Smiling Eyes

Below is the latest news from A3 and family. Despite the fact that every lump and bump in a cancer survivor’s life can mean a good many more sleepless nights until test results come back, somehow we learn to cope and carry on. No question, A3’s about to undergo yet another miracle, the metamorphasis from the world of a child into a young man. As my boys finish up their educations and take their places in the world, I look back to those middle school years as the last years when they were still child-like but also more like young men, and not since they were infants did changes seem to happen overnight. There is nothing like surviving/fighting cancer to help one become a good deal more tolerant of life’s imperfections, whether you are an awkward, impatient preteen or a 50-something-year-old baby boomer looking forward to retirement — it’s all good!

Here’s what’s up, hot off the browser:
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Subject: “minor surgery”

The enclosed picture is a poorly lit, poorly framed close up of the boy. If you look carefully, you can see the collar that he now wears unless he is showering or eating or sitting, when it comes off entirely. We have been blessed with enough bond growth in his neck that it is likely that he will not require a reconstruction of his neck this summer. The picture also shows his wonderful hair that within the last year has returned with a vengeance. I wish I had 10% of that hair!

Life has been good to us during the last year. Carrie Ann and Alan returned last labor day, school went well (great thanks again to Mrs. Leanna Owens, his wonderful teacher) and he was ‘graduated’ to the middle school where in the fall he will begin the 5th grade.

The most obvious cloud on the current horizon is a small thing growing in his posterior nasopharynx, at the place where the biopsy and the tumor excision took place. It has been visible on the MRI for about the past 5 months and seems to be increasing in size very slowly. It has now been visualized twice in office visits, once here and once there at CHOP. There is some ‘black humor’ in the description that many of the physicians at CHOP have given this which is basically: “we do not think that this represents a recurrence, because it is growing too slowly”. This is comforting, sort of. We will feel much better when the offending tissue is resting in a jar in some pathology lab.

So the current plans are to return to CHOP during the 2nd week in July where the boy will undergo general anesthesia (no “minor” aspect here as he is always a fiberoptic intubation because of his neck being fused) and Ken Kazahaya will address this lesion. Dr. Kazahaya is the ENT skull base surgeon who did the original biopsy just over 27 months ago. So this isn’t really a “minor surgery” since the anesthetic will not be “minor” and in fact the lesion is located in a rather delicate place, just anterior to the brainstem, though, very thankfully, it is on the nasopharyngeal side and not on the brainstem side.

As always, any prayers that you happen to offer with the boy’s name are most appreciated.

We have been tremendously blessed in getting this far with this disease and once more will hold our breath for a bit longer.

Love,

Alan

On Memorial Day 2007, one of the first warm days of the year, we joined the caravan of SUVs, vans, hatchbacks, sedans, convertibles, motorcycles, bicycles, skateboards, and even some pedestrians on the Sylvan Exit up to Washington Park, the zoo, the Rose Garden, Japanese Gardens, and Vietnam Memorial. After a few pirouettes in the parking lot, we returned to the Sunset Transit Center to hop the Max instead. We were excited about the day we had planned. We’d been meaning to visit the Vietnam Memorial for some years now: this year we would, along with a hike along the Wildwood trail through Forest Park, then a visit to the Japanese Gardens and finally the Rose Garden.

First though, we fiddled with the ticket dispenser and hoped on the first train headed east and quickly grabbed our seats near the front of the Max. Just before the doors snapped shut with the usual warning from the speaker in English and Spanish, he stepped inside, a tall, stocky man, thinning brown and gray hair, wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots, mirrored sunglasses, and a blue jean jacket completely covered with patches: smiley faces, the American flag, cross bones and skull, and many, many more patches, but one of which caught my eye, which he wore on the sleeve, right there where I used to sew on my boys’ cub scout den numbers and pack patches — it was a purple heart. With all the stories of Vietnam Vets being so isolative, overreacting, violent without apparent provocation from time to time, living through drug abuse and broken marriages, unemployed, so antisocial, I felt momentarily a little weary as this gentleman stood staring out at who knows what, thinking who knew what this Memorial Day behind those mirrored sunglasses . Nevertheless, I turned my attention back to my family as we sped through the dark tunnel into the sunshine and our stop. We headed out the door and around the corner to the elevator that would take us up to Washington Park and the Oregon Vietnam War Memorial , and standing there waiting for the elevator was our Vietnam Vet and all those patches. I could not resists, to the surprise of my husband and son, and walked right up to him and said, “Hi, I just want to shake your hand. I see you have a purple heart.”

“Yeah, two of them,” as he shook my hand firmly. No longer wearing those glasses, he did seem much more approachable. Before I could stop myself, I heard myself say,

“What happened?”

“They shot my boat out from under me. But the worst thing was coming home.”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said, and the flood of shame came over me, remembering how miserable those times were…

“My brother called me a baby killer,” and his words started to tumble out like an erupting volcano…

“Yeah, I remember,” as I looked down at my feet…

“And so many people hated us…”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said, as I turned away to join my family. Later on the walk behind him, I walked arm in arm with my husband and son.

“The Vietnam Vets are still hurting after almost 40 years,” I said.

“Yeah, of course they are,” my husband said quickly.

“So many died, all for nothing,” I said with a lump in my throat and an angry, bitter feeling, just as though it were 1972 all over again.

“And still are in Iraq,” chimed in my oldest son, “and for what?”

We walked along silently together with a dark, helpless feeling as we came upon the Vietnam Memorial. Laid out in a circle to represent the ending and beginning of life, the connection from the past to the future, a place where we reflect on what we have lost but still what we continue to hope for. The Oregon senator, the chaplan, the families and friends of vets serving our nation from Oregon, we all stood together to sing the Star Spangled Banner. I knew if I’d lost one of my precious sons to such insanity, I would die a bitter woman. The crowd was thin. So many of the Vietnam vets and their wives were marked with the signs of aging –overweight, thinning gray hair, some with a tettering gait holding themselves much closer to the earth these days, but the in-your-face, don’t-give-a-damn attitudes were still there after 40 long years. The loss of innocence and the masks covering the memory of undeniable horror were still evident on their faces. The senator from Oregon didn’t hesitate to turn his speech into a political spin, pointing out the lack of suitable armor our boys in Iraq were having to put up with on the front lines in Bagdad.

We walked away slowly, passing the names of the dead and the missing in action.

I wondered by Memorial Day 2008 how many more young men and women’s names will be carved in the not-yet-planned memorial to the Iraq war. I wondered how the survivors of 9-11 had spent the day. I wondered if my children’s children would ever live in a world at peace. I wondered what to teach my boys about how to live in a world full of hate and vengence with little mercy, less honor, and absolutely no grace for our neighbors or ourselves, when love of God and religion have become the instruments of politics and war.

Thank goodness for Mother Nature and a warm sunny day in Oregon. As we made our way through Forest Park to the Japanese gardens and finally to the roses beginning their glorious show, we passed family after family and friends together out for a pleasant walk, spending time together enjoying the vistas and each other. We met some of those same vets, this time with their families, spending a lazy afternoon together in the park. When all is said and done, evil is just below the surface almost anywhere in the world, as history as taught us, but the human spirit’s ability to heal and to go on to appreciate a day like this, sharing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with your best friend in an Oregon rose garden on a sunny Sunday afternoon, now, that’s worth fighting for…

Praying for Peace,

SOTL