Thank You For Your…um…Support?

The blog address came from an earlier title I tried for this blog. Didn’t work. The new title is a better reflection of me – and if you’re here, I hope it’s a reflection of you…http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions As to the lateness of the post? Yesterday we celebrated the marriage of my son and daughter-in-law at a reception that had been delayed for a year. So the wedding was Labor Day last year, the reception yesterday. Busy, busy, busy...

One of the things I’ve noticed in this ordeal is that huge expectations have been laid on caregivers.

We are to support our women. The doctors, nurses, families and well, everyone, expects it.

Of COURSE I do that with all my strength, heart and spirit! I love my wife! I am pulling for her, cheering for her, weeping with her, listening to her. I am as there as I can be.

Others cast their support as well from intimate family and friends to people she hasn’t heard from in years, all the way to ones with whom she parted ways less-than-happily. People who follow and comment on her Caringbridge blog (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lizstewart1) are legion.

My question then – and still is – where’s my support?

Of course people support me! Right? OK, to be honest, I was sorta expecting a bit more. Maybe a couple of pats on the back, a chuck under the chin and few words of, “Wow, must be tough for ya, eh?”

That was my expectation. The reality is more like an avoidance reaction. For example, one of the men at school has a wife who is going through breast cancer. They have younger children, so a greater burden has fallen on him than on me with one kid out of the house living his own life and then other starting her third year of college.

But I sorta expected a bit more camaraderie when he told me about it through his email response to my announcement. Instead, we avoid each other and never say a word about breast cancer. Some of the women at school ask about my wife. Lots of them. Many of them. Our church supports her and people ask about her all the time.

But the people I get to thank for their support?

Crickets chirping in the auditorium as I speak into the microphone, “Thank you for your support.”

Image: http://www.outlandishjosh.com/files/Bartles%20and%20James%20Parrot.jpg

Living on a Roller Coaster

The blog address came from an earlier title I tried for this blog. Didn’t work. The new title is a better reflection of me – and if you’re here, I hope it’s a reflection of you… http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions

If you’re in love with someone with breast cancer, then you get the whole idea of life lived on a roller coaster.

For normal people, a roller coaster is a toy. Something fun to do for a few seconds where you scream, ooooo!, ahhhh! feel queasy then get off the ride and continue on through the amusement park, the State Fair or the Something Something Something Land/Fair/Flags or whatever.

But imagine for a moment living on the roller coaster.

For starters, there’s no roof and you can be pretty sure that it will get wet in the rain and cold in the winter. As well, the ride at the amusement park ends in a matter of seconds. (Factoid: the longest roller coaster ride is just over four minutes long – 240 seconds…) There’s nowhere to sleep, nowhere to eat, nowhere to go to the bathroom and nowhere to take a few minutes to catch your breath.

Loving someone with breast cancer is like living on a roller coaster – every time you start, you have to pay with a token and even if you get sick on the ride, you have to stay on it. When everyone else gets off, the bar stays down on your lap. The cars fill up again with laughing people and the next thing you know, you’re rolling again.

The woman you love knows all about the roller coaster, too, but they’re trapped in experiencing it in a way you can’t. You end up going up and down all alone. No one notices that you’re on the ride, too.

You try really hard not to notice, either. You want desperately to get off – and the thing is, you CAN. Men do it all the time – they abandon their wives, their girlfriends, their lovers as the treatments progress. You know you can get off, but you refuse. Over and over and over again.

You KNOW that the ride will end eventually – you just don’t know WHEN. You keep looking at your watch; you keep seeing everyone else get off after having a good time and you wonder when your ride will be over.

At some point, knowledge changes over to having faith that the ride will be over eventually.

That’s where I’m at now, and if I didn’t have a God who loves me, a wife who loves me and a family that cares, I’m not sure where I’d be in my roller coaster life right now…

Image: http://attractions.uptake.com/blog/files/2009/04/2074550533_e66356c6c9.jpg

Food Adventures Courtesy of My Wife & Rachel Ray

I know, the title seems to invite death. Not to my way of thinking or to the way a word freak looks at words! To read where it came from, click here: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions

One of the effects of chemotherapy appears to be changes in how people taste things. Favorite foods can become as tasteless as sawdust and as caregivers, we have to get used to the phrase, “Does this taste funny to you?”

I’ve found the best answer to that question is to say that it doesn’t taste like it’s over the expiration date (If it IS, however, get rid of it. The immune system of someone in chemo has been slowed down due to the destruction of cancer cells. ANY stray bacteria or virus can attack that immune system! It’s not a sure thing, but why risk it?). Also, you have to put on your cautious taste buds.

Humans developed taste buds in order to figure out if something that had been identified as “food” was rotten or not. If it was “rotten”, that would mean it might carry more than the usual bacteria and therefore make someone sick – or kill them.

But now that old favorites taste weird to the chemo patient, what can you do?

My wife has always loved watching cooking shows. One of those shows is of course, Rachel Ray. The show spins by fast, but you can go online and download any recipe you want. Better yet, go to your local Target, WalMart or Pamida store and get a Rachel Ray cooking video – any one of her 30 Minute Meals ones from the FOOD CHANNEL. Watch it together or have her watch it and then stand back!

The idea of experimenting with new foods also makes the prospect of failure easier to take – if it doesn’t taste good, you can put it down as a culinary experiment gone bad and move one! The National Cancer Institute’s EATING HINTS: Before, During and After Cancer Treatment publication suggests that you avoid formerly “favorite” so that a negative encounter doesn’t leave a bad memory that will ruin it for AFTER chemo when the taste buds recover.

And usually they WILL recover!

Now’s the time for adventure and while there may be failures, who knows – maybe you’ll discover a new favorite! I’m not sure my wife would have tried Israeli Spice Chicken if she hadn’t been on her journey through chemo. What I CAN guarantee now is that this dish just made it on our Most Wanted list!

Image: http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171512060l/104446.jpg

Resources and the possibility of a NEW NAME! Vote and let me KNOW!

I know, the blog title seems to invite death. Not to my way of thinking or to the way a word freak looks at words! To read where it came from, click here:http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/search/label/Introductions

I don't need to say much today -- the article below is a GREAT place to start thinking about your role as a caregiver:

http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/041011/11husbands.htm

This is the national organization the article alludes to...but doesn't seem to be much more than advertising. Where can we TALK?

http://www.menagainstbreastcancer.org/about/

HERE!

You got a question, a thought or a statement, let me know!

Men GOTTA TALK! (Who knows, maybe I'll change the name of this blog...