Sunday, July 31, 2016

I know it has been a while here, but things are going well.  It has been almost a year since I last posted.  Although I have several drafts of things over the last ten months, it turns out the final months of my treatment were the hardest to write about.  I am not going to go into that here, right now though.  I will come back and tell you about that time another day soon.

Today, I will tell you about what I did last week.  I stood up before the congregation of the church I attend, the First Unitarian Church of Providence, and I gave the morning talk.  This is how we do church during the summer at 1st UU.  We have members from our congregation talk about something they have experienced or know about.  I have been to many of these services in the past, but never did the talk myself.

I am not one for public speaking, it makes me very nervous.  I practiced, and practiced, so I managed to do it without stumbling.  I also found that wearing my reading glasses made it impossible to see anything clearly past what I was reading, so this lessoned my nervousness too. In the end, everything went just fine, and I was glad to be able to tell this story to the congregation.

Steve recorded it so I could share it with people here, but if you would prefer to read the text, it is beneath the video.

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you, and for supporting me through this journey.

Love,

Kathy






Cancer, Life and Getting Through it All

(sung)
I woke up this morning, 
Smiled at the rising sun…

When I was about thirteen years old, I went with my family to visit a friend of my father’s.

In this family,there was a girl who was a few years older than I was.  Her name was Tammy. My mother called her “wise” which in mom code meant she was most certainly not.

Shortly after we arrived at the house, it was clear, Tammy was not about to hang around while our parents socialized. Figuring out that the only way she was going to escape this event was to invite me to her friend’s house, this is what she did. I gladly went along.  Being teens, we sat around and talked about things many girls that age might talk about: boys, nail polish, the school dance, getting a drivers permit.  Being slightly younger, I could barely relate to what they were talking about, in fact, I may have been nothing more than a a nuisance, but everyone  treated me nicely, especially Tammy. By the end of the day, we considered each other friends, and hoped to see each other again.  

We didn’t live very far apart, I lived in Riverside, and she was in Seekonk. The distance between these towns is only about five miles but when you are a child, or from Rhode Island anyway, five miles might as well be twenty. You are seldom in control of who you will see and who you might be friends with if they live outside of your school community or town, but Tammy and I were hopeful anyway.

I didn’t see her again, most likely, she was too wise for me.

A few months after that visit, my mother asked me if I remembered Tammy. Of course I did.  At that moment, in my adolescent hopefulness, the thought ran through my head that we were going to get to see each other again. Instead, my mother broke the news to me that Tammy was sick.  What had started with a trip to the emergency room for a bloody nose that would not stop, had been diagnosed as a rare form of childhood leukemia.

This girl, someone that I knew, and only a few years older than myself, was really sick,and I knew she was probably not going to get better.  

When I was young, every night before I went to sleep, I would say prayers and have a conversation with god. What I had learned about the world by this time, was that if I didn’t pray, something terrible might happen.  After hearing about Tammy’s illness, I remember praying and asking, over and over, why this girl?  Why this family? How does this happen?

Was it that she had done something wrong?  Was it the high tension power lines that ran through her back yard?  Was there something wrong with her family?  I spent a lot of time thinking about these things.  

In the early days of her illness, my mother would give me up dates about Tammy; I would hear that she was undergoing a new treatment, or that her mom was saving her birthday cakes until she got better. Things like this.

I never was able to visit her. 

After many months, maybe even a couple of years, I asked my mother how Tammy was doing. She seemed surprised that I had been thinking about her. I found out, that although things had gone well at first, and Tammy’s cancer had gone into remission, before too long it had come back, Then, as suddenly as it had started, her battle was over.  This young woman, on the verge of adulthood, had died.  

And still I wondered, why this girl, why this family? How does this happen?

(sung)
Three little birds, 
Sat by my doorstep,

Two years ago last month, I was diagnosed with colon cancer.  It seemed to come out of the blue at the time, although in retrospect, of course there were signs.  

When I learned of my diagnosis, I was dumbfounded.  In a span of five days I had a colonoscopy, a ct scan and a meeting with a surgeon, who had the unfortunate job of telling me the state of my health.  There was a mass in my colon, which was so big he was surprised I had been able to eat or pass anything. It had been there so long, the cancer had spread to my liver, which meant I had stage 4 colon cancer.

Unlike my reaction of why during my teen years, my first thought was not why me, instead, it was, why not me?

(sung)
Singin’ a sweet song
A melody pure and true
Singing, this is my message to you ou ou.

Cancer is a wide range of diseases that will affect one in seven people.  One in seven. Think about that for a moment. It is more likely you will develop a cancer somewhere in your body in your lifetime, than it is that you will be in a car accident, die in a plane crash, drown in a swimming pool, be struck by lightning, or many other wild things we might imagine happening to us. 

There is a good chance that if you can hear me, you are sitting near someone who has had, currently has, or will develop cancer. (I don’t mean to be such a downer here, but these are the facts.) If you have had cancer, this provides you with a small amount of comfort, as sad as that seems. That is, after you go through the list of things you think you may have done to cause your cancer, and then the list of things you thought you were doing to prevent getting cancer. You realize, it can happen to anyone,and it is not necessarily within your control.

Fortunately, we live in a time where more people survive cancer than ever before. This is something I think about all the time.  If I were born in an earlier era, I would not have survived until my 52nd birthday.  Things were really not looking good for me.  Yet, here I stand before you, a testament to the amazing things that doctors and medicine can do these days.

But I don’t believe my success in survival is due only to the expertise of my doctor.  I believe it takes so much more to heal a person.

(sung)

Singing don’t worry 
About a thing,
Cause every little thing 
Is going to be all right 

When I was going through chemotherapy, my focus was on surviving, on getting through. I wanted to get over this disease, and be done with it.  I knew I wanted to be here,  to see my children, Kaileigh, Ayla and Alex grow, to see what their lives will become. I want grow old with my husband. In those days before I had cancer, I had envisioned a long life for myself. I was going to live into my 90’s, like my great grand mother, easy.  Now, a few more years seem like a good goal.

Chemotherapy is hard.  To say that it is the hardest thing I have ever done would be an understatement.  Unless it is something you have lived though, it’s hard to imagine.

There are many different drugs used to treat cancer, each with their own unique, often difficult side effects, so it is not the same experience for everyone, except in this one thing, you give everything you have to stick with it, to make it through. This is your chance, your golden ticket. Not that there are any guarantees that go along with it, except for the promise of a few more days, months or years, that you would not have had if you did’t go through it. 

Through that struggle, you gain a focus. The prize at the end, of a little more time, that is worth the pain, the nausea, and the wracking tiredness.

Coming out the other side is invigorating. There is a realization that you have done something incredibly difficult, something, unfortunately, not everyone succeeds at.  

But there you are, you’ve made it. You have run the marathon of a lifetime.  You know that there is little you cannot do, if only you put your mind to it.  You have proven this to yourself, and lived to be able to tell about it. 

(sung)

Singing don’t worry 
About a thing,
Cause every little thing 
Is gonna to be all right



Besides the amazing medicines I received to cure my cancer, there is something more I am convinced made my recovery possible. I do not credit any higher unseen power for this, although if you said any prayers for me, I am grateful for your healing thoughts.  The community I live in, my village, if you will, is so very responsible for helping me get through my illness.

My village intersects in many different ways.  There are children and families I care for in my daily job, friends I have known for years, friends from church, some old, some new.  There is family by birth, and family by choice. It is a village that has been changing and growing my whole life, and it is a lovely, lively place.   

I am so grateful for all of the hugs I received, the words of encouragement, gifts, emails, texts and cards. Love in the form of food, homemade, store bought, restaurant delivered. All nourishing for both me and the love of my life, Steve, who also benefited from these kindnesses.  All of these things were given with and imbued with love, and every one of these things made a difference. 

Oh, and did I mention the hugs?

All of my life, I wanted to be a good hugger.  This is something that seems to run in families, but was not so common in mine growing up.  For us, they were often very stiff, ordeals, accompanied by a pat on the back, and held for no longer than necessary.

As an adult, I was often too shy to initiate them. And even though I do hug small children on a daily basis, it was difficult for me to be a consistent hugger of adults outside my family. I had been working on becoming a better hugger for some time, though.

Somehow, when I was on chemo, I learned how to give and receive the best hugs. It may have been the drugs, that kept me in a constant state of la la land, also known as being chemo headed, but whatever it was, I gave and received the most wonderful hugs on a daily basis. I would reach out to reassure people that I was going to be okay, that everything was going alright, and somehow, those hugs were the proof.  They were an exchange of the most awesome amount of love, care, compassion and kindness, and a boost to my inner strength and well being. They were constant, appreciated, and oh so necessary. 

(sung)

I woke up this morning,
Smiled at the rising sun,
Three little birds,
Sat by my door step,

I have for years felt grateful for the community I have here at First Unitarian Church.  At first, it was for helping my husband Steve and I raise the three amazing and awesome children we have.  And I have always felt it is a gift to sit within the walls of this beautiful building, to share joys and sorrows in community with all who come here.  

I have felt tremendous gratitude to be able to teach with the wonderful people who are in the Religious Education program, and to learn from the beautiful, loving and kind spirit of the children in our congregation. 

I have served on committees, and learned how our congregation is cared for and operates. My mind has been opened to new ways of seeing the world and thinking, through learning about the people in our congregation. People who I might not ever encounter in my daily life, were I not to meet them here.

But my gratitude has grown through my cancer journey. Gratitude for nourishment of my inner self, for the love, the hugs, the cheer leading, the kindness and the concern.

(sung)
Singin’ a sweet song,
A melody pure and true,
Singing, this is my message to you ou ou.

At this point in my recovery, I live in measured time.  How many months to the next scan, where was I at at this time last year?  Where will I be next year? Will I still be here next year?  There are no givens, no guarantees, no promises.  These are truths we all live with every day. 

There is a fragility to life. We all hope that the sun will rise for us in the morning and that we will live to see it set in the evening. These are silent hopes we have each day with out even thinking about them. But I ask you to consider and think about these  other hopes, that through these days, we love one another, we reach out and care for each other, and use our good, kind and hopeful hearts, to help heal ourselves, those we love and the world around us.

Three Little Birds   by Bob Marley

I woke up this morning, 
Smiled at the rising sun,
Three little birds,
Sat by my doorstep,
Singin’ a sweet song,
A melody pure and true,
Singin’ this is my message to you ou ou.

Singin’ don’t worry,
about a thing,
‘cause every little thing,
is gonna be all right,

Singin’ don’t worry,
about a thing,
‘cause every little thing,
is gonna be all right,

I woke up this morning, 
Smiled at the rising sun,
Three little birds,
Sat by my doorstep,
Singin’ a sweet song,
A melody pure and true,
Singin’ this is my message to you ou ou.



A little note about this song.  Shortly after I was diagnosed with cancer, this song was ever present in my head.  I would wake in the night and hear it, It would pop into my head before, during and after my treatments.  

I love the message and the visual image of this song, and now it has special meaning for me every day. 

I invite you to join me and my friend Jane, in singing it once again with us, because I can never hear it enough.  I hope you feel the same way too.

I woke up this morning, 
Smiled at the rising sun,
Three little birds,
Sat by my doorstep,
Singin’ a sweet song,
A melody pure and true,
Singin’ this is my message to you ou ou.

Singin’ don’t worry,
about a thing,
‘cause every little thing,
is gonna be all right,

Singin’ don’t worry,
about a thing,
‘cause every little thing,
is gonna be all right,

I woke up this morning, 
Smiled at the rising sun,
Three little birds,
Sat by my doorstep,
Singin’ a sweet song,
A melody pure and true,
Singin’ this is my message to you ou ou.


















3 comments:

  1. Kathy, you wrote for me too, and I believe for all of us, when you wrote these words: "My mind has been opened to new ways of seeing the world and thinking, through learning about the people in our congregation. People who I might not ever encounter in my daily life, were I not to meet them here."
    Kathy, I share the gratitude you express so eloquently. I would never have met you, or known you, if not for this church and our congregation. There is a well-known expression: "A gift that keeps on giving." It is boundless, and constantly renews itself."
    Each hug I gave you was a tiny effort to express my care and admiration for you. Each hug you gave me glowed with your radiant and unquenchable spirit. I would never have known you but for this place.
    We all have each other for so few days. We must celebrate what we have in the precious time we are given.
    Marcia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely to see you and hear from you, Kathy! What a journey and your generosity in sharing it is beautiful. Love and hugs!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for writing this, Kathy! What a wonderful soul you are!

    Victoria Somlo

    ReplyDelete