I’m constantly haunted and angered by the language we use with cancer. Lisa Bonchek Adams

The hard truth

January 3rd, 2013 § 9 comments

I’m constantly haunted and angered by the language we use with cancer. I woke up in the middle of the night last night and this is what was in my head. I feel the need to caution: please don’t over-interpret this post: my health status has not changed. I’m not stopping chemo or any such thing. I’ve had a few acquaintances die of cancer this month and that’s where this is coming from.
…………………….

People die of cancer every day.

Do you think they didn’t try hard?
Keep their chins up?
Think positive?
Stay strong?
Do their best?

They did.
But it wasn’t enough.
There is no consolation.
Sometimes there is no “getting better” or
“Kicking cancer’s ass.”
Sometimes there isn’t anything else to do but accept the finality.

That’s not giving up,
That’s accepting what is.

shareshareshare

• Christina Holz (@ChristinaHolz)

  January 3, 2013 at 06:44

  This is especially relevant to me today, my late mother’s birthday. As I’ve said before, your posts are a gift to so many of us. Thank you.

  Reply
• Anonymous

  January 3, 2013 at 07:22

  So true!

  Reply
• chemobrainfog

  January 3, 2013 at 10:41

  Lisa,
  Don’t even bother waiting….. just add this to the Most Popular Posts list. Short and right to the point. The hard truth and often a very bitter pill to swallow.
  AnneMarie

  Reply
• Beth Gainer

  January 3, 2013 at 12:19

  Lisa,

  This short post speaks volumes. I, too, am angered by the language our society attributes to cancer. It’s a blame the cancer patient mentality when a patient dies. Truth is, whether someone lives or dies depends on a variety of complex factors. Wonderful post.

  Reply
• Pam

  January 3, 2013 at 15:49

  Yes.

  I think the root of much misguided thinking and talk is that it’s just hard for us to truly take in the idea that we’re mortal, and that those we love are mortal. We want there to always be some action we or they can take to prevent death, so we go with the metaphor of battle or some such thing. Sometimes, it is not at all apt.

  <3

  Reply
• Katherine C. James

  January 3, 2013 at 17:32

  This same language you mention here is used in response to other kinds of difficulties that do not get better despite a person staying strong, being positive, doing one’s best. I wonder sometimes if this is a peculiarly American phenomenon. In any case it adds a burden to a burden. Sometimes everything is still not enough, and it says absolutely nothing about the person and everything about the hard facts of some situations.

  Reply
• Susan Zager

  January 3, 2013 at 18:58

  This post is right on point. Thanks Lisa for speaking the truth.

  Reply
• AMS Green Solutions (@AMSGreenLLC)

  January 3, 2013 at 20:42

  I hope you are aware of the hearts and minds you touch, Lisa. You are an amazing, amazing teacher of life’s hardest lesson…acceptance of what is. Prayers for you and your beautiful family Lisa..

  Reply
• Karen Woys

  January 4, 2013 at 01:17

  A dear friend sent me a link to your blog. I’ve spent the day reading. You’re a gifted and insightful writer. I feel like you’ve gotten into my mind and sorted my thoughts into expressible words. Thank you. I’ve linked your blog from minr so others may share.

  Reply

  http://lisabadams.com/2013/01/03/the-hard-truth/

  
  

Back from tragedy

Rochester Hills woman returns from vacation alone, but determined

By Kathleen Gray Free Press Staff Writer

   The black cloud of cancer that hung over Sigrid Grace was lifted, at least for a while.

   She was reveling in the second day of a dream vacation planned by her husband, John, taking in the majesty of Grand Te-ton National Park in Wyoming in a rented red Camaro after spending a few hours fulfilling a bucket-list wish to be a cowgirl.

   WHAM!

   “Suddenly everything was white and the sky was cracked,” Sigrid recalled.

   It was a head-on crash — airbags erupted, windshield shattered — that turned her dream trip into a nightmare. In an instant, John Grace, her husband of 38 years, her best friend and confidante, was gone.

   That was nearly two weeks ago. Sigrid returned from Wyoming and buried her husband. Now she is getting ready to resume debilitating chemotherapy sessions and learning to live without the man she met 40 years ago in her first year at Central Michigan University.

   “When I say we’ve been married for 38 years, it seems like such a long time. But when it ends so precipitously, it just seems so short,” she said.

   “I was spared for whatever reason, so when I see something that needs to be done, I’ll do it.”

   THE TRIP THAT TURNED so tragic was one that John, 59, insisted they take as a reward for the difficult two years Sigrid had endured. The Rochester Hills resident was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009 at age 57, and weathered a bout with radiation. But last spring, the cancer returned in the more aggressive HER2-positive form. Sigrid knew she was in trouble when doctors at the University of Michigan Health Systems scheduled her appointment on a day reserved for the most serious patients.

   Sigrid had a double mastectomy in August, but was back to teaching second grade in the Almont school district a month later and began enduring twice-monthly chemotherapy treatments that will last through October.

   Her grueling schedule shifted both their priorities last year. A Democratic activist, Sigrid gave up most of the political work that filled her schedule. Her blond hair was gone, replaced with a pair of wigs. Custodians at her school took extra care to keep her classroom especially clean to guard against compromising her weakened immune system.

   And John, a teacher-turned-bankruptcy attorney, curtailed his outside activism and mentoring to care for his wife, losing 22 pounds in the process.

   With their future uncertain, John wanted to lift Sigrid’s spirits.

   What did she most want to do, he asked.

   “I want to be a cowgirl,” she said. “I’ve always loved horses.”

   So in the spring, she began to take riding lessons every Friday night to prepare for the trip west. It had a little bit of something for both of them — the Heart Six dude ranch experience for Sigrid, the nature and wildlife photography for John.

   “He got the idea in his head and planned it all,” she said. “He was going to go river rafting that first day I was riding, but he wanted to stay close to make sure I was OK.”

   IT WAS JUST THE TYPE of man John was, Sigrid said, always looking out for other people — whether they were students he was mentoring, youth groups at church where he planned and prepared big spaghetti dinners or political candidates he quietly helped.

   “He saw potential. He saw possibility in everyone,” said the Rev. Daniel Fox during John’s funeral service Friday at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Rochester. “John’s life was about encouraging that potential.”

   On that first full day of vacation in Wyoming, while Sigrid rode, John scouted locations for dramatic photos of Mt. Moran, the wildflowers that dotted the landscape and the Snake River.

   The next day they drove through the Grand Tetons, enjoying the scenery and taking lots of pictures. Sigrid took one of John standing next to that sizzling red Camaro, a big grin on his face. That’s the last thing she recalls clearly about the day.

   Twenty minutes later, her world changed.

   Sigrid remembers good Samaritans helping her from the car, which was totaled in the head-on collision with a pickup. She remembers her injuries being tended and people seeming not too worried about John. It was because they knew he was beyond help.

   Sigrid said the passersby who stopped helped her to the driver’s side window, so she could hold John’s hand. She told him she loved him and said the Lord’s Prayer, over and over.

   Finally, she agreed to go to the hospital, where doctors told her it was a miracle she hadn’t been killed in the crash, too.

   The driver of the truck and his passenger were not injured. The accident remains under investigation by National Park rangers.

   Sigrid draws on her survival to give her a sense of purpose. John, she knows, would want her to carry on with living.

   “Cancer hangs over you like a black cloud,” she said. “But if God had intended to take me, he surely would have taken me in the accident.”

   When the couple’s son, John, picked her up at the airport last week, Sigrid insisted on driving home, refusing to succumb to fear from the crash.

   And the day after the funeral, she gathered bouquets of flowers sent by friends and family and delivered them to shut-ins who might need a little cheering up.

   By Sunday, she was attending the Oak-land County Democratic Party’s Phil Hart dinner and by Monday she was talking with a group of other breast cancer survivors and assuring them she would be back taking weekly hikes with them as soon as her bruises healed. A lesson from her daughter Margaret on how to drive the riding lawnmower was on the schedule for later in the day.

   Sigrid plans to return to Almont in the fall to teach.

   “I really don’t know what my prognosis is,” she said, “but I personally think I’m going to be OK.”

   ! CONTACT KATHLEEN GRAY: 313-223-4407 OR

   KGRAY99@FREEPRESS.COM  

FAMILY PHOTOS

   John Grace had planned a dream vacation for himself and his wife, Sigrid Grace, above, as a pick-me-up after her breast cancer, mastectomy and chemotherapy. They visited the Heart Six dude ranch near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Twenty minutes after Sigrid Grace took this picture of John with their rental car, her husband of 38 years was dead in a crash.

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/DFREEP/

CANCER AND LOSS

March 8th, 2012

Today is a sad day for some of my blogger buddies and me. We were scheduled to head to New Jersey to have a big party at Rachel’s.

I am sharing a tale of comfort and connection to honor what was supposed to be.

The weekend Rachel died, my friends and I did an online vigil, waiting to hear news of her latest hospital stay. As a result, I did not stray far from my phone, anxiously awaiting the latest updates from my friends.

In that unholy modern way, I was doing many things at once: hovering over my devices for news, managing my household, playing online Scrabble, messaging other friends –– simultaneous gravity and frivolity.

Somewhere in that mix, I had an exchange with my twitter friend Kay Gardiner. She was going to be teaching a knitting class in town with her co-blogger, Nashville resident Ann Shayne. Would I be interested in assisting with it?

As Rachel was slipping away, there was a certain kismet in Kay’s invitation. I had learned to knit two summers ago when I finished with treatment. I am a terribly impatient patient and had been ordered to rest. Knitting gave me a version of stillness, since the real kind does not come naturally.

Soon afterwards, Rach started a new chemo regimen, causing her hair to fall out again. She became a favorite of mine to knit for. We treated new hats like a shopping outing. We would look through patterns online, and I would text her yarn choices from the store.

We called ourselves snood sisters.

Rach models the anti-asshat

This odd juxtaposition of experiences –– impending loss, unexpectedly becoming an assistant in a knitting class –– made sense somehow in the weird world of the internet.

Then Rachel died. I was distraught.

Soon after, Kay sent me the pattern for the class. It was a blanket Kay had designed to raise money for Japan in the wake of the tsunami. The pattern called for Sarah’s favorite yarn. Sarah is a knitter too. She and Rach were quite close.

This all makes sense. A blanket designed to help heal a tragedy. A blanket to knit in the wake of Rachel’s death with Sarah’s favorite yarn. A blanket, comforting and cozy. Yes, this makes sense.

As I have written, the grief has been hard. Nobody in my everyday life sees my loss. It lays on the periphery.

After I received the pattern, I set out to work. When I felt sad, I would knit. I thought of how Rachel would have liked it. I wondered what Sarah would say about the colors. The blanket made me feel close to my friends.

These squares are for the Friendship Quilt

Fast forward several weeks. I am at the knitting class. I meet Kay for the first time. Kay and I connected because of knitting, but also because she lost her husband to cancer. She knows illness, grief, and loss. And Rachel would like her, because she also knows snark.

Kay is a mom and a New Yorker and as fantastic of a person offline as she is on.

After we set up the room, people started to stream in. Kay and Ann hadn’t capped the enrollment, so the room filled up. Knitters came from as far away as Texas, New Mexico, Georgia, and Kentucky.

Kay and I took out our phones in an attempt to simultaneously tweet each other.

Dueling iPhones

After we posted the tweets, a woman named Deena came up to me. I had met her before class. She was an avid sock knitter from Texas, sporting a lovely lacy pair.

“I thought you looked familiar! I follow you on twitter. I love your blog! It has been so helpful to me.”

She explained that she was friends with a woman in treatment. From the details, it sounded like Deena had been her rock and resource.

Then Deena said, “I am so sorry about your friend Rachel. I had just found her blog, and what a voice! What a writer!”

I started to tear up because I realized it was the first time I had been offered words of comfort in real life by somebody who knew who Rachel was, who she was to me and the whole breast cancer community.

Oh, how I had needed that.

Deena saw my tears and said, “You know, there’s a Mexican saying. A person dies three times. Once when their heart stops, once when they are buried, and once when the last person says their name. Rachel’s voice was so powerful, so important. She will be with us for a long long time.”

I cried more and gave Deena a hug, thanking her for her kind words.

I don’t understand why things work the way they do, but I am grateful for connections and comfort.

http://www.chemobabe.com/2012/03/only-connect/