Wordless Wednesday: The Corn Maze

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She kicks ass.

I got to see S yesterday.

J had made a moroccan lentil soup (yes, J made it. My husband is a fantastic cook, among other things. Another post for another day!) the other night, and we froze it.

So yesterday I took some time and drove it down to her house. One of her friends had set up a cooler near the back of the house so that we could leave food for her, so I assumed I would just leave the food and head back.

But she saw my car, and she came out, calling my name, and asking “what the hell are you DOING here?”

And we hugged, and then chatted.

She wants to FIGHT it. The doctor who told her that there was nothing they could do right now, that they would save the chemo and surgery for later, when her insides were peppered with tumors? She told me she wanted to PUNCH the woman. Because all she heard was “studies” and “statistics.”

The doctor didn’t once consider her as a person, she said. And she doesn’t want to walk down a path of protocols for this type of person. She wants a doctor who believes in her. That she can BEAT it.

So she’s going for more opinions. The way it seems right now is that she’s choosing between being really aggressive and potentially beating it, versus accepting that her cancer is chronic and likely terminal.

She keeps thinking that SOMEONE needs to beat the odds. People do it every day. Why NOT her?

And she said, “I have no room in my life for chronic cancer. I have a family to raise.”

I came away heartened. And so very inspired by her.

And I TOLD her that I believe in her. And I will continue believing in her.

And I will tell her continuously that she can do this. Because she feeds off hope, and she DESERVES to hope. She’s got too much to live for.

And if anyone can beat this, my friend S can.

Guilty.

I’ve barely been able to breathe since I read the update email about my friend S.

I’m terrified for her.

I can’t believe that we’re not too young to be touched by this sort of thing.

I’m so, so sad for her husband and little girls.

I selfishly don’t want to lose someone I love.

But mostly, I feel guilty.

Because she’s SO important to me.

But in the past year or so, we’ve drifted apart. For no reason, really. We used to live in the same house with them, used to have dinners and parties and watch football and baseball and go camping together.

But now we’re both working moms, and we live an hour apart. And it’s so hard to keep up, and make plans. And now that we need to keep some semblance of a schedule with O’s naps, and she has two kids in the same situation, we can only snatch time in a couple of hour blocks here and there.

And over the past month – before her husband called to tell us the news – I have thought about her SO MANY TIMES. But have never called because, you know, it’s always the wrong time. On my way home from work right smack in the middle of dinnertime. And it didn’t REALLY matter, because we would see them Columbus Day weekend, when we make our annual trip with them and another couple to New Hampshire.

Always, ALWAYS, my friends have been important enough to me that I spend TIME on keeping in touch. And I can make every excuse in the world on how hard it is to keep this up with a child, yada yada.

Truthfully, I always thought that we had TIME to catch up. That it wasn’t awful that we went a couple of months without talking; we could pick right up where we left off.

Because we still had years together. Where we’d go on camping trips when our kids were old enough to ride their bikes down to the pond to fish. And we could sit by the fire with our beer and have great conversation.

But she’s on borrowed time. I have no idea how much time we have together. And I’m sure all her other friends and family are thinking the same thing, too.

So why does it take news like THIS for me to remind myself that my friends are this important?

Terminal fucking cancer. And I want to show her somehow just how much she means to me. Is it for ME, or for her? I don’t know.

All I know is that I feel helpless, and I want to DO something. Anything. To help.

So next weekend I’m running the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure with my good friend D (who has graciously agreed to run a freaking 5k with me when she’s in town for a visit. Seriously, how awesome is SHE?). I’ve pledged to raise money for research (and if you interested in donating email me at serenitynowinfertile at gmail dot com and I can direct you to my site).

We made them one of our favorite soup recipes yesterday and froze it, and I’ll drive it down to their house today.

Feels like such stupid piddly little things, but it’s not nothing, I suppose.

I think it’s going to take me longer to get over the guilt of not being a better friend before now, that’s all.

Impotent.

I was going to tell you about our vacation last week. How well O did with his grandparents. How rested and awesome I feel.

But I just got an email this morning with an update.

My girlfriend S is dying.

Her cancer has spread. Not just the breast. It’s moved to her liver. And changed – not the same cancer as the tumor in her breast.

The doctors have told her that it’s “chronic” now and likely incurable. That no matter what course of treatment she does, the cancer will be there, in her body.

The goal now is to prolong her life as much as possible with other courses of treatment. Hormone therapy to shrink the tumors and keep them from recurring.

To keep the cancer at bay as long as possible.

They’re not talking about survival rates anymore. Now it’s survival TIME.

I don’t know what to do. How to process. How to help her. What to say. What to think. What to do.

Aw shit.

I have a good friend S. She’s awesome. She needed IVF to conceive her second daughter, and though she didn’t always say the right thing when we were struggling, she kept calling me. And checking in. And telling me that I was going to be a parent someday.

He husband called tonight. And told us that last week she found a lump in her breast.

And that they just found out that it is cancer.

And she will not only have a lumpectomy, but perhaps a mastectomy.

And she starts chemotherapy this month.

I’m absolutely gutted. For them, for her two young daughters, for the babies she wanted to have.

And now won’t, since chemo will fry what’s left of her eggs.

And I’m scared for them. For the journey she’s about to embark upon.

Please keep them in your thoughts.

Wordless Wednesday: Starfish.

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(Re) Defining a Good Weekend.

3pm, Sunday afternoon.

House is CHAOS.

Groceries on the kitchen table.

Dishes in the sink.

Toys strewn over the floor.

Laundry piled in the bathroom.

J is outside, FINALLY attacking the shin-length grass with the mower.

O is asleep.

I am sorting through pictures to upload on our website.

Of the Children’s Museum we visited yesterday. Where O ran around and touched everything. And pushed buttons. And turned wheels. And opened boxes. And tasted (gross!) dinosaur bones. And ate lunch on a bench, watching a churning river. And played with Baby B.

Where J and O BOTH took naps when we got home, and Serenity got online and caught up on blogs, and played mindless face.book games, and RELAXED. Where she was so RELAXED that she went to bed at 8:30 last night.

And of the beach we visited this morning. Where O ran headlong into the waves this time. Where, even though he had a cold and we had no change of clothing for him (towels and diapers thank goodness!) J waded into the water with him. Where he giggled and giggled at the waves when the tide was coming in. Where he carried with him a piece of driftwood and used it to dig in the sand.

Where we came home and played in the pool after lunch, even though O was tired and fussy and starting to get a little feverish.

So.

Yeah. It’s going to be some work to clean up and then prepare for the week ahead. So it did take me a full two hours to get through the kitchen and prepare lunches and run laundry and fold laundry and clean the toys and clothes. And I’ve JUST now showered.

But.

It’s been a fantastic weekend.

Why I love my husband.

[a couple of days ago]

Me: “I’m sick of my hair. It’s too long. I made an appointment to get it cut on Saturday morning… hope you don’t mind if I cut it all off.”

Him: “What, like Sinead it? Shave it all? I like short. But I’m not sure I want yours to be shorter than mine.”

Me: “No. I’m just going to have her cut it so it’s off the back of my neck.”

Him: “Mmmm. I like it. Go for it.”

[This morning, when he left to take O to the grocery store...]

Him: “Don’t chicken out!”

Vacation SHOULD be a four letter word.

Thank FREAKING GAWD we’re home.

Seriously.

Actually, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated.

First topic: SIL. I always feel bad bitching about my SIL when I spend more than an afternoon with her because she’s actually pretty NICE. I enjoyed the mom talk with her. I never felt excluded. We shared tips and kid food and both of us watched our kids play and I never once felt like we were playing the mommy competition. It was really nice, actually.

Bane of my existence for the week?

Sleep.

I know that change in routine is tough for toddlers. And O is NOT a sleeper, not even close, since we’re still working with him on the overnights. So that first night, when we got there, we made sure we stayed the course with O. We did our normal routine – milk, then a book, then his bink and blanket. And we put him to sleep in the separate downstairs room. He slept pretty well – was up early when my FIL and J went fishing, but didn’t do too poorly, even with the new place.

When my SIL and nephew got there on Sunday, though? That’s when all hell broke loose.

We put the boys down to sleep together. I knew when my SIL suggested it that it probably wouldn’t be that good of an idea. But I figured we should at least try. Because there really wasn’t another bedroom that either one of the boys could sleep in. Because the alternative was that they’d have to sleep in our rooms instead.

They went down VERY easily, which surprised all of us. And I expected that at 4, when the guys got up to fish, O would wake D up because he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep.

I didn’t anticipate him waking everyone up at 11:30. And then when I went downstairs to try and get him to sleep again, D woke up and absolutely lost it. Because I wasn’t his mommy and it was the middle of the night. Poor kid.

Abort. While K soothed D back to sleep, J brought the pack and play upstairs to our room.

And thus began THE.LONGEST.NIGHT of my life.

Because we had changed things up in the middle of the night. Because O was now in OUR room, with both of us. Because everyone else in the house went back to sleep. He was up for FOUR FULL HOURS. He’d cry when we put him in the pack and play. If we ignored him he’d drop both his bink and his bear onto the floor and then YELL. We did try the cosleeping thing, but the bed was too irresistable for him to resist playing with – was a giant playground. The hours ticked by, and O was no closer to sleep. Finally, at 2:30am, in desperation, I threw on my jeans and took O for a long car ride, telling J that he should at least get SOME sleep before he was supposed to go out fishing.

We drove until 4am, when my eyes couldn’t stay open. (O of course conked out within the first 15 minutes of driving.) I ended up sitting in the parked car, shivering from exhaustion, until the guys left the house at 4:30 to hit the boat. No sense in bringing him into the house if he was just going to be woken up by people.

We slept until 7:30, the two of us. And then he was awake, ready to start his day.

The rest of the week? Wasn’t as BAD, per se. But wasn’t very good. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and want to play with us. We tried to ignore him, which worked. Sort of. Usually he went back to sleep within the hour without us having to do anything.

But one night we finally went out to sleep on the couch when he was up, because he started the whole “I dropped my blanket” rigamarole.

And the whole week I was tense and listening. We tried not to turn over at night, so that we might wake him up. We bought a little CD player and played music ALL THE TIME. And even on the last night, when my SIL and nephew had left and we took over their room, I woke up overnight three times, listening for O’s cry.

Nope. Not restful at all.

It wouldn’t have been so bad for J and I if we weren’t already sleep deprived from a hellish week of work for the BOTH of us the week BEFORE vacation. The night before we left J worked until 2am. And the night before that we were both working until midnight. We were both pretty spent BEFORE we got there.

The sleep thing just pretty much sucked, that’s all.

But otherwise, really, I can’t complain. Weather was fantastic there – only two days of rain. We went to the beach, where O walked all over the place, and darted in and out of the waves and giggled, and dug in (and ate) the sand. We went for ice cream, where he had his first whole kiddie size ice cream (strawberry). We went to the store, and cooked dinner, and ran around outside, and played in the lake, and listened incredulously to our son, who is picking up words like nobody’s business. (Seriously. He nearly DOUBLED the word he knows in the week we spent with him.) We watched the two cousins play, and get into trouble. And yell and smile at each other over the dinner table. And we watched a little sadly when O, on Saturday morning, looked eagerly for his cousin first thing in the morning.

But yeah. Thank goodness we’re home.

I didn’t realize just how wound up *I* was all week until yesterday evening. When Baby O went to bed, I nearly crashed with the exhaustion.

So yeah.

Vacation?

Not nearly the sort of relaxing, do-nothing, catch up on rest sort of time it USED to be.

Still though. It was awesome to spend a full week with O. Even if it wasn’t all that restful.

Wordless Wednesday: Him and me. And no one else.

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