Skip to main content

And so it begins~


I sit in the second floor waiting room at Dana Farber Cancer Institute while Bruce is taken to a room to pee in a cup and have some blood drawn.  He’d already peed in a jug for 24 hours and dropped that off to be analyzed for funky monoclonal plasma cells. They take his "vital signs"--height, weight, blood pressure.

He’s back soon and we get coffee and ride the crowded elevator to meet our nurse practitioner Mary, who will tell us what to expect of this journey into cancer land. Whenever anyone gets off the elevator, I check the floor chart to see what his or her cancer might be. Awful names! We get off at “hematological carcinomas.” Seventh floor.

The end result of today’s visit is Bruce’s first shot of Velcade and his first two oral chemo pills: Revlimid and Dexamethasone--the RVD chemo treatment that makes Multiple Myeloma quake—we hope.

“One pill makes you happy and one pill makes you small. One pill…something, something…” I can’t help singing this. I’m hoping B’s pills provide the 1,2,3 punch we’ve been told they will to knock down this cancer.

And at 1:15 B is seated in the infusion chair and his treatment begins—the first four-week cycle of a total of 15 cycles. 

I never wear much jewelry, some days none at all. But today while preparing for the first chemo visit to Dana Farber—Day 1-Cycle 1—I put on earrings that were my mother’s--the ones my daughter wore on her wedding day for “something borrowed”; an opal ring that was my grandmother’s; a birthstone ring that Bruce gave me, and a necklace that my son Dave gave me for Mother’s Day. I wouldn’t be alone. WE wouldn’t be alone.
And I brought this journal. Not sure whose it was. My father’s?

It was empty. Now it’s not.


Comments

Diane H. said…
Thank you for sharing the journey you both are making, a journey so many have been on before.
Diane
Ruth L.~ said…
So very many are on this journey...and yet, it is still a solitary one in many ways.
Unknown said…
My thoughts and PRAYERS are with you BOTH. As difficult as this may be for you Ruth, THANK YOU for sharing this journey.
I agree with Sue, unless you have experienced such a journey first hand you can not completely understand but know your friends are with you too!
Godspeed...
Ruth L.~ said…
Thank you, Nancy. It's less solitary when others share the journey in friendship...and I appreciate that. Hugs.
Unknown said…
I know you give Bruce strength and purpose, Ruth. May he live to 95 and take you dancing on his birthday!
Beth Camp said…
You both are beginning a journey that will require courage and stamina. May you be blessed with both. Thank you for bringing us all along with you. I'm hoping you have a good outcome.
Bob Sanchez said…
I will be thinking of both of you, Ruth.
Ruth L.~ said…
Thank, you Gary, Beth, and Bob... I appreciate your riding with me on this journey...or at least reading my views! Makes a difference to be heard.

Gary, When Bruce is 95, I'll be 86 and more than happy to shuffle with him on the dance floor.

Popular posts from this blog

For Alice~ She's home!!!!!!!

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Sometimes it's all about knowing that loved ones and friends stand behind you, knowing that support is there on the down days, the worry days, the days when you feel off-center, out of sync, bedraggled emotionally, and in pain, but knowing all the while that you're not alone. You're not alone... Alice is an online friend--she lives in Hawaii-- who belongs to the writer's workshop that I do. We've only "met" online, but those who have online friendships know that they can be just as strong as those in-person relationships. Alice was hit by a car while walking, and is in the rehab phase of things. She's working to regain mobility after a broken pelvis, a broken arm, and a broken nose. It's scary to realize how, in the blink of an eye, life can lurch and our plans for a time are displaced by survival and healing. We...

Killing time~

I'd woken feeling stuffy headed, slightly allergy-ish, puffy-eyed, and a tad grumpy. Lots to do, little time in which to do it, school issues keeping me in a state of angst, I considered not going to David's game. But it was Saturday, the game fairly close to home-- Salem State College-- an hour or so north through Boston to the town of Salem, famous for the 1692 witch trials that saw 19 suspected witches, many of them social outcasts, hang on Gallows Hill. A change of pace was what I needed whether I wanted it or not, so I went. I squeezed in a walk around the block that enclosed Salem State's O'Keefe Center while waiting for the game to begin. Just to kill time. I get so few chances to do that. Others walking, too, passed with no eye contact, no greetings, just sharing the same planet. Two were coming toward me. Still unfocused in the distance . . . one was tall, the other short . . . two men . . . loose clothing . . . like army clothes, camouflage . . . beard and lon...

Missing Becky~

Becky~ August 19, 1991 to April 26, 2010 She was so loved, this gentle pet of mine.  And how she loved us back. I've been alone in my house before, of course. Those days when my husband took the kids out for the day, being able to vacuum without a baby in one arm and a toddler, riding the vacuum cleaner like it was a bronco, was solitary pleasure. Later there were quiet days as the kids were at camp and my husband at work. And then came the bittersweet aloneness when kids left home for college and a life apart. Still, I'd always liked being alone, knowing it was short lived. This morning, after my husband pulled out of the driveway with a day full of plans,  I stood in the living room feeling alone in a way I never had before.  An unfamiliar emptiness and silence surrounded me. Yesterday we put our 18-year-old cat, Becky, to sleep. The decision to do so was surprisingly easy. The vet had told us Becky would let us know when it was time, and somehow she did. But ...