Chapter 2
Ready to get this done and over with! Laura’s words of encouragement to herself.
Even though deep in her heart Laura did not want to go through this again, she knew she had to. She also knew she had to be strong for the girls. Laura climbed up into that driver’s seat and made a conscious decision that SHE was in control of this ride. SHE was in control of cancer.
With a new, cute, short haircut and the words embedded in her heart- ‘I can do this’, she walked through that cancer center door. 9:30 A.M. Monday, December 22nd, 2014 was a day that once again changed the path of Laura’s life. Chemotherapy began.
Early that morning, I sent her my first chemo day message. It was a short text with three simple words… ‘Are you ready?’ She answered with “I’m doing good. A little nervous, but that’s just between us, otherwise I’m doing okay”. And she was okay, at least from what I knew. First day of chemo was over and all was good. Laura had conquered the fear that had led up to this day. I have often wondered what was going through her mind as she sat in that same setting as she did years ago. Oh, I’m sure the rooms are all updated, and the office is filled with new faces. But there is still that moment in time that parallels with this one.
I like to be prepared, so I did my research on what to expect after a person receives chemotherapy.
I knew how many days would be good, and about how many days into it would knock her off her feet. I found my research to be true.
Laura made it through Christmas just fine, a little tired but otherwise doing pretty good. Then that day came, just like I read about. Laura was wiped out. I checked in to see how she was feeling. “I have just hit the bottom. I just want to try to find something that tastes good and something to drink. Water is NOT good; it just sits on my stomach. I don’t mean to complain, this just sucks! I don’t like feeling this way.”
Everything she said was just like I had read. I asked her sometime during that first week after chemo, overall, how did she feel. She answered with, “It’s been thirty-two years since the first time of doing this. I know I am strong but when you can’t drink and you can’t eat and you just want to find something, anything that tastes okay so you can get some kind of energy back. I don’t want to be like this!”
That was when my ‘pep talks’ began. I have sent her many messages throughout this cancer journey. Words of encouragement, words of care, even words where I had to come down hard on her. Yes, at times I had to get on her case. I sent her a text message every chemo day. And many, I mean many, pep talks.
I have over a hundred notes stored on my phone. These notes gave me the time to write what really needed to be said. Most were quite lengthy, and some quite hard. Honestly, I didn’t’ know what I was talking about. I had never been through this before. But somehow, someway, God gave me the words to say.
Those notes became text messages that Laura had to keep. She wouldn’t let me erase any of them. I didn’t understand why. She said if for some reason she lost the ones on her phone, I would still have mine. I know now these text messages were saved so they could become this book. God sure has a way of doing things, doesn’t He??
One day we looked on my account, curious to see just how many text messages we had throughout that month. There were over 3500! Holy Moly!!! Not all of these were pep talks. There were a lot of “hi, how are you”, some small talk and several deep meaningful conversations about life. Through this series of text messages this friendship grew, and my co-worker became my best friend.
I never really knew how all these pep talks began, not until I started writing this book. I found the very first one… ‘I read something today, it said… Your body can stand almost anything, it’s your mind that you have to convince.’ I told her; ‘It’s a tough one I know, but you can do it!’ From that moment on I knew I was the one who had to help convince Laura’s mind. So, with Gods help, that is exactly what I set out to do.
Monday came around and she was starting to feel better. Laura said to me; “I can’t believe I am doing this again. I am worn out and in a little bit of denial, but that’s just between you and me. I think all of this ‘got me’, but only this time. I am figuring all this out.”
If only those words were to be true. That wasn’t the case.
The following day was scheduled with more tests, a bone scan and a CAT scan, this time on the abdomen. It was a long slow day. Later in the evening, a phone call was made to the Doctor. Laura’s heart was racing fast, and she had a fever of 101.3. A trip to the Emergency room was ordered.
When you have cancer, you get the ‘royal treatment’. There was no sitting around the waiting area; she was rushed off to a private room. A room far away from all the others who may have viruses or germs. Oh, sure enough, they admitted her. Laura’s blood counts were too low, and her fever was too high. Ringing in ‘2015’ with a four day stay in the local hospital is not a good way to start off a brand-new year. Laura felt miserable. She was tired, she was confused, and she was scared. After a few tests they determined she had bronchitis. This was the start of something new that would be a pain in Laura’s behind. Laura had a horrible, awful cough. A cough that seemed like it would NEVER go away.
Homebound and told to rest after her hospital stay was not easy for Laura.
Her body knew she needed to rest, but her mind wanted life to be normal. That became very frustrating!
One afternoon, while I was sitting on my porch, I sent Laura a picture of a handwritten note I had just read. It stated…Don’t just pray about what seems logical and possible, pray hard about the impossible, God will show you that Nothing, Nothing, Nothing is Impossible with Him. While I was sitting there texting what I had read, a very bright red colored bird landed on my porch. It couldn’t have been more than 6 feet from me. I admired it as it was staring at me from my porch rail. I wondered why it landed there, what that meant and if there was a meaning behind it. Hopefully it meant Good Luck!
They say… when you see a red cardinal it represents a loved one who has passed; in spirit they are coming to visit you. Information says they usually show up when you need them the most. They let you know your Angels are always with you and know what is going on. The Cardinal is also known to represent Faith. Yes, I will take that as a sign of Good Luck and what perfect timing for a message I needed to hear!
Everyone knows one of the side effects of chemotherapy is losing your hair. Laura still had all of hers. This was one of the things Laura thought she had figured out; she was going to prove everyone wrong. She even told me how she knew she might lose some but planned on keeping most of it. The chemo she had 32 years ago didn’t cause her to lose her hair, sure it thinned out, but she still maintained a full head of hair. Well sad to say Laura was wrong and the Doctors were right. Her hair started coming out by the handfuls. She showed me once while we were at work. She reached up with her fingers and gently pulled her hand away. Clumps of hair fell out so easily. This is something you hear about, but you really don’t feel the impact of it until you see it firsthand. You stand there in silence because you don’t know what to say. In your heart you feel sadness. The visible signs of cancer are now starting to show.
As I have said before Laura was taking control. She made an appointment with the hairdresser to get it all shaved off. She had no interest in waiting for the patchiness to show. Rachel and Amanda went with her. This was a hard day for the girls, but Laura held onto her positive attitude with no tears and a smile! She sent me a picture of her and the kids sitting in the hairdresser’s chair. She asked me what I thought, and of course I said it looked good. In the background of this picture was a man looking over their shoulder. I focused on him. I wondered what he thought. I can’t imagine the people around her didn’t know what she was going through. I quickly asked, ‘Are you okay?’ “Yeah, I’m okay. It will grow back.”
Laura had dark, straight hair, cut a little above her shoulders. She took pride in herself, always making sure it looked nice. Cutting her hair short the first time was such a big step. Shaving it all off in front of others, now that had to be hard.
Second round of chemo went quite well. The Doctor suggested Laura come in the next day for a follow up shot. He wanted to see if that would help her blood counts from dropping so low. He also was concerned about her lingering cough. He wanted her to stay home from work for a while until he could check her blood counts again. Working with children would make a cancer patient susceptible to anything and everything. Doctor R. did not want to take that chance. He did not want Laura going back into the hospital!
Laura missed the pre-school kids about as much as they missed her. Being away from work was hard. So, one day I had a brilliant idea! I would take my computer to work. We would hook it up to the television set that was in our classroom. And we would video chat with Ms. Laura at home. The kids loved it! There were lots of ‘I miss you’, ‘I love you’ and ‘Is that your cat?’ Laura’s cat Simba joined in on the video call. This made Laura feel like she was there. And the children’s smiles lit up the whole room.
From the beginning of all this, I have been honest with our pre-k class. I told them Ms. Laura is sick and there would be days she wouldn’t be at school. We wanted her to take care of herself and get well. I explained to them that Ms. Laura had to take special medicine, not medicine like you or I take, but special medicine to help her get well. This medicine would make Ms. Laura lose her hair, so she will be wearing a lot of neat hats. When you are 4 & 5 years old, you don’t need a long explanation. Sometimes they understand better than we do. To them, it didn’t matter if she didn’t have any hair. They just wanted to see her. They loved her more than anyone could ever imagine.
Video chatting (or Skyping, as it was called in the day) with Ms. Laura was a great idea. It was fun. We made it fun. Cancer doesn’t have to be serious all the time, and sometimes you just know when a good laugh is needed. One day a thought came to me. I asked if we had an extra work t-shirt. I said, ‘Get me a hanger too!’ We hung that shirt on our TV just like Sheldon did on ‘The Big Bang Theory’.
‘There we have it! Twins!!’
I think we had more fun with this than Laura did. She didn’t think it was that funny! It’s probably a good thing she wasn’t around, I guarantee she would have hit me by now.
I had a habit of teasing her at school. If things got too serious, or let’s say she would mess up in what she was doing, I had to give her a hard time. The result of that meant I would get hit with something she threw across the room. Don’t believe me? Just ask my co-workers. I have been hit with Kleenex boxes multiple times. Most of these injuries I received were uncalled for and what kind of example is that for the kids??!! (Ok that part I am kidding about, the kids were never around).
Let me plead my case. I would sit innocently and quietly at the back of the room as she was reading a story to the children. Just sitting there minding my own business. If I would look at her (yes, you read that right). If I would JUST look at her, she would stop the story and say, “What???” I’d shrug my shoulders and answer back, ‘Nothing!’ “Then why are you looking at me? Stop it!!” See what I mean? Innocently sitting there listening to the story always resulted in me getting in trouble. I was doing nothing wrong! Maybe this is a good time to have a disclaimer; I will let the ones who know and love me decide whether I was innocent or not. The other readers can just believe what I wrote! If you ask me, Laura has a complex. I told her that too! Ha! God knows I love to give my friends a hard time.
Chemo thus far, has been administered every two weeks. In Laura’s world, that averages out to one week of feeling really bad, followed by one week of feeling ‘somewhat’ good. And just when you start to feel normal; it’s chemo day again. The process repeats. I would imagine it would not make a person look forward to that next chemo day treatment. Because by now, you already know what to expect.
A total of four chemotherapy sessions in this cycle. Each visit followed by lunch sitting in the sunroom at the ‘54th Street Restaurant’ and a trip to the Hallmark store. Even the waitresses are starting to form a relationship with Laura.