Support for LateToSchool

[epistrophy]

<p>Lafalum:</p>

<p>My own mother died (of cancer) just days before Christmas, several years ago, so I know some of what you are experiencing.</p>

<p>(And I agree that many members of the often maligned [sometimes with good reason] medical profession are indeed, through their commitment and service to others, “saints.”)</p>

<hr>

<p>

the distant mountain’s
blossoms cast their light…
east window

</p>

<p>–Issa, 1820</p>

[Moominmama]

<p>Lafalum, I hope your mother’s surgery went well, and that she is able to come home soon.</p>

[CountingDown]

<p>Lafalum,
Sending you strength and courage for you and your mom.</p>

[kelsmom]

<p>Lafalum, my thoughts and prayers are with you, your mom, and your family. The fact that you can be with your mom is a blessing.</p>

[scualum]

<p>Lafalum:</p>

<p>Best of luck to you and your mother - I’ll include you all in my prayers tonight.</p>

[northeastmom]

<p>Lafalum, Thinking of you and your family. I hope that your mother’s operation was as successful as possible. I hope that they are keeping your mother pain free.</p>

[huguenot]

<p>Lafalum – I am so sorry you are going through this awful battle! {{{hugs}}} May you and she be strong and full of courage! I am reminded of my grandmother 11 years ago when they called us to her ICU bedside to say goodbye - her lymphoma had spread to her heart and spine and she was in congestive heart failure. Yesterday, she was in my home for Christmas - healthy and hearty and nearly 90. May you see a Christmas miracle, too!</p>

[mini]

<p>Lafalum, I hope the surgery went well and that your mom gets home. Hospice is not giving up but aimed at helping you all enjoy the time you have together as much as possible. I am a hospice nurse and I have a number of patients with ovarian cancer. My thoughts are with you.
Peace
Ellen</p>

[Lafalum84]

<p>Thanks to all of you, your kind words of experience mean more than you can know.</p>

<p>The follow-up surgery went well. We are still fighting to get mom’s blood pressure under control, but I am optimistic that will eventually improve. The goal is to get her healthy enough to be able to eat and come home, probably with help, possibly from Hospice. The good news is that my parents have a wonderful home to come home to, it’s one story and on a lake. The master bedroom and kitchen/eating area have large picture windows with beautiful views of the lake. They also have 2 very loving cats. </p>

<p>It’s a bit complicated for me because I live 1000 miles away. DH, kids and I arrived at my parents’ home shortly before Christmas, so we were all together for the holiday. They have returned home, but I am staying here for about another week. I plan to come back here in a couple of weeks, too. </p>

<p>I’ll stop hijacking the thread now, but will occasionally post updates. I thought of this thread because our family is having some quality vs quantity of life discussions. Also, I have great sympathy for LTS’s daughter, having gone thru this without a dad to help her.</p>

[marite]

<p>Lafalum:</p>

<p>I am so glad that the surgery went well. Don’t worry about hijacking the thread! LTS would not have minded in the least, and we all need support at various times.</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>and another</p>

<p>

**When the Doctor Becomes the Patient: A New Lung Cancer Voice</p>

<p>Happy Holidays**
December 25th, 2008</p>

<hr>

<p>Aside from the throat pain, this is being a most wonderful Christmas for me. I am surrounded by my family, enjoying traditions that I’ve been away from for almost twenty years as well as all the traditions I’ve established with my children in that time. It would be wonderful without lung cancer, but the lung cancer puts a very special exclamation point to all the beauty and good feelings. I have no idea whether or not this will be my last Christmas, but it will be very difficult to equal its wonder in years to come if I am so blessed.</p>

<p>So I’m going to go back to the fire and egg nog and family gathered in my sister’s living room and just wallow for a while. I wish each and every one of you joy and hope in this holiday season. Rest assured that I am full to overflowing with both.

</p>

<p>[When</a> the Doctor Becomes the Patient: A New Lung Cancer Voice - by Lisa Woody](<a href=“http://www.nationallungcancerpartnership.org/blog/]When”>http://www.nationallungcancerpartnership.org/blog/)</p>

[lspf72]

<p>Best wishes to you and your mom, Lafalum.</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>This morning I happened upon a radio program (apparently a rerun) of a piece that touches on some things – experiences and issues – that have arisen over the course of this thread in one way or another. </p>

<p>It’s an audio diary compiled by a man who, in his late 40s, married, with two young children, was diagnosed with a brain tumor, from which he died about a year after the diagnosis. What really makes this piece work – what gives it its texture, its liveliness, its juice – are the additional observations recorded by this man’s wife after her husband’s death. Her emotional candor and strength concerning the toll that this illness (and the treatments for it) took on her, on her relationship with her husband, and on their family – as well her comments about the grieving process that followed his death – are (I think) profoundly moving.</p>

<p>The piece, titled “A Year To Live, A Year To Die,” can be found here (program #82, apparently first aired on 1/12/08):</p>

<p>[Third</a> Coast International Audio Festival // Chicago Public Radio](<a href=“http://thirdcoastfestival.org/resound_2008_january.asp]Third”>http://thirdcoastfestival.org/resound_2008_january.asp)</p>

[Lafalum84]

<p>Update - Mom is stabilized. At this point she’s beginning to start eating (clear liquids) and regaining her strength. It’s not clear whether she will be able to come home - with assistance - or go to a rehab for a while and then come home. As to how things will go after that, who knows? But the immediate crisis has passed, and she is slowly but surely improving. For that we are grateful.</p>

<p>I am heading home to my family tomorrow, and will return here to my parents’ home for a few days in about 2 weeks. Thanks to all who expressed their support - it really meant a lot.</p>

[sybbie719]

<p>Hey Laf,</p>

<p>what good news for the new year. It is great to know that things are finally settling down. I hope when you get home your family gives you some much needed TLC.</p>

[lamom]

<p>Dear Lafalum84,
Thanks for sharing the positive news. Enjoy your family.
LA</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>and another</p>

<p>

“Haggard to Sing Smoke-Free”</p>

<p>Merle Haggard plans to give his first concerts since undergoing surgery for lung cancer two months ago, Reuters reported. In a special twist, Mr. Haggard, 71, said that for the first time in his life he would perform without having first smoked tobacco or marijuana. Notwithstanding a jab at pot smokers in his 1969 hit “Okie From Muskogee,” Mr. Haggard has long indulged a marijuana habit of his own. Having now put it aside, he said, he expects to work harder in 2009. The concerts are set for Friday and Saturday in his hometown, Bakersfield, Calif.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/arts/music/02arts-HAGGARDTOSIN_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=merle%20haggard&st=cse[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/arts/music/02arts-HAGGARDTOSIN_BRF.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=merle%20haggard&st=cse&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[Moominmama]

<p>Great news! I hope the various transistions go smoothly for your mother.</p>

[BunsenBurner]

<p>Lafalum, thanks for sharing great news!</p>

<hr>

<p>On a sad note, Marin Morrison, a local teenage Paralympic swimmer who competed in Beijing this fall after underoing several brain surgeries, passed away today after a 4-year battle with brain cancer.</p>

<p>[US</a> Paralympic swimmer dies after cancer battle](<a href=“http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008584940_apwaparalympicswimmerdeath.html]US”>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008584940_apwaparalympicswimmerdeath.html)</p>

<p>Marin was a very talented swimmer, and even brain cancer did not stop her from reaching for her dream - to compete in the Olympics. She was a courageous young lady.</p>

[epistrophy]

<p>Re cancer, dying, and death, from today’s New York Times Book Review:</p>

<p>

“Rough Crossing”</p>

<p>[cover review of THE MERCY PAPERS: A Memoir of Three Weeks by Robin Romm]</p>

<hr>

<p>In concrete terms, the problem is Romm’s anguish over the impending death of her mother, Jackie Romm. Jackie, 56, has been living with breast cancer for nine years when her daughter is summoned home to see her for the last time. Subtitled “A Memoir of Three Weeks,” the book chronicles not only the final weeks of her mother’s life but also, in passages too seamlessly interwoven to be called flashbacks, the almost decade-long period in which cancer invaded the author as well — not physiologically but in every other imaginable way. Romm, who was 19 at the time of her mother’s diagnosis, does not so much mourn as rail against her losses: the looming loss of her mother, yes, but also the loss of her own unburdened youth, of her “20s,” as she puts it, again and again, at times wistfully (“I felt the most normal I’d felt in a month. I felt like a girl in my 20s”), at times bitterly (“I couldn’t be around so many healthy people in their 20s, their eyes lit up with the frenzy of being young and lucky”).</p>

<hr>

<p>In the end, it is the mother who releases the daughter. After a particularly horrific day of doing battle with the “boat builders” who are ushering her mother toward death, Romm goes to Jackie and confesses that she cannot bring herself, as the others have urged her, to say “it’s O.K. to die.” The confession is gorgeous for its admitted selfishness — which, in its candor and intimacy, is transformed into an act of generosity, a precious, unprettied gift. But the gift her mother gives in return is even greater. Her speech slurred through the oxygen mask, Jackie answers, “Sweetheart, I dun need your permission.”</p>

<p>“This is what I wanted to hear,” Romm realizes. With these words, the very thing that has tormented her — our powerlessness to stop death — becomes a form of solace.

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Cohen-t.html?_r=1[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Cohen-t.html?_r=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

When we asked Leah Hager Cohen to review “The Mercy Papers,” Robin Romm’s account of her mother’s death from cancer, Cohen “thought briefly of asking if I could write it jointly with my mother.”</p>

<p>The book and the review hold special meaning for her. “My mother is in treatment for late-stage ovarian cancer,” Cohen said in an e-mail message. “She is very clear about rejecting the language of battle: any language that positions cancer or death as enemies, or portrays a zero-sum game in which winning means living and losing means dying.”</p>

<p>Cohen has written extensively about her mother on her blog, Love as a Found Object, which she started in 2006 “in a state of serious mortification, giving in at last to my agent’s urging. I hated the ugliness of the word ‘blog’ and the kind of self-involvement I associated with blogging. But then I found myself wondering whether it could be a space for playing and working with the idea of my mother’s illness.” Cohen pointed out that Romm uses the metaphor of death as a boat trip, as the dying person floats away: “It’s funny because I often think of my postings as little paper boats. I launch them when I click ‘publish,’ and then they float off, beyond my control, perhaps to capsize or disintegrate. I find this loss of control only slightly scary, and vital.”

</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Upfront-t.html?ref=review&pagewanted=print[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/books/review/Upfront-t.html?ref=review&pagewanted=print&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;