Good morning Kossacks and welcome to Morning Open Thread.
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This morning finds me drinking radioactive lemonade in preparation for another diagnostic PET scan, so I apologize in advance for not being here.
The world lost an amazing woman a couple of weeks ago, and I didn't find out about it until almost a week after the funeral. I woke up in the middle of the night just KNOWING that I had to check the obituaries. Bummer, there it was...
I met Barbara Jean Jones during chemo last summer. We had pretty much the same schedule, so once I got up the nerve to talk to other patients, I had all summer to get to know her. I can't say I got to know her really well, because one or the other of us was almost always sleeping. But every once in a while we'd manage a chemo-fogged conversation.
She had been doing chemo since the previous October, so she was already an old hand at this game. Colon cancer took most of her colon, and it had spread. Before her life was over, she would undergo a couple more surgeries, the last one for an ileostomy. It's like a colostomy, but the bag attaches much further up. What it really means is that there's no way for the body to get any real nutrition, because as soon as the food goes in, it goes out. She had lost so much weight, but was still fighting.
She told me stories of her granddaughter's dog, Sweetness. Sweetness was anything but, according to Barbara. The dog was a problem child, begging for food, jumping on the table, barking, you name it. But Barbara loved that dog in spite of the complaints, because she new that her granddaughter came with him.
Barbara loved to cook for her family, and she loved to eat. I remember one day when the lab machine had broken down, throwing everyone's treatment off schedule. I hadn't brought any food with me because I was normally done by noon. So at 3, when I was on the last drip, I was feeling really faint and nauseous. Fortunately, there was an event at work that day, and everyone had ordered Italian food from Maggiano's. The nurses offered me some food, but all I could get down was a piece of bread. Barbara asked for, and received, and ate, a whole plate full of lasagna, spaghetti, salad, you name it. She was having a blast and enjoying every bite!
I had this in mind when I bequeathed my last special brownies to her, along with a cookbook for chemo patients, with the recipes organized by which side effect you were suffering.
Then there was her birthday. What a way to spend your birthday, with needles stuck in you to give you life-saving poison. Dr. Rogers noticed it was her birthday, and even though he's an awful singer, he got on the office intercom and proceeded to sing Happy Birthday to dear Barbara, with the entire office within earshot. I'm sure it was a birthday she couldn't forget if she tried!
I last saw her and spoke with her just a few weeks ago. She had asked for more brownies, hoping that they might help her eat. When I delivered them to her, she apologized that she was too sick to visit with me, but she hoped to soon when she was better. I'm just glad that I could help that little bit. I called before I left for New York, and her granddaughter answered and said she wasn't doing well, and that I should pray for her. I knew instinctively that she had decided to end her long fight.
Barbara was pure inspiration to me. Her fighting spirit, and the grace with which she endured her illness, made an indelible impression on me and everyone around her. She told me, "If you give cancer 'this' much, it will take THIS much!" Barbara, I promise you I will never give cancer even a little room. No way. I hope I can be as strong as you when my time comes, fifty years from now.
Barbara, you may be gone, but you will certainly never be forgotten.