Composing Your Own Funeral

I called up my (new) pastor the other day, Melinda Feller, poor thing, and she and I and my friend Nancy had lunch. She didn't know yet that my cancer has spread to my liver. I met with her to talk to her about my funeral.

I mean, honestly, I don't know where or when I'll die; I know with liver ca it can be very unpredictable, and I'm doing my darndest to beat its ass into the ground (round 2). But I'll be damned if I'm going to have a funeral with schlocky music and everybody forgetting that for me, "all sickness and sorrow are ended, and death itself is past." No "In The Garden" ("mom loved to garden...") I want "Take Me Home" and our family hymn, "For the Beauty of the Earth", maybe "I Hope You Dance" or that Josh Groban song...or perhaps "Goin' Up A'Yonder" if there's a choir - and no Psalm 23, rather, "consider the lilies of the field and how they grow..."

I still have hope that I live at least another few years. Maybe I'll get more, some folks do. So it's not so much with a morbid dread that I put my funeral out there, but with a desire to make things easier on my kids, who will be responsible for planning a memorial service. And while I think asking everyone to be joyful is a bit much, I do want the service to be a hopeful witness and celebration of all God does for God's own children. I know it will be sad, but it doesn't have to be depressing.

Melinda, bless her, handled it with grace, and she and Nancy gave me some good advice for supporting the girls as they walk through this process. I'll talk with their father - the main problem will be my mother, who hates the thought of cremation.

Travelin' with Navelbine

I am on round 2 of Navelbine, a taxane drug I pray is doing serious damage to the tumors in my liver. So far, the worst of it is nausea, and I notice my hands, feet and hair drying out. I've also noticed I'm weepy - the tears are very close to the surface - and I suspect this may be medication induced. Either the ativan (I have no bladder control if I wait too long to pee - gotta keep on top of it, ativan is a muscle relaxant) or the Navelbine.
A funny - they give me a double dose of ativan before giving me the Navelbine. It makes me walk sideways. I can't walk a straight line! I'm walking like I have cerebral palsy, out to my car in the parking lot at Vince Lombardi, get in it and drive away. I wonder if anyone's watching?
I guess most recently I feel a little bit lost. I am doing a journal for a research company on breast cancer, and they asked about a "plan" in the journal. And I thought, "I don't have a plan, not really. And I haven't discussed what my vague plans are. And "doing" seems like such a waste. Maybe it's too early to have a plan.

Luck Runs Out

Sigh....that's all I can say. Sigh.....here it is again.
On a CT we took "just to make sure" the radiologist found new lesions on my liver. Here's the scenario; she comes into the room, gives me the bad news (which wasn't entirely surprising to me), we quickly discuss treatment options (taxanes) and she leaves to get everything set up. The nurse creeps back into the room, asks if I'm all right, and I burst into tears.
I cry all the way home. I cry all the next day. I cry a little less on day 3, but still weep as if my heart is breaking, because it is. On Day 3 after dx, I tell my friend Diane, because I need someone to drive me home from surgery on Weds who won't blab the situation to the whole world. Eventually I tell everyone, bit by bit.
Now I just cry every so often. I have bad moments, not bad days. I know I will die of this disease. I don't know when - could be in a couple of weeks, could be ten years. Anything in between. I will not be one of the lucky ones.

Your wild and precious life

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? ~ Mary Oliver ~