Category Archives: funny moments

Lie to protect the innocent bystanders ?

8 Mar

The other day I had an interesting conversation with my piano teacher. Note to the critics: yeah, I’m taking piano lessons! Surprised? It’s my new hobby!

I had not had a lot of time to practice during the last week so my performance was less than stellar. And my normal performance being already less than stellar, this meant that my performance was actually, uh, uberstellarless. For those who don’t speak German that means really not so great.

She didn’t seem to mind (I am sure it’s because she sees in the depths of my soul the incredible talent lying in wait there that just needs to be nurtured into bloom) but did ask what had kept me so busy during the last week.

And this brought up the Whole Cancer Thing. Because the problem is, I hadn’t told her about it. I ‘ve only known her for about a month, and although we’ve chatted about our personal lives a bit, it has stayed mostly on surface issues like where we live and where we work.

And it’s not that I don’t want to tell her. It’s actually just that I want to protect her from having to deal with it. It’s awkward. She’s an innocent bystander, and I don’t feel like having her sit there with huge eyes as I chuckle and say: “Oh you know, just busy with regular stuff like work and errands and a complicated  hospital appointment for my cancer kid…”

So what do you say? I have actually avoided talking about my kids altogether in some cases. Like, I was out with a bunch of local expat moms not too long ago, many of whom I had not met before. This was right in the middle of Elliot’s treatment. It was actually impossible to talk to another mom without the subject of our kids coming up. I felt like I was juggling forks, the way I kept having to change the subject (how do I come up with metaphors like that, by the way? Does it only make sense in my brain, or do you see it too?)

Finally, after diverting the subject back to her kids several times, and giving vague answers like “yes my son normally goes to the local public school” I finally felt I was getting backed into a corner. I was surrounded by 4 or 5 other moms and the subject of the chicken pox vaccine was being debated, and I was asked directly if I had vaccinated Elliot or if he had already had it.

Now, Elliot had chicken pox. It was a few months before the cancer diagnosis. And, well, chemo treatment erases previously acquired immunities. And chicken pox is very dangerous during chemo treatment, the virus can be amplified by some of the chemo drugs he got, and turn deadly. So chicken pox is a particularly sensitive subject to most cancermoms. To normal moms, it’s chicken pox. Itchy spots. A heartfelt debate about the merits of vaccinating versus naturally acquired immunity. Pox parties. These are normal mom conversations. I used to have these types of talks before. But now I just stand there, and when someone turns to me and asks me… I hesitated.

Do you lie to protect the people from a subject you know they don’t really want to talk about?

“Yes, my son had chicken pox when he was 4. What a week! Ha ha. “ Smile and move away, grab another champagne flute.

“Oh I didn’t practice piano because my kids and work kept me busy. Ha ha.” Smile and plink away. (No champagne flutes during piano lessons, darn it, probably would help my piano teacher not have that look on her face while I’m playing like her shoes are on too tight.)

Or do you just answer the damn question?

“Well, Elliot had chicken pox. But since he has CANCER, he now bah blah blah…” It doesn’t matter what you say after this because everyone is now frozen with fear because you said the word CANCER. They have all taken a small step away from you and are clutching their flutes. (We’re still talking champagne here, not musical instruments, although it did conjure a new metaphor that ended up so complex I thought better to drop it.)

I know people who are just casual acquaintances don’t deserve to have their heart sink into their shoes on a nice evening out with friends just because I answered a question. But I also feel stupid and phony when I deliberately pretend I am someone I’m not. I’m a cancer mom, like it or not.

So what’s the solution? I welcome your replies. (The flute subject is open for discussion too if you want).

In the meantime, since I couldn’t find a stock photo of an innocent bystander juggling forks (which would have been the most appropriate for this post), here’s a photo of Elliot in his new soccer outfit! Not sure why the peace sign, but ok.

Posted in Uncategorized, cancer, funny moments | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Fun and productive things to do while waiting in the hospital.

13 Dec

I have a friend right now who is at her son’s bedside in the hospital, an unplanned vacation from the real world which happens so frequently in the life of a cancer mom (or cancer dad of course). It made me think about all the long hours, days and nights we spent in the hospital with Elliot, waiting, pacing up and down the halls, sitting by the bed, waiting, going down to the coffee shop to get coffee to bring back up, waiting, chatting with other parents or nurses, waiting, trying to get our child to cooperate with the nurse or doctor, eating cold meals or warmish sandwiches, waiting, holding our child down while the nurse or doctor does whatever it is they need to do, waiting, texting friends or anyone who might possibly be awake at 3am, and of course, waiting.

And so, I have come up with a creative list of fun things to do while waiting in the hospital. As I’m sure many of my other cancer mom friends (and cancer dads!!) will have suggestions, please feel free to comment at the end.

  1. Wait. (Just in case you hadn’t thought of that)
  2. Read the same paragraph in your book over and over since you will be interrupted by your child, the nurse, a clown, the doctor or some other important person roughly every 6 minutes.
  3. Polish your finger and toe nails. Since you will not have any nailpolish, use a q tip and some of the yellow iodine tincture. It will look unique and clever.
  4. Make beautiful water fountain statue out of syringes, I.V. tubes, and bedpans.
  5. Take a plastic cup and write “Urine Sample” on it. Then pour some apple juice in it and secretly place it on the nurses’ desk.  Hours of entertainment while you watch them try to figure it out.
  6. Place a bunch of pillows on a wheel chair in the shape of a person, then cover with a blanket.  Leave a little note pinned to the blanket saying “do not wake!” Then put the wheelchair in the elevator. Bet with the other moms and dads how long it will take till someone does something.
  7. Steal as many toothpicks from the cafeteria as possible and build a smaller scale version of the Eiffel Tower. Place it in the hospital lobby and watch as people admire your artwork.
  8. Start rumours about the hospital personnel. Make them as unlikely as possible, and tell only one person. Then see how many hours it takes till you hear the rumour again from someone else, and how much the rumour has changed from your original version.
  9. Pretend you are an interior designer with unlimited budget, and plan what changes you would make to the department you’re in.
  10. Write a letter to your health minister outlining the improvements you feel are necessary in the lives of hospital patients and families. Since you will probably not have thought to bring paper and pens, use toilet paper to write on and a syringe filled tomato soup as your pen.
  11. When the head doctor comes in with some students, quickly give your child a metal bedpan and some spoons. Secretly tell your kid the doctors enjoy drum concerts while they talk.
  12. If your child is going to receive dexamethasone or other steroids, just before the treatment make sure to watch the movie “The Exorcist” especially the scene where the girl’s head spins around. You will be better prepared although you may look back on the movie with thoughts that the girl was in fact quite cute and innocent looking in that scene, compared to your own kid now…
  13. If there is a suggestion box in the hospital cafeteria, write “cocktail hour” on several notes to fill it.
  14. If you have been awake for more than 36 hours and your child is so bored he is driving you crazy, it is official hospital policy that you can push the nurses’ call-button as many times as you want, even if you can’t remember what you needed by the time she gets there.
  15. Since your child is not in school you need to supplement his education. One science project is to use several sugar packets from the cafeteria and mix them with whatever liquids are on the meal tray until they form a paste. Then, your child can wash the windows using that, and see which combinations clean best. It’s all in the interest of education so it’s ok.
  16. Fill several hospital gloves with water and start a water balloon fight with the other kids. The nurses LOVE this.
  17. If the doctor or nurse comes while your child is in the bathroom, look all surprised and say “Oh I thought he was with YOU!”
  18. Make a list of all the things you will do when this phase of your life is over. It doesn’t matter how crazy or unlikely they are, just write them down. There is a life after this, and you have the right to dream big.
Posted in cancer, family, funny moments, hospital | Tagged | 4 Comments

Friendship

1 Oct

Lately the cancer world has me pondering the importance of friendships. What would we do without friends? Women, especially, needs their gal pals. In fact, recently on facebook a post went around about a study that was done that determined the best thing a man can do for his health is to marry a woman, whereas the best thing a woman can for for her health is to nurture her friendships with other women.

It’s just so true.

A friend can be there to support me through the difficult moments of Elliot’s diagnosis and treatment, even if her children have never had cancer. She “gets it”. It doesn’t matter that it’s not her child, she actually feels the fear and anxiety I feel. How do women do it? We take on all the pain and suffering of those around us. When someone we care about hurts, we hurt too. Men are better at compartmentalizing their lives, at separating their emotions from their actions.

I was chatting recently with a mom, who’s son had cancer years ago and is now considered “cured” (apparently you can only say “cured” with quotation marks, because there is never a real guarantee. Darn it, and here I was hoping for some kind of official He Is Cured document from the hospital at some point!) She mentioned that someone had recently told her that she should now “shut the door” on cancer, that it’s part of the past and it’s time to move on to thinking about new things.

We stared at each other a bit after she said that. Then she said it would be pretty hard to do as she had just signed up for a two year term working with a children’s cancer group.

We laughed.

The thing is, there’s no door to shut.

Being a cancer mom isn’t a choice, and it’s (unfortunately) not a temporary role. Nobody enters the cancer wold willingly, but once you’re there, you don’t have much of a choice. You adapt. Even my friends whose kids don’t have cancer have been dragged into this world with me, sure, not as intensely as I have, but whether they like it or not, they can now chat easily about blood cell levels and remission and chemotherapy side effects and vomit stain removal and needles and port-a-caths. And they can laugh at it all, and cry at it all, and while they laugh and cry they can also make supper and do two loads of laundry and find the missing lego piece and clean the living room and feed the cat and stop one child from hitting the other and text a friend and polish their toe nails. While they are doing all this the husband usually only has time to walk into the kitchen open a cupboard, stare into it’s depths for several minutes, then ask, “Where do we keep the salt?”.

Ok I don’t mean to insult the male population there, and I may be slightly exaggerating (my husband actually knows where the salt is!). But seriously folks, let’s take a few seconds here to applaud all the women out there, cancermoms and cancerfriends, who are going through this journey or have gone through it already.

I live in an otherwise all-male household. This has some advantages. I told Jesse the other day to take out the garbage, and he replied with some kind of grumble that sounded like “ok”. A friend of mine (male) with a teenage daughter recently told me he had asked his daughter to take out the garbage and the girl broke down crying, accused her dad of trying to ruin her life, and ran to her room, slamming the door. It turns out she had just done her hair and put on her new skirt which she had wanted to show her dad (which he failed to notice) and it was raining out, which, any woman would know, means there is no way the garbage is being taken out in these conditions and how dare you not notice my hair and outfit?!?!

Jesse took the garbage out without another word. He also did not bother to put on socks and shoes or a t shirt. And it was raining out. When he came in I said “You”ll catch a cold going out like that!” and he grumbled something that sounded like “ok” and walked into the kitchen and ate an entire loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter and drank a liter of milk.

So there are advantages to the testosterone prominence in my home, and disadvantages. Sometimes, I miss having someone to talk things out with. There are occasions, during quiet moments, when I have said to my husband “So what do you want to talk about?” and he gets that slightly panicked look. Daniel comes home from school and I excitedly ask him how his day went, what did they do etc etc (It’s a new school year, I’m curious!) and he replies “it was very… school-ish.” and I don’t get much more then that…  I still recall noticing Jesse, around age 6, staring intensively out his bedroom window for a long thoughtful moment, and asking him what he was thinking about. He replied “Well, when I see a car, I think: ‘a car’. When I see a person, I think: ‘a person’.”

With my friends I can talk easily about all of life’s mysteries. The anxiety of worrying about a relapse. The ups and downs of every day life. The stress of juggling the kids’ back to school schedule. The joy of shoe shopping. The confusion of relationships.

There is a special bond between cancer friends too – we who have faced “the dragon” and felt its hot breath hovering over us (oh that was very descriptive, wasn’t it? Feels right, like we’re little knights in shining armour brandishing our swords above our heads, torn between fear and fury).

You would think a group of women bonded by cancer would be a sad, weeping lot, all of us sitting together in a semi circle, sharing our sad tales over tea, a box of kleenex nearby being quickly being used up. Well, so far, in my experience, it has been quite the contrary! Swap that tea for a good bottle of red wine and there we are, laughing our heads off as one mom tells the story of sneaking a pizza in to her daughter’s hospital room and being caught by a nurse. Keep the kleenex, we’re laughing so hard we’re crying.

Don’t get me wrong. Behind that pizza story is the very real image burned into our minds of the mom who has stayed by her child’s bedside for days, the i.v.s of chemotherapy and anti-cancer medicine hanging overhead, and then the anti-nausea medicine, the anti-pain medicine, the medicine that helps you get over your addiction to the anti-pain medicine, the medicine that helps you sleep, stay awake, poop, not poop, and of course the medicine to treat the side effects of all the medicine. The mom who is exhausted, hungry, scared, sad, and has decided that dammit, she’s having pizza with her kid. The mom who is overjoyed if her child is actually willing to eat one bite of food.

We don’t need her to explain all that because we’ve all lived it. What we need, mostly, is to laugh. And be together.

Because when the dragon rears it’s head and starts charging at you, and all you’ve got is your little sword, you need everyone else to show up with their little swords. One dragon against a whole bunch of sword carrying women (and a pizza) is all we need to keep fighting. And hopefully, most of the time, win the war.

Posted in cancer, family, funny moments, hospital, kids | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Advice to Adults with Cancer from a Five Year Old

18 Sep

Here’s a light-hearted look at cancer from the point of view of my son Elliot, who was only 4 and a half when diagnosed. I know many of the adults I am in touch with who have cancer, or who are helping a person with cancer through this journey, will relate!

1. It is perfectly acceptable to have a complete tantrum and throw your shoes around just before leaving for the hospital.

2. You always deserve a present after chemo.

3. If you feel like showing more respect and politeness to the hospital clown than your oncologist, that’s ok.

4. If you manage to grab the syringe of medicine from the nurse, it’s their loss and you are then allowed to squirt its’ entire content around the room.

5. You are allowed to complain loudly about any smells like perfume, but you are also allowed to fart freely whenever and wherever you want.

6. Anyone who says “this one tastes like syrup” better be not be lying or they can expect to catch some spit.

7. You are allowed to worry about life and death, but only to the same extent that you worry about whether Santa Claus will be able enter your home if you don’t have a chimney.

8. Speaking of worry, you are not allowed to worry about anything that is not going to happen today or tomorrow.

9. Any bad thing that happened in the past should be quickly erased from your mind using ice cream.

10. It’s ok to throw up directly on your caregiver instead of into the bucket they are holding. It will create warm and funny memories for them once this is all over.

11. Good friends may stare when they first see you without any hair, but they are quickly more interested in all your new toys. So make sure you have lots of new toys around all the time.

12. It is the right thing to do to jump off the examining table if the doctor’s hands are too cold.

13. A popsicle for breakfast is a good idea and goes well with bacon.

14. If someone rubs your bald head and says you’re cute you should stare at them in complete boredom until they stop.

15. Always believe that scars are badges of courage and make you look like a pirate or a superhero.

16. Jumping on the bed is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise.

17. Someone should always be available to carry you if you don’t feel like walking anymore and they will be grateful if you look at them lovingly and say “You’re my slave.”

18. It’s a good idea to frequently press the little button next to the bed that makes the nurse come running, because she might be lonely and bored, and enjoys picking your crayon up from the floor.

19. The only part of hospital food you should eat is the desert. The rest is not really food anyway.

20. Make having fun your priority, all the time, no matter where you are or what’s going to happen next.

Posted in cancer, family, funny moments, kids | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Vacation

7 Aug

Ahhh… the sun on my face, the sand between my toes, the soft wind blowing and the distant noises of kids playing combined with seagulls screaming overhead…. I am sitting in a long chair on a beach in Trouville-Sur-Mer, Normandy, enjoying the sunny day. The weather in Normandy is exactly what people kept telling me it would be: completely unpredictable. This morning was grey and cloudy, and cold. I needed my warmest sweater to go out for a walk. The wind was strong, so much that my hair was always blowing around all over my face like a wild curtain, blocking my view half the time. We considered a picnic on the beach for lunch but eating sand was not appetizing, so we carried our bastognes and salami, cherry tomatoes and baguettes back to our room and ate on our more or less sheltered balcony, overlooking the sea, watching the ships just on the horizon.

We talked about how to dress later for our afternoon on the beach, which was going to happen regardless of the weather. Elliot’s main goal that day was to spend all his time digging in the sand with his cousins.

Then as we sat there, we started to notice that the dark clouds were being swept slowly away toward the east, being replaced by thin white whisps, and then those blew away like dust and the sky cleared. The bright hot sunshine fell down on us. The light seemed brighter than normal to our startled eyes, it reflected off the sea like a million stars.

We grabbed our things, sunscreen, books, beach toys, and ran out the door onto the beach.

The beaches in Normandy are amazing. The tides are so extreme that at low tide you have a huge expanse of white sand, so choosing a spot to set up is no problem. We rented one of the local beach tents that are typical of the beaches there, a brightly coloured round tent, open on one side, where you can have some shelter from the dazzling sun or wind if needed.

So now I’m sitting here on my long chair enjoying the warmth. I open my eyes and look way out to the sea. There are people jumping over the waves, small dark figures against the sun, and every wave flashes with bright sparkling light, then curls into a white foam and flattens as it slowly rolls in.

Yesterday we visited Juno beach, not far from here. It’s where all the Canadian troops landed on June 6th 1944, one of the five beaches that are side by side along this coast, where the D Day landings took place and the liberation of France began. Apparently there were so many ships and smaller boats in the sea, and men and equipment on the beaches that huge traffic jams occurred. Right here, in this sand, where my child runs now, completely oblivious to the literal blood, sweat and tears that were spilled not so many years ago.

Every town hall I have passed in this region flies all of the flags of the Allied countries which liberated Normandy after D Day, so it’s pretty cool to see the Canadian flag everywhere. The Canadian cemetery nearby has over 5000 graves, in a picturesque setting on a green hilltop overlooking the sea. There are fresh flowers recently placed in front of several gravestones.

Each grave has a soldier’s name on it, his unit, and his age. I didn’t see any over 23 years old. I think about the mothers who lost their sons on that day, and the next several days. The telegram arriving at the door. People feared the postman. A telegram was never good news.

It makes me think of receiving CT scan results. The formal piece of paper that reduces your life to a mere statement of facts.

Is it possible I can now relate anything back to cancer, or is war an actual valid comparison?

I haven’t had lots of time to just sit and think on this vacation, we’ve been busy every day. But right now as we sit on the warm beach in the sunshine, Martin and his sister are chatting, Elliot and his three cousins are digging for lost treasure and I can tune out a bit.

The first unit to come ashore lost half it’s men. Their landing had been delayed because of the weather (unpredictable Normandy, time has not changed that), so the tides had risen much more than anticipated. They couldn’t see the hidden mines and obstacles under the water.

I look out to the horizon. The tide is coming in now, the beach has narrowed a bit. I imagine watching 14,000 Canadian soldiers, barely more than teenagers, running toward me, stumbling, falling, crawling their way up the beach carrying heavy equipment, or maybe just carrying hope and fear for their their lives. I wonder if it was cold like this morning, if they shivered in their wet uniforms as they struggled up the sand past the dunes, over the rows of barbed wire and into the fields. Or was the sun out by then, mesmerizingly bright, blinding them as they tried to make out friend from foe? Did any of them have time to notice how beautiful the sea looked, or was it too red?

I get up from my chair and tell Martin I’m heading back to the hotel for a bit. We’re lucky our hotel is basically right off the beach, just across the boardwalk, so we all make lots of trips back and forth during the afternoon. The receptionist at the hotel does not seem to like this much, each time we have to ask for our key, which is one of those big brass things you could use as a paperweight. The hotel is an old historic building, and since I’m engrossed in WWII thoughts I can’t help but wonder what it was like in those times. Did secret French Résistance meetings take place behind closed doors?

I cross the boardwalk, which is littered with Beautiful People, yes, with capital letters. The Parisians are on vacation as of last weekend, and many of them are here. The women sitting at outdoor cafés along the boardwalk all look glamorous, the men all look sophisticated. This despite the constant wind, sometimes gentle, sometimes not, that blows across Normandy.

I take the ancient elevator up to our room, it’s one of those old rickety lifts with the second inner door that closes once you’re inside. There is barely enough room for three people in it, much less all the luggage we arrived with yesterday.

In our room I glance in the mirror to see how close I am to imitating the BPs, and note with regret that the wind has helped me look very similar to a broom. Oh well. I look out our window and see my family out there, enjoying the day. And yet I still also see all the uniforms running. Who stood here on this balcony on that day?

Is cancer like war? A bodily conflict, the chemo and radiotherapy soldiers being sent in to fight off the aggressor, in the hopes a strong strategy and superior numbers will win? The collateral damage is obvious. In France it’s estimated that at least 15 000 French civilians died on D Day, many from the Allied bombings that cleared the way for the troops.

Am I being too dark? Thinking of war, a conflict that is caused by people, and comparing it to cancer, an illness which none of us deliberately engages in? Yeah, maybe I am.

Martin and I both find we are a bit shell-shocked these days, like we are still reeling from the emotional impact of the last year. In some ways I think we were in “survival mode” the whole time, and just powered through because we had no other choice. Now that we have stepped away from the cancer world a bit, we often look at each other and say “Can you believe what we’ve been through?”

So maybe I am a bit melodramatic with the whole war concept, or maybe I’m suffering from a bit of post-traumatic shock… Or most likely both. I have been told I have a flair for the dramatic (not exactly these words were used, but I am going to take it as a compliment.)

Regardless, I do think I could look fabulous in a trench coat and a fedora, tipped slightly at an angle to shield my eyes, secretly running down the quiet cobblestone streets at night, slipping quietly around corners, whispering through a crack in the door to my résistance friends some secret code word to tell them of the imminent invasion so we can all join in. Martin would of course have been part of the Danish Resistance Movement, had we lived in those times, and would have been one of the many Danish heroes who smuggled all the Jewish Danes out of the country by boat into Sweden, making Denmark the only occupied country to have saved almost it’s entire Jewish population. Our heroic saga would end romantically when we part ways at a fog-shrouded airport, both destined for different missions…

Oh who am I kidding? In truth I would probably be hiding in a basement, waiting it out.

Oh well. We’ll always have Paris.

Posted in Uncategorized, Vacation, cancer, funny moments, kids | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Living in the “Now”

25 Jul

The First Batch!

So one of the things that you learn when you are in the middle of a cancer diagnosis (or other major crisis, actually), is the importance of living in the present moment. You learn to value each happy day, each healthy day, and to not dwell on the “what ifs” of the future.

Now how many of you, reading that last paragraph, felt just mildly annoyed? Like, you KNOW you’re supposed to “live in the now” and embrace the present, and cherish each minute, but how many of us are actually able to do this?

I would very dearly like to live in the now. But I’m afraid that my kids will destroy my house if I do. I’m fairly sure we will all get quite hungry pretty soon if I choose to embrace only the present moment all the time. And although some people in this home (I’m not naming names) would be perfectly happy just throwing out the dirty dishes instead of washing them for the next use, I have a feeling eating breakfast cereal with milk directly off the kitchen counter would eventually ruin the experience. And frankly, I think if I don’t at some point wash that pile of laundry waiting for me, it will come alive, get up and walk out of our home in disgust.

The problem with “living in the now” is that the future is just waiting there, lurking around the corner, hoping you won’t bother taking out the garbage so that suddenly, when the future becomes the “now” you have to live in the unpleasant now because the old fun now is now the past and the new now stinks.

Did any of that make sense?

My kids are pretty good at it though. They seem fairly confident that everything will always work out and there is no need to really plan anything because somehow, magically, food will appear on the table, clothes will become clean, new shoes that fit will be bought in time, and anything broken will be fixed before it is desperately needed again. This is truly the magic belief of youth… Another name for this magic is “mom”.

In some ways, since I had my first batch of kids at a fairly young age (I just like how that sounds, “batch” of kids, like I’m an oven making cupcakes), I feel like I have been cleaning up people’s nows for a long time. And sometimes the nows seem to repeat themselves. Am I caught in some kind of cosmic time loop? Is that what living in the now truly means, that I get to repeat things over and over (and over)?

The other day, Elliot (sidebar, just want to mention, he already has some hair! Ok it’s just some peach fuzz, but still), decided that since he was going to be sitting on the toilet for a while (5 minutes total, which is a long now for him), he would bring a little toy car to play with. Don’t ask me how you are supposed to play with a car while sitting on the toilet, these are debates I prefer to avoid. In any case, the inevitable happened. And in the hopes of salvaging the situation, he flushed. So the now was now a flood.

And suddenly I was brought back in time 15 years to the same (almost) situation. (That is, different bathroom, different kids, same result).

Rewind to the “now” of one day in 1997. I walk in to the bathroom to find two boys, ages 3 and 6, standing next to the toilet staring in to its depths. The water in the toilet has already risen to past the halfway point and is continuing to rise rapidly. The two guilty looking kids (my sons, I admit) are staring in unblinking fascination at the spectacle as the rising water quickly reaches the brim.

“Hey” I yell, running in just as the water starts to pour on to the floor. “Hey” was the best thing I could come up with on the spur of the moment, though I admit it was not very original. My kids obviously thought so too, as they ignore me but quickly jump away from the waterfall surrounding the toilet bowl and up onto the edge of the bathtub, holding on to each other for balance and wobbling slightly. They stare at me with the same fascination they had bestowed on the toilet bowl, eagerly awaiting my next move as they teeter on their perch.

“Hey, what happened in here?” I ask, quickly grabbing the plunger and throwing an old towel on the floor. The extra “hey” is for effect. Obviously, it has none. The boys continue to stare, mouths wide open in surprise, heads moving back and forth from me to the toilet like fans watching a tennis match.

I fight with the toilet for a few minutes and the tidal wave subsides. Exhausted, I turn around to face the guilty parties and unleash my wrath. They are perched on the edge of the tub, the youngest one, Daniel, clutching on to his older brother’s pyjamas with both hands while the oldest, Jesse, holds onto the shower curtain. Both of them rock back and forth like tightrope walkers about to lose their balance.

Jesse speaks first: “Why did the toilet do that?” he asks, tentatively. Daniel, sensing his cue, adds “yeah Mommy, why dat happen?”

Two sets of eyes stare at me in complete innocence, awaiting my response.

Well, I think to myself, everyone in this country is innocent until proven guilty, right? I usher them out of the bathroom and sit them on the couch. “Did anyone put something in the toilet?” I ask, voice a calm reassuring blanket covering my extreme frustration. It is possible, I am reasoning crazily to myself, that the boys were standing innocently gazing into the depths of the toilet when suddenly for no apparent reason (perhaps a very localized earthquake with my toilet at the epicentre) the water suddenly started to rise out of control.

The boys look at each other, then back at me. Twice. Then Jesse, the responsible one, the mature one, the type of person who is willing to accept the consequences of his actions, fesses up. “Maybe Daniel did?”.

“No!” Daniel counters. “Just a wittle toily paper!”.

“How much toilet paper?” I sigh.

“Well,” offers Jesse “It wasn’t too much at all! But it WAS still attached to the toilet paper roll and when I flushed the toilet it just kept rolling and rolling and rolling and rolling (his eyes get very wide at this point in the story) and all the paper on the roll got pulled into the toilet… And then the water thing started to happen.”

I take a deep breath, trying to summon up as much energy as I can. “Look”, I explain patiently, “if we put too much paper in the toilet, or anything else in the toilet, it plugs and then the water can’t get down into the pipes when we flush. So this is what happens, ok?”

“What happen?” asked Daniel.

“The toilet plugged and the water spilled out” I answer, still patient.

“Oh.” Daniel is thoughtful. “But why?”

“Because you put too much toilet paper”

“No! Just a wittle piece!”

“But the little piece was still attached to more pieces and that’s just too much”.

“Oh. Why?”

“Because the toilet will plug.” Said with finality.

“Why?” Innocent eyes staring.

“Because that’s the way it’s made.” Trying to end the conversation.

“Why it’s made dat way?”

“Because all toilets are made that way” Starting to feel cornered.

“Why?”

“Because.”

“But why?”

“Just because”.

“But…”

AAAArrRRRggghhh, loss of control, desperation sinking in, will now do anything to stop the madness.

“Daniel how about a cookie?”

“Otay”.

And fifteen years later I am having the exact same conversation about not flushing objects down toilets, with roughly the same results (it was a muffin this time, not a cookie).

So is this what living in the now means? Being stuck repeating the same situations because there is actually no lesson to be learned?

I know I’m supposed to embrace the moment, seize the day and all that jazz. And it’s definitely true that cancer has made me realize that our time is limited. But despite all that, I do find that planning for the future is great. We’re heading off to Paris today. I’ve researched hotels and sites we want to see, what time of day is best to visit the Eiffel Tower without waiting in line too long. Elliot is insisting we have to take the stairs up, not the elevator. Not looking forward to that “now”, while it’s happening. But the memory of it will be worth the pain, just like the memory of Jesse and Daniel’s little faces as they perch precariously on the edge of the bathtub is all that now remains of the infamous Toilet Paper Incident.

Anyone else have advice for seizing the day, living in the Now?

Posted in cancer, funny moments, kids | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

A Week on the Roller Coaster

22 Jul

I have so little free time these days that I have started writing several times, and not had time to finish. So here are a few tidbits from the past week, a glimpse into my life as a cancer-mom, written on the run as I juggle parenting three kids, working, spending time with my out of town guests, and anxiously awaiting Elliot’s CT scan results this week…

Monday.

Here in Opposite World, the situation is as follows :

My son, age 5, stage 4 cancer of the kidney, having had surgery, radiotherapy and 10 months of chemotherapy, is jumping on the sofa, bouncing off the walls and saying he wants to go outside to play.

My mom, age mumble mumble, stage 4 cancer of the small intestine (GIST), two surgeries and 11 years on targeted therapy anti cancer drugs, and just flew 4000 miles a few days ago to visit me, time zone difference: 6 hours, has just finished checking facebook and her emails, playing with Elliot, doing laundry and is saying she wants to go outside to play (play=shopping).

Me: age a couple decades less than mumble mumble, stage 4 lack of coffee, no surgeries ever although I did give birth three times in my life so that should count, no chemotherapy although am sure I suffer from chemo brain by osmosis, no radiotherapy, ok there’s simply nothing medically wrong with me but I’m exhausted!!!

Seriously, somebody told these cancer people to “seize the day” and they are! If any more day-seizing happens around here I’m going to have to start mainlining coffee.

Tuesday

I have a day off from work, and Martin too! We usually work opposite shifts, so that someone is always there for Elliot. But this has not allowed me to spend much time with my mom and sister since their arrival, without Elliot along. Shopping with Elliot is…uh… challenging. Imagine bringing a talking kangaroo along into a changing room as you try on a new dress. You know, one of those changing rooms where it’s just a curtain that separates you from the rest of the world? You get the picture.

So today Martin will stay home with Elliot while my mom, Julie and I head off on an adventure! We are driving to Montreux, about 45 minutes away.

The weather is perfect. The drive is amazing, the highway is perched of the edge of rolling cliffs covered in vines that cascade steeply down to the lake. The sharp sunshine reflects off the water and highlights the towering mountains on the other side. In Montreux we park and stroll along the quiet waterfront which is still recovering from last week’s jazz festival. I can almost see the smoke on the water. This is where the Rich and Famous live. Shania Twain owns a castle somewhere nearby apparently. The sun shines and I feel, for a brief moment, that I’ve escaped the cancer world. There is a lingering stress that I can’t shake though. Tomorrow we get the results from Elliot’s end-of-treatment CT scan, and although we’ve been told it should be ok, there is always that lingering “what-if”. Cancer is an unpredictable enemy.

I find the perfect dress. There is a minor problem in that the price has one more zero on it than I would like. Oh well, I leave it for Shania.

Wednesday

We’re at the hospital, in the waiting room. I dropped my mom and Julie at the airport a few hours earlier, heading home. They are somewhere over the Atlantic right now. Elliot is playing with a toy. Martin is looking at his phone. I am pacing. The stress has formed a hard lump in my stomach. I can hear my heart beating in my ears, and am trying to control my breathing by taking deep, slow breaths. I feel like I might cry at any moment, even though nothing bad has happened… yet. This moment marks the culmination of ten months of anxiety, ever since this all began.

The nurse comes and tells us we can wait in the doctor’s office. I analyze her face. Does she look calm? Anxious? Upset? Pitying? Sad? Glad? I can’t tell. SHE knows the scan results. I almost feel like begging her just to tell me. But I’m too afraid of the answer.

We sit at the doctor’s desk, waiting for him to come in. Elliot is on Martin’s lap, playing with his toy. I have my notebook out with my list of questions. My hand holds the pen, and is damp with sweat. I feel cold.

The nurse comes in and sits at a chair by the side, also with a notebook and pen, ready to take notes during the meeting. Is this a good sign? A bad sign? Any kind of sign?

The doctor comes in. He’s holding Elliot’s file. He sits opposite us, says hello, and smiles.

The smile says it all. I know it’s going to be good. I feel the stress leave my body like steam out a boiling kettle.

The scan is clear. Of the “innumerable” lung metastases at the beginning (yep, that means, too many to actually count) there is not a trace left. Elliot is definitely in remission and the treatment is finished. We can leave and only come back in three months for the next scan. I think about my mom who has gone through the three month scans for 11 years. We walk out of the hospital quickly, not looking back, almost hurrying like kids leaving school early, afraid to get caught and called back in.

Thursday

I’m at work, early shift. All my co-workers know about yesterday’s scan. They keep coming up to me to congratulate me. They look as relieved as I feel. I think about how cancer affects everyone, not just the one with the diagnosis. It must be so hard to just sit on the sidelines and not be able to do anything. And some have silently fought their own battles, watched their own family or close friends go through this. You only find out about this after you enter the cancer world.

I feel a freedom I haven’t felt in months. Well, 10 months and 10 days, to be precise, since Elliot was diagnosed. It’s like nothing can get me down today, nothing can go wrong, I’m riding around on a cloud.

Work is busy, but fun. One of those days where time flies.

After work I take Elliot, my teenager Daniel, his girlfriend and her mom out to a movie. It’s Elliot’s first time at a cinema. He loves it but talks and laughs loudly during the movie. It doesn’t bother me because that’s what the other young kids are doing too. We’re normal!

We decide to go out for supper, and get home around 8pm, already bedtime for Elliot. Exhaustion is silently creeping up on me. As I unlock the door to our apartment I hear the music blasting from Jesse’s room (oldest son, age 20). He’s in there hanging out with a couple friends. I stomp in to his room and pull the plug from the wall. Three sets of surprised eyes stare at me. I stomp away. Fatigue comes crashing down on me, and an overwhelming irritation, which is completely illogical, I tell myself, given the circumstances. I get Elliot ready for bed impatiently. Jesse and his friends quietly leave, Jesse quickly saying goodbye while staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.

I read Elliot two bedtime stories, both of which I find extremely annoying. I am angry at princes and dragons.

Elliot wants an extra cuddle before falling asleep and complains that his dad is not there (Martin has the late shift at work).

I fall asleep first, I think.

Friday

Even earlier morning shift. Driving to work when it is still dark out on a summer day. The highway in to Geneva passes the Paléo festival site, a huge outdoor week-long music festival with thousands of tents set up for the fans who stay all week. Three young men have climbed to the top of the fence that separates the camp ground from the highway and are hanging there, waving at the few passing cars, laughing. I try to see if any of them is Jesse, but am pretty sure none of them are. Who knows.  I am starting my morning and they are ending their evening. Time is strange.

I get home from work at 2pm, enough time to have an hour with Martin before he leaves for work. He looks exhausted. Elliot woke up at 610am. Martin worked till 11pm last night, and will again tonight. He drops a fork on the floor and actually growls at it. Elliot and I look at him like he’s grown a second head.

Elliot complains again at bedtime that his dad is not there, but then I remind him that after today is vacation, we have three weeks off work, and we will be together every day. He asks if three weeks is kind of the same as a million days. I say yes.

Now our home is quiet. Daniel is out with his girlfriend. Jesse is still out. Oh, don’t worry, he’ll come home at some point. I used to worry about Jesse a lot, but he’s ok. Oh sure, he’s probably out there doing backflips off of tall structures but hey, it’s not cancer, right? Sigh. Jesse has become one of the best Traceurs in the world. Don’t know what a Traceur is? Check  this out, and then tell me if you thought I already had enough stress with Elliot! And Daniel is doing this too, he’s quite amazing as well. Why couldn’t they all have taken up the violin? Ok I admit, the truth is, I’m totally impressed with my kids.

While the house is quiet, I do a bit of travel planning. Since we couldn’t plan anything ahead of time, we have decided to drive to Paris and spend a few days there, and then on a beach in Normandy. We have not gone away on vacation for a year. I am so excited about this trip! I almost wish I had bought the Montreux dress, so I could walk around in Paris looking fabulous and sophisticated.

Elliot’s main interest in Paris is to go up the Eiffel Tower. He has seen pictures of it and talked about it a lot, it’s the main reason we chose Paris for this vacation. Oh, and by the way, he INSISTS we have to walk up the stairs. There are 1665 steps to the top. So, anyone want to take bets on where we all collapse, or who cracks first?

I try to find a few other activities we could all enjoy in Paris. It’s not that simple, we still need to avoid places where there are lots of kids. Chemo wipes out your previous immunity, and there is still a chicken pox epidemic here in Europe, where no one gets vaccinated against it. It could be very serious if Elliot catches it, but he can only be re-vaccinated six months post-chemo.

I get a message from a friend saying congratulations on the scan, and that she is happy all this is behind us now. I feel the irony. I decide not to think too much about the next scan in three months, or in six months, or the fact that he’ll have regular scans for years and that there are no guarantees.

Martin gets home just before 11pm. It’s official! We’re on vacation! We now have one million days together.

Posted in Fear, cancer, family, funny moments, hope | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Family in the Cancer Crisis

21 Jun

When I was just a baby, my older sister Michelle, being at the wise age of 2, decided that I was boring and informed my mother that this whole baby thing had been a bad idea. My mom was probably only slightly tired at the time (after all, she had been given the entire 2 week unpaid maternity leave from work which was all you got back then, and then had had to go back to teaching full time. How could that possibly tire you out?) She responded in a mildly annoyed way (I’m making this part up of course, I have no memory of this but I like to picture it this way): “Well, Michelle, what would you have me do, throw her in the garbage?” To which Michelle crossed her chubby little arms across her chest and dared my mom: “Well, yes, let’s throw the baby out.”

There are differing versions of this story depending on who tells it, but in Michelle’s version I am actually casually tossed into the garbage can, at which point my valiant and righteous sister quickly changes into her superman costume and rescues me. My mom claims she pretended to walk toward the garbage can while holding me and Michelle flipped out and begged her to change her mind.

Regardless of which version is correct, I somehow survived the brutal garbage canning of 1968, and went on to become a normal child (Michelle is snickering as she reads that.)

From that moment on though, Michelle has been rescuing people. I have a relationship crisis: Michelle drives 8 hours to be by my side. My brother Billy’s car accident: Michelle is the first to the hospital. Younger brother Martin needs help out West: Michelle gets on a plane. My mom’s surgeries: Michelle is there day and night. I move across an ocean: Michelle keeps showing up just because I get married or I have a baby or my baby gets cancer.

Ouch that last one felt like a glass of cold water in the face. Let me re-group and re-cap: Michelle is the Family Social Worker, who is basically in charge of any Crisis Department. My family regularly has crises, so this keeps her quite busy. Never mind that she has a family of her own and a job… oh yeah, as a social worker.

Billy is the Strong Silent Type. I’m not sure why he’s always described like this because he’s not really that quiet. He did beat my son Jesse at arm wrestling last year, which I would not have bet on even slightly. So I guess that makes him Strong. He was pretty Silent during his coma for a couple months back then after the car accident, so maybe that counts.

Martin is the Black Sheep. This is only because he has dark hair and tans better than the rest of us.

And Julie is the Beautiful Young Princess of the family and gets to do whatever she wants. She will disagree with this when she reads this on her own laptop after watching tv while eating ice cream. Ask Michelle and Billy and I about desserts in our home when we were kids. Go on, just ask.

So why have I regaled you with descriptions of my family? Well, maybe to make you think of yours…

Family is what gets you through a crisis. For many of us, friends and extended family are included in that overall description of “family”. When you are dealt a cancer diagnosis, your family, whatever it’s form, is who shows up and closes ranks around you, a show of defiance in the face of an enemy attack. Together, we can fight off the attacker.

My family is a big one. I have… uh… a few cousins. (Shout out to my cousins here… just how many of us are there? I’ve lost count.) My dad comes from a family of 5 kids. My mom has 10 brothers. Yep, you read that right. And since they are all married and most have kids and most of their kids have kids… Let’s just say I’ve never had a reason to feel alone in the world.

When my grand-maman was still alive (she of the truck-caning incident) we had large family get-togethers, at Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and sometimes just on Sundays, because, well, that’s what you do. But mostly in the summer, we would have the Family Reunion.

A Family Reunion in my family lasts three days. It also takes months of planning and strategizing, throwing together possible scenarios, location, theme, meals, wine to serve etc. To do the strategizing the family has to get together several times throughout the months leading up to summer, and eat and drink and debate anything debatable like the merits of whether to finally hold it out in Vancouver for once against the fact that no one feels like flying out there, and since none of the Vancouver relatives came to the meeting, they get outvoted. (Go on, Onc’Eugene, you know you need to comment on THAT!)  It is always finally decided to host it in a location where we can all pitch tents and make campfires and sing songs loudly late into the evening while sitting around the fire, the kids running around behind us in the black starry night. So usually somewhere not far from Ottawa or Montreal. Often it has been at my cousin Louis’ who is not allowed to ever sell his home by the water in Aylmer. It’s actually been written into the family bylaws. (Has anyone told him this?)

This year, my family is planning the Family Reunion once again. I am picturing them in their “planning sessions”. They argue and they laugh. The kids who used to run and play in the starry night are grown, and have kids of their own.

I moved away from it all when I moved to Europe, and I miss it. Especially in times of crisis, you need your family around you.

And yet, somehow, magically, my family has managed to support me from across the ocean, throughout our cancer crisis. Cards, gifts, letters, emails. One uncle was so worried that he might miss Elliot’s birthday that he mailed the card priority, costing a small fortune, to show he cared. I have cousins who’s wives keep in touch with me even though we have yet to meet. Elliot feels he is part of one huge, extended family.

There is also my husband Martin’s side of the family who have been there for us right from the beginning, about whom I could write a whole blog article too. (Note to self: write blog about Martin’s family. Enquire through trusted sources (his mom and sister) about amusing anecdotes from his childhood to include in the story. Perhaps the time he was attacked by a monkey? Or that time he shot himself in the eye? There is definitely some material there.)

Cancer. It sucks, it scares, it robs of our innocence and our time together. But it doesn’t define us. Facing Cancer Together… Great name for what this battle is truly about.

Posted in cancer, family, funny moments | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Comedy in Tragedy

14 Jun

Don't know who this guy is...

One of the ways in which real life is so completely different from any fiction you might see in a movie or on tv is the fact that even in the midst of tragedy, there are funny moments.  These you don’t see on tv.  Can you imagine Kate Winslet hanging off the bow of the Titanic, arms thrown out to her side, eyes closed as she breathes in the fresh, dark night… and then a seagull poops on her shoulder? Ok I know, there wouldn’t likely be seagulls out in the north Atlantic on a cold night, but if there was… it would be kind of funny, right?

Well the reality is that these funny, bizarre moments do happen, even in the midst of the darkest moments. Sometimes, you are in too much pain to notice them. But other times, it is the very emotional vulnerability you are feeling that opens you up to the hilarity of the moment.

On the night Martin and I received the official diagnosis about Elliot, we cried and hugged outside of his hospital room before going in. We didn’t want him to see us so extremely upset. Then we took a deep breath together, and entered the room.

We sat next to his bed and did “normal” parenting things, helped him into his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, read him each a bedtime story.

Then we sat facing each other, whispering, surrounded loosely by the pale pink and pale blue curtains that hung tightly around our chairs and his bed, and Elliot fell asleep. We talked over how the next few days would go. Suddenly our plans had completely changed. Everything and anything that we thought had been important was suddenly re-evaluated. We made some decisions. Trips would be cancelled.  Our shifts at work would have to be changed. We can get thought this! We whispered bravely. Oh, let’s not forget that appointment we had next Tuesday, call and postpone that. And the night out with friends on Saturday, just send a text cancelling. What else… We sat in the darkness facing each other, whispering, holding hands. The red lights of the monitors providing the only break in the blackness around us. The teenager in the bed next to Elliot’s coughed, a loud rusty noise in the quiet of the room. “ Oh”, whispered Martin,  “And the other two, we can’t forget the other two. They will need us to get through this. We have to be strong for them, and not let them feel abandoned.” I felt my throat getting tight, hearing him speak so thoughtfully and paternally about my two older boys, only a few hours after hearing of his only child’s critical illness.

“Yes,” I say, “We’ll just have to keep right on being good parents to all three of them. It would be too easy to start being overly indulgent of Elliot and forget their needs too.”

Thinking of something else, I add: “And also, we really have to not become too overprotective.”

Martin nods slowly. His ears heard: “And also, we really have to not become too over productive.”

He quietly says: “Um, in which way?”

I say: “Well, you know, it would be natural to want to just keep him safe at home from now on during the treatment…”

He says: “I don’t think that’s a good idea, really…”

Me: “No, exactly! We still want him to be able to go out and have fun with life! Right???”

Martin: “Ok, but you want us to relax more? Work less? Just stay home and have down time?”

Me, starting to feel a bit annoyed: “Well I think we’ll get bored if we’re home all the time! And then I’ll just worry more if I don’t have anything to do!”

Martin: “Ok Ok I agree, we’ll just be really careful and keep him home a lot, and not do too many activities or take on too much!”

Me: “But I don’t want to just keep him home all the time! I want him to do some of the same activities he was doing before!”

Him, whispering quite loudly: “He can still do some of the same activities and it doesn’t mean we’ll be spending all our time running around from work to home to activities, we’ll still be able to manage! Don’t worry!!” he is starting to look exasperated. “We’ll never have time to be over productive!!”

I stare at him for a while. My tired brain goes into slow rewind, and replay of our conversation.

“Martin” I whisper, leaning forward toward him. He leans closer.

“I said overprotective, not over productive”.

“ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

And we giggle. A bit more. A chuckle. A stifled laugh. Louder, then we just basically start laughing, both of us sitting there shaking in our little curtain tent, laughing out loud with tears rolling down our faces, Elliot sleeping like any 4 year old does regardless of noise, the other older boy sleeping and snortling in his bed like any leukemia patient loaded up on morphine sleeps through noise…

Laughter in the face of tragedy. A strange partnership. But oh so real.

With my mom’s diagnosis, we had many moments like that. I remember after her first operation, she was hooked up to one of those machines that monitor the i.v., and beeps when it gets low. It also beeps after a few minutes if you unplug it, because the battery life is quite short. And, as any patient or caregiver reading this will also tell you, it also beeps at random sometimes just to annoy you.  These machines have a mind of their own and need attention.

So my sister Michelle and I are on the evening “shift “at the hospital, watching over our mom who had fallen asleep after telling us to stop giggling. It’s like being a kid again, in the back seat of the car as our mom tries desperately to drive us to school on time after we’ve missed the bus, and now are stuck in traffic, and we’re giggling. Only now that I have my own three kids can I relate to how the giggling is just making the situation worse. But I digress.

Michelle and I were giggling because we are slowly being driven mad by the unpredictable beeping of the i.v. machine. It had been beeping non-stop for 30 minutes, but the nurses were just switching shifts, the day nurse leaving and the evening one having just arrived for the night. It’s dark out, our dad has brought Julie (youngest sister) home for supper.

And the machine won’t stop beeping.

Michelle ventures out into the hall, finds the nurse, and tells her that, well, the machine that beeps, is well, beeping. Our medical lingo was not as good then, we actually referred to it as the beep-beep machine. The nurse exasperatingly says she’ll be there when she has time, and that they are quite short staffed tonight.

Sidebar here, as I mention that nurses just don’t get paid enough for all the work they do, they are truly the unsung heroes of the medical profession. I could go on about this for a whole other blog… Maybe I will at a later date. But the fact it that they work hard and are often overworked and overtired. It is not surprising that they can sometimes lose patience. And yet, I have rarely seen them be anything less than professional.

In any case, we wait another 20 minutes, surrounded by beeps and an increasingly frustrated mother, who is being woken up by the noise. Both Michelle and I make attempts at reading all the labels on the machine, trying to figure it out without touching it. We check the cables, but they all seem ok (in our expert opinion).

We peek out into the darkened hall again. No nurse.

Finally, I press one of the buttons on the machine. It still beeps. Michelle presses another. The beeping stops, then starts three seconds later. So we both just start randomly pressing all the buttons.

The nurse comes in.

Caught with your hands in the cookie jar.

We leap away from the machine.

The nurse grumpily quickly pushes some of the buttons until the machine stops beeping. Since she’s there, she also checks our mom, does a few nurse- type things while Michelle and I hover in the background like school kids. Just as she is about to leave the machine beeps again, like it’s saying goodbye. The nurse sighs, turns around, stares at it angrily with her hands on her hips, then says it must be the battery alarm that’s malfunctioning, and she’ll get a new machine when she has the chance but right now she has to do the rounds. And she leaves.

Beep.

Michelle and I look at each other. Our mom has actually fallen asleep now, and we consider whether we should just go home.

Beep.

Or, maybe we should look for a new machine? The nurse won’t have time for hours…

Beep.

Maybe we could just kind of go for a little walk through the quiet dark hospital, and if we happened to see a loose beep-beep machine, commandeer it?

Beep.

We head out.

And this is how Michelle and I happened to find ourselves wandering the dark hallways of the hospital late one evening, peeking into empty bedrooms, avoiding any people who looked official (by the way, anyone walking around a hospital late at night looks official).

Our plan was to get a beep-beep machine, roll it back to our mom’s room (somehow carrying it up or down staircases since we were avoiding the more populated elevators), and triumphantly show it to the nurse who would gratefully hook it up to our mom, thus making us the heroes of the Quiet Night’s Sleep.

At one point it did occur to us that we might get caught, arrested, and thrown in jail on suspicion of medical equipment theft. This made us laugh quite a bit.

So we were actually wandering around the dark, quiet hallways of a hospital late at night, laughing our heads off, and looking to steal a beep-beep machine.

I won’t tell you how the story ends, but let’s just say I have no criminal record. The photo here is Michelle and I, looking very innocent. Never mind that the actual events I’ve described take place roughly 20 years after this photo was taken.

We always look this innocent

I wonder now if our mom appreciates all the hard work we did for her. I somehow suspect she would rather not know about it…

Funny.

And tragic.

Can you relate?

Posted in cancer, family, funny moments, hospital | Tagged , , | 6 Comments