Children and Cancer

Today when I went in for radiation, a whimpering, tiny girl was getting on the scale to be weighed. It reminded me of the poem I wrote when Dan was in residency at OSU. It was also the first poem I ever had published. (Thank you Linda Parsons and Candace Weaver). A little known fact, my husband used to treat most or all of the children in town. Many radiation docs didn’t like the job. It was hard on Dan too esp. since we had three kids at one time under the age of 6. I wrote the below poem when Dan came home from work one day and said he almost started crying, looking at a 4 yr old in the waiting room and he knew what lay ahead for her.

Residency: Incantation

 In the outer office

a bald four year old

on her mother’s lap

shares a fairytale book

about gnomes and kings.

I read my notes: her life

an endless procession

of potions and spells.

Her mother turns the page;

I flip her chart.

My throat tightens

as I wish for magic.

I call her name.

Now I have a young doctor who has three small children and when I spoke to him the other day about the toddler, he said, “Yeah, it’s hard. Dan knows.” The good news is that children often have a good prognosis and Dan said one child was so sweet—he got anesthesia before radiation and he would say to his mom, “I love you. Good night.” Children often can’t stay still (vital!) for the radiation so they put them to sleep. And another child who was about 5 had a walker because he had cancer and every step he would say “Ouch.” That one breaks my heart.

So these children put my cancer in perspective. Plus I heard about two friends—one of whom was stage 4 with three small children and she died—and another who had reconstruction in December and just found out she has cancer in her spine and pelvis. She was told she would have two years at best. Tip for those considering reconstruction, if you have a high grade tumor, I’d wait on reconstruction although I understand the desire to look “normal” again.

When I start to feel a little sorry for myself, I remember these things. This morning I woke up with both sides aching. Left side aching because of pleurisy although I’ve been prescribed celebrex for the inflammation and my right underarm starting to burn where I’m getting radiation. I have 10 more boost treatments so I expect I’ll be complaining a bunch more :). I finish maybe March 18 having been treated with radiation 105 times. Then I will start a new regime I guess for the cancer that’s popped up on my left shoulder. We are looking into a clinical trial or maybe electron radiation for that area.

But I woke up grateful—grateful I can write, I can walk without pain in my legs, I can talk to friends, drive my car, sleep in a good bed. My younger sister is in the hospital now, confined to a bed til she has surgery on her broken pelvis. So sorry Barb.

Recently I’ve been meditating on mortality and was thinking about Country Joe and the Fish all week especially with elections and the political hoopla/ coronavirus/ tornado in Nashville. Here’s my new version of their “Fish” song.

It’s one, two, three. four

what are we fighting for?

Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn

Next stop is crazyland

Five, six, seven

open up your pearly gates

Well, there’s no time to wonder why

Whoopeee we’re all gonna die.

So be good to one another and enjoy your life. In Mary Oliver’s poem “Summer Day,’ she asks”

Tell me,

what is it you plan to do

with your

one wild and

precious life?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WOo13RnfaMc