Hope Is Where The Heart Is (2)

After writing the previous post, I have spent a lot of time thinking about my old friend Lisa.  It may seem funny that I am looking for hope from someone who didn't survive their battle.  Lisa was one of the best, most positive people I have ever known.  To this day, thoughts of her are accompanied by a soundtrack of Billy Joel singing "Only the good die young."  She inspired love and hope in everyone who met her.  When she was at Vanderbilt Hospital for leukemia treatment, she was an inspiration to every single person who came in contact with her.  The doctors and nurses would spend time in her room when they needed cheering up.  Even as they prepared her for the bone marrow transplant surgery from which she wouldn't wake, she was so full of hope and encouragement to everyone around her.  So, yes, I still look to her for hope and encouragement now, knowing that was perhaps her purpose in this life.  I still think about her and miss her, but I know what she would tell me if she was here today.  She would tell me to have an open heart, to love and to HOPE, always.


I've also been spending a lot of time thinking about how this "C" word has actually been more a part of my life than I was giving it credit for.  But, I also realized that my experiences have really been more positive than otherwise, so I find even more reason for hope.  Within my group of girl friends there are 2 breast cancer survivors.  One of those lovely ladies only recently completed her ordeal and came out the other end a survivor, complete with the most amazing positive attitude and love of life I have ever seen, along with a beautiful head of soft curly hair and the new "girls!"  The other wonderful breast cancer survivor is married to a colon cancer survivor, now both in their 70's and healthy and cancer free.


I love that word, "survivor."


While we are drowning in bureaucratic red tape this week, I know that Scott will soon be in the best hands possible.  It really is criminal how the insurance companies and so called medical specialists make you wait and fight, fight and wait, and go round and round before the proper approvals, tests and results can be scheduled and forwarded to the right places... all before the poor patient even gets to talk to the "experts."  All made even more difficult by the fact that said patient is probably scared, a little freaked out and extremely anxious to start getting answers and a plan of action for treatment. 


But, one fight at a time.  I have promised to keep Suzi Bitch under control and only let her off the leash when she is really needed.  My primary role needs to be companion and play mate, and focus on giving Scott something to hope for and look forward to.  I will also learn to be a better nurse/care giver.  If you know me, you know that is not my natural proclivity.  Poor Scott is so patient as I fumble my way through wound care and bandaging...I am getting better every day!  At least I can make him laugh with my inadequacies.  If I can keep him laughing then I am doing ok.


So, as long as we can fight our way through all the sticky tape this week, things get real next week.  The experts are ready and waiting for him at:
http://www2.massgeneral.org/chordoma/


This time next week, hopefully we will be in Boston getting answers and making a plan.  Scott will be a survivor.  I have no doubt.  I have HOPE.  Because HOPE IS WHERE THE HEART IS!

----

Hope Is Where The Heart Is

It seems the "C" word has come into my life.  I consider myself fortunate that I haven't been forced to become more intimate with the hated word so far in my 47 years.  I lost a friend and a grandfather to leukemia, and just lost a good friend/fellow DIVA very recently to what may or may not have been cancer...I really don't think they know what took sweet DIVA Sue, it was just sudden and tragic.  And, Dad had prostate cancer 5 years ago.  While it was big and scary at the time, surgery and some basically simple follow up treatment has left him cancer free and healthy.  As a matter of fact, I just got back from moving him and my mom into a new place and helping set them up for the next phase of their life.  So, while it has certainly touched my life, I hoped to never be on a first name basis with any type of "C."

Count your blessings when you can, because life can change in the blink of an eye.

The same week that I was rejoicing in the fact that my parents were finally in a better place, both physically and financially, and the fact that I wouldn't have to spend so much energy helping them and worrying about them, Scott's doctor calls and uses the "C" word.  Well, actually he used a completely unfamiliar "C" word, Chordoma, which Google revealed to be the damned dreaded hated familiar "C" word.

Now, as I begin to prepare myself for this next phase of our lives, trying to study and learn and figure out how to keep Scott positive and happy, I don't seem to have words.  The last words from my old friend and co-worker, Lisa Parker, who was lost to leukemia when she was only 32 years old have been echoing in my head.  So, for now, I will borrow words from someone so much stronger than me until I can come up with my own. 

Lisa's Journal Entry, 8/24/01 - "I have always been a big believer in P.M.A. (Positive Mental Attitude.)  ...It really works.  There are so many people that complain about things and go through life mad.  Those are the people that have it made and just don't know it.  I think that the happiest and most appreciative people in this world are the ones who have experienced trials and tribulations.  And the reason for that is they have known the greatest emotion of all... HOPE!  HOPE IS WHERE THE HEART IS!  If we don't have hope, then we have nothing to look forward to.  And can you imagine what kind of life we would have if there were nothing to look forward to?"

He will beat this and we will make it through to the other side and have a long and happy life ahead of us.  I know and believe that.  I have to.  I have to hope.  Because hope is where the heart is. 

----