
  • She’s nice
  • She’s pretty
  • She let’s me paint my toenails (daughter)
  • She helps us with our homework
  • She kisses us and tucks us in for bed

They didn’t say it directly, but I knew what they were thinking.  They said that it would be sad though for some schoolmates who did lose their mother to breast cancer this year.  After they said that, there was silence in the car and when we got back home they each made an additional card for their mother before she woke up.  The hugs around the breakfast table seemed more meaningful and sincere that the daily ones and for that I am so appreciative of the moments we still have together.

Last night we had a rare chance for one of our date nights.  Dinner and a movie seems so simple but I can’t remember the last time we held hands all movie long.  Dinner was filled with pleasant conversation especially over the relief that our son had played a decent baseball game.  She had hugged our son, wished him good luck and accidentally told him to get some hits for mommy before his Little League game.  As soon as she said that she looked at me with the horror of putting pressure on her son.  Fortunately he came through and had a couple of hits on his best day ever in baseball.  He was so excited to come home and tell his mother that he got two hits.  The smile on his dirt covered face not only made her laugh but was a big relief.  Some day he’ll probably tell us it was no big deal, but we were hoping he wouldn’t put any pressure on himself.

Tonight we’ll spend part of another Mother’s Day with my mother.  Although the appreciation of still spending that extra time with her had somewhat dissipated each year beyond her battle with cancer, this year it has been renewed.  Since my father’s passing she has visibly taken on much of his persona as well.   She’s adopted his adventuresome attitude and more than anything become not just a loving mother that she already was, but a thoughtful icon for me and my siblings to come to in times when we aren’t quite sure about what is right or wrong and reminds us of what our father would want us to do.  I can see in her latter years that she more than anything wants her children to spend more time together and makes a strong effort to make that happen on a daily basis.

Mother’s Day has become more than that Hallmark Holiday. It is also now a call to awareness to the plight of mothers and their battle with Breast Cancer.  I am glad that even baseball has really taken the time to appreciate mothers and use Mother’s Day to bring awareness to Breast Cancer Research.  Watching major league baseball players use pink bats and wear pink wristbands tells you that it isn’t just the days of playing catch between a father and son that forms the foundation of future baseball players but also those mothers who drive their sons and daughters from field to field three days a week.

While my wife and daughter celebrated with a spa day, I took my son to play 9 holes of golf and were paired up with a 30ish son and his dad. You never know why people are out at a golf course on Mother’s Day without their moms on Mother’s Day.  The two men played in silence, but idle chit chat revelaed that they were native San Franciscans and were all aums of the same high school.  As it turns out they had recently lost their mom/wife to breast cancer.  It was a tough day for them and they were honoring her memory on this day.  My son did not hear the conversation, but it really cast more light on the specialness of the day. 

I smile as I look back at this entry because all I’d want for Father’s Day is a nice round of golf myself ….. At the same time, I want to say how much I appreciate all those moms out there for how much they do for their children whther they are 4 or 40.  And for those who have lost their moms or have moms or relatives who are sick, please enjoy what you have and savor it.

Opening Day – A Field of Memories

08 Wednesday Apr 2009

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I love Opening Day. …It’s just a special day in our American culture. It’s weaved into the fabric of what we are, and I think it’s a great day. – Padres manager Bud Black

Opening Day 2009

Opening Day 2009

I’m not a poet so maybe I never understood TS Eliot’s poem, The Wasteland, when he says that April is the cruelest month.  It has always been one of the liveliest months for me.

Yesterday was Opening Day in San Francisco.  San Francisco is not a sports crazy town and I didn’t grow up in a family where baseball and professional sports were considered anything but one of the many choices of entertainment.  That said, I cherished those days when I got to go see a baseball game, a football game, etc.  Moreso, I really enjoyed sharing the time and history with those I love.  I remember the many games I saw at Candlestick Park with my dad (mostly football games during the 49er dynasty).  In fact I remember having to look through binoculars to see everything and that is how my dad noticed I needed glasses.

They say Football is America’s Passion and Baseball is America’s Pasttime.  I don’t know if my dad knew that those moments he spent with me on those cold windy nights (at the ‘Stick) were making such an impression on me.  They were times where I sat there with my dad and talked between pitches and your dad casually passed on his knowledge of baseball and life in general (along with the hot dog, peanuts, popcorn and watered down hot chocolate).  I don’t remember what we talked about, but it was about laughing and cheering for a cause and just sitting next to each other shelling peanuts for 3 hours.  Going to those games with my dad stopped in my teens as my dad spent more time working to pay for our education and to enjoy his time on the golf course.  Maybe he didn’t enjoy it as a dad, or life did get that busy.

When I got older and San Francisco opened what is now called “AT&T Park” (formerly Pac Bell and SBC and more affectionately, “the Phone Booth”) , I bought a couple tickets and was able to share “Opening Day”.  I think it was the 2 years I spent in Chicago where the nostalgia really started coming to me and made me not just love the game on the field but everything that surrounds it.  As I mentioned in a previous entry, I had the chance to take my dad to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs on a warm Summer day, share in a Giants victory, and help the Cubs fans drown their sorrow at Murphy’s Bleachers in a plastic cup of Old Style before showing my dad some of the better watering holes and blues clubs that Chicago had to offer.  Although by this time I was well into my 20s, it was the first time I felt like I was able to relate to my dad on an adult to adult relationship.  I was well free of his financial backing, we talked about my pending marriage, my future, our family, and of course baseball.  It was the beginning of a new course in our relationship , the adult-adult rather than the parent-child relationship, and from there I knew that baseball was more than just a game for me.

I have to give credit to the minister who did my pre-marital testing with the recommendations for the adult-adult relationship suggestion.  He was very adamant that my wife start establishing that relationship with her parents as he could see that it would be a harder struggle for them to “let go”. Truth is, that it is harder to gain that respect of a parent.  15 years later, my wife still goes through that struggle.  Ironically, yesterday my wife was handed a book by a family friend who heard about my wife’s illness.  It is amazing how the “sisterhood” finds each other.  The book is called “The Middle Place”.  more appropriately it talks about the sandwich generation we are in where we are now adults looking after our sick parents, our children and ourselves and the author comes to realize she is no longer her dad’s little girl as she deals with her diagnosis of breast cancer.  My wife read the cover and said she wasn’t sure if she could read it and I offered to read it for her, but told her it is something she will have to read because she needs this example.  Another example of an adult-adult relationship – and defintiely very relevant.  I know my wife doesn’t want to listen to me about this subject so I’ll sit tight.

Back to the subject of Opening Day, since the park had opened in 2000 I have been able to share the festivities with some of  the more important people in my life on a one-on one basis (My dad, my mom, my brother, my wife, my best friend, my daughter, and my son).  There is nothing like it.  The pomp and circumstance, the hopes, the memories, the patriotism can be quite overwhelming. So on this Opening Day, it was a little different as I missed it for the first time in 9 years, as I listened in my office. My office though is located only blocks from the ballpark so at lunch I wandered over, grabbed a hot dog and a soda and watched through the “Archways” in right field.  A great feature of the park is that for FREE you can watch the game from behind the righfielder.  It is the best way to catch a Big League Opening Day in this economy.  I stared across the way between  innings to where I shared so many memories with my dad and others I’ve attended games with.  Its not just the Opening Days but the hundreds of other games and conversations.

The walk back to my office was one of solitude.  I had gotten my fill (yes the Giants won), but more importantly I had taken the people I cared for ( not physically) to the game with me and I shared those conversations again.  It hadn’t been my intention to reminisce, but it just happened in the moment.  Perhaps it was the text I got on the way to the game  from my mom about her friend, “Mrs. E”, who had passed.   “Mrs. E” had her own connection to me with baseball.  Back in high school she picked me, this gawky geeky kid to entertain her granddaughter who was visiting from Kansas.  She told me not to do anything “romantic” and that the girl’s dad was the police chief in their small town.  Well 9 innings later we were dating and I was scared sh–less about the midwestern Sheriff who was going to kill me for corrupting his daughter.  Truth be told I think she corrupted me but I can’t remember.  What I do remember though is telling her about the art of hitting a baseball and showing her the smooth swing of Will Clark as she grabbed and held my hand.  Amazingly she got what I was saying, or at least she pretended to. From there I knew I had to marry a girl who could hang with me at a baseball game.

Yes baseball and life have a fabric that is woven tightly in the American hearts of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and friends.  I grew up on baseball and baseball grew up in me.  While a full-blown adult, I can still go to the game like a kid and imagine I’m there with my dad or sit with my son next to me and my daughter on my lap and teach them about how to appreciate the game of baseball (because it is about appreciating life as well).