diary of a mad mike

It has been quite a lot of time since my last update and that is a good thing!  Michele is doing well in her recovery.  She has had a few minor scares where her oncologist had her do a few cat scans and MRIs to look at a few things but they have all come back negative and we are so thankful for that.  Yes, in case you were wondering, the extremely astute and observant oncologist still thinks I am a hunk of burning male sexuality.  Such a smart and pleasant lady.

So why am I sending an update?  I am not quite sure, if I am being honest.  Sometimes I fancy myself an amateur artist, occasionally inspired by what I see or hear.  For example, I remember the exact moment when I was dropping off Liliana and Anabella to school one day as Michele was about to start chemo when I heard Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” on the radio.  It inspired me to create a montage of sorts to give Michele a boost as she started an agonizing chemo regiment.  Unfortunately for me, Michele did not stop at pulverizing cancer.  After pummeling cancer, she has continued her rampaging ways by beating me senseless with an onslaught of jabs, uppercuts and hooks in the form of tirades about me not doing enough around the house, being the Jolly Green Giant of ineffectiveness with disciplining the kids and mostly importantly for my being just too friggin sexy (she claims it is debilitatingly distracting).  For the first two charges I plead the 5^th and for the third charge I plead no contest.

Anyway, my amateur ear caught some music on the radio once again and it has inspired me to update this blog. I am little embarrassed because once again, like Ms. Platten, the song that motivated me is not one that would normally be on my playlist.

Rufus – I do not know who you are or who you were trying to reach in your song or if you were trying to reach anyone at all but I can affirm that on a recent day of no particular importance, your song found me.  Not all of your lyrics in this song are appropriate for the message I am trying to convey, in fact it is mostly the refrain that resonates, but for whatever reason your song grabbed me at a specific moment and it led to my typing this missive and for that I thank you.

The song has me recalling my natural apprehension on my wedding day, apprehension surrounding whether or not I was making the right decision in marrying Michele.  My uncertain, fear-of-risk self at that time was pondering whether the marriage I was about to commit to was something that I was ready to undertake. I do not think this is an extraordinary revelation for any man about to be married.  Of course guys love the women they are about to get married to but if any guy tells you that he did not allow anxiety or nervousness enter his mind on the day of his wedding he is lying to you.  It is supposed to be a life-long commitment and the gravity of that weighed on me on our wedding day but when the veil was lifted and I looked into Michele’s beautiful and caring eyes, my apprehension was vanquished.  I enthusiastically kissed my bride and welcomed the road that lay ahead of us.

Michele and I had no earthly idea just how bumpy that road would end up being but here we are, no regrets and forging ahead (it does not help that Michele’s gender induced driving disability causes her to  seemingly swerve towards potholes but I digress).  I referenced my apprehension on our wedding day for a specific reason…because it highlights the ignorance that I think most men unknowingly harbor as they contemplate if they are making the right decision, never fully grasping that the person that they are committing to will make them a better person on multiple levels.  This may not be the case in every instance but I can affirm unequivocally that Michele has made me a better person and continues to do so everyday … and what could possibly be more important than that? (maybe tacos)?  This created and continues to add to a debt that I cannot possibly ever repay but I promise to do what I can to chip away at it.

I just want to treat you better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B00tQEu6n9o

 

It has been awhile since I last updated and that is a good thing. Michele has been going back for check-ups every three months which include cat scans, blood screening and a smattering of other tests to ensure the cancer has not returned and thus far, no news is good news. However, Michele has recently been dealing with a side effect from the chemo treatments that while unfortunate, is somewhat manageable.

Chemotherapy can cause a plethora of undesirable side effects and a couple of weeks ago Michele was diagnosed with a form of colitis. For those of you that are not familiar with this condition, it is a type of irritable bowel disease that is not something you want.  In short, and not to be too graphic, it basically is a digestive problem that results in your food intake exiting you faster than Michele sucks the cash out of my wallet on Amazon Prime day (poof!).  By its very nature, this is a very uncomfortable situation and if it persists it becomes unsustainable.  Fortunately I secretly unplugged the router and blamed it on FIOS so Michele was forced to stop the relentless pursuit of buying things we do not need with money we do not have.  And oh yeah, Michele got some medication to help her with her colitis too and although it has not completely alleviated her symptoms, it has made things better.

I almost did not unplug the router because as much as I do not like the prospect of eating cat food in my retirement years, I also realize that Michele deserves to be pampered, even beyond the extraordinary sacrifices I make to deliver to her what I can. The preceding statement was written in jest because deep down I am fully aware of how fortunate and THANKFUL I am to have Michele in my life.

I have another confession to make, and I am a little reluctant to share it but ultimately decided to do so because of the unyielding pursuit of truth that has been the dominant theme of this blog since I began writing it some two years ago.  The first time the colitis condition reared its torrent stream of unpleasantness, it lasted a few hours and Michele did not know what it was.  Unfortunately, I was away for the night with some friends at a concert and staying at a hotel.  Michele called me in the morning and explained what was happening and that she was worried enough that she thought she should go to the hospital.  Her dad was on her way to take her there and I headed home to take care of the kids.

Here is where the reluctant confession comes in. As I waited for an update from Michele, I was of course terribly worried but as I tried to mediate the mayhem that Liliana and Anabella were causing in the house, I allowed the congenital male genetic trait of self-centeredness slouch into my head, if only for a minute:  If Michele was going to be hung up in the hospital for a few days, it will translate into my utter incompetence of maintaining order at the home front be on full display once again.  It is not as if I do not go into these situations without confidence.  I usually wake up ready to tackle those days feeling like superman, ready to handle any situation that may come my way.  However it does not take long for me to lose consciousness and wake up to find myself with my superman shirt still on but I am slumped over a table with Dr. Andre the Giant behind me ready to check my prostate with kryptonite soaked gloves strapped to his catcher mitt hands.  No matter how much I try to prepare for these situations I inevitably surrender to the reality that our home does not function without Michele in it running the show and for that, I am THANKFUL.

Speaking of being thankful, Michele certainly knows that I appreciate her and all that she does but believe it or not, Michele is sometimes reluctant to show her appreciation for me. It has gotten to the point where I have resorted to repeatedly singing the same song after certain acts where I feel she owes me some thanks but has remained silent in her gratefulness.  Michele usually cooks dinner but there are times when I prepare a magnificent meal…yet silence…so I sing.  When I race to the curb with the garbage or recyclables in order to catch the trucks…I hear nothing…so I sing.  Most importantly of all, when we share intimacies… the hush is deafening…so I sing as loudly as possible.

Don’t believe me? I SING!

 

Michele came home that same day…to find the girls drinking cherry coke and guzzling pop rocks as I was stuck in a make shift phone booth with my shirt on backwards, toenails painted and an old picture of Andre the Giant scotch taped to my back serving as a cape.

“I have some good news and some great news. The good news is your ct scan came back clean and all the evidence points to your being cancer free.  The great news is that you do not have to worry about a hunk of coal in your stocking for Christmas when you have that HUNK of a husband by your side on Christmas and every day thereafter.”

So were the words from Michele’s oncologist after her recent 3 month post chemo checkup. These truths were very well received by the Giannone household and we feel blessed in this holiday season to have made our way past 2016 and look forward to a happy and healthy 2017.  Everything came back kosher from the follow up visit and it was a fantastic way to close out a trying 2016.

With that in mind, January 1 usually entails resolutions and I certainly have a number of them that I want to adhere to:

• I will stop saying ‘Yes’ to Michele when I am not actually listening to what she is saying. In the past this has resulted in my sitting in a sparsely populated theater on Broadway watching ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ while the Super Bowl was being played or more recently when brand new furniture showed up at the door with a guy asking me where I want it….obviously not realizing it was already ‘delivered’ to me in a very sensitive place.
• Despite the immense humor I gain from it, I promise to stop smearing my boogers on the door handles to public restrooms.
• I promise to continue to shoulder the burden of overall household upkeep without complaint. Cooking, cleaning, finances and primary caretaker of the children – It is a labor of love and I would not want to encumber Michele by increasing her share beyond the already excessive 10%.
• I need to commit to the reconditioning of my core. As I lumber from one place to the next, my mid-section has morphed into a living version of a lava lamp, where spongy gel like substance flows back and forth and up and down as if gravity has been suspended, my skin being the only thing preventing a gelatinous mud pie being spread across the floor.
• I will purchase and use the best personal hygiene trimmer on the market. I swear that there is a little man on a horse that sneaks into our room at night when I am asleep and funnels gallons of miracle grow into my nasal and ear cavities, generating hair growth that resembles a chia pet on meth. For good measure that little f*cker gets his horse to mule kick my teeth as he departs, furthering my mouth’s journey towards its apparent holy land destination.
• Lastly, I will do my very best to ensure Michele knows how much she means to me and how I will do all I can to create happiness in her life. What a devastating scare this past year was and it made me come to grips with how much my life and everything I hold dear revolves around her. Life without Michele is unthinkable which is why I do not think about that, not even for a minute. Because wasting a minute on that only robs me of another opportunity to appreciate the here and now with her. There is no other place for me.

 

We want to extend a heartfelt thank you to one and all for the support and love sent our way over this past year. It made a difficult time a lot easier to cope with and we will be eternally grateful.   Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

A few things to get you updated about. I went with Michele to her plastic surgeon appointment last week (not the Oncologist< digs me) and it was an interesting encounter to say the least. After examining Michele he seemed pleased for the most part.  He indicated that he thought the wound was healing nicely and surgery was not going to be necessary but then his face turned to a befuddled look and he said:

“These look good to me. The only question really is how they feel to you.”  As he said ‘you’, his voice trailed to stretch out the word and he simultaneously shifted his attention and gaze from Michele towards me.  It was crystal clear that when his eyes met mine he saw the face of the poor Native American man  from those ‘Keep American Beautiful’ commercials in the early 80’s and he realized that I had not yet had a genuine test drive to answer his question honestly.  Here he was, recognizing that he built a Ferrari and just wanted someone to tell him how awesome it was and there I was telling him that I was Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman and if he wanted the full Car and Driver road test, he is just going to have to wait.  I can, however, affirm that my zero to 60 time is unparalleled, much to Michele’s eternal disappointment.

OK, OK, I have finally subdued the little creature that was pummeling my brain tissue that created that brainfart induced full break stop of reality and so I can tell you that the above encounter with the plastic surgeon did not happen. No, there is not another version that is based in reality. Michele opted not to meet with the plastic surgeon as she felt confident enough that her wound was healing and she did not think she needed to go see him at this time. It was a judgment call and it was certainly OK with me.  Michele reported just today that she could not even get the dressing into the wound and nobody knows you as well as you know yourself so I think we can declare this wound finis.

In other news, we are in the midst of a very busy weekend. Today (Saturday) we joined some old friends and some new to celebrate the lives of children who have succumbed from I-Cell disease (what our daughter Gabriella passed away from at age 5) as well as give hope to children and families that are currently fighting this extremely rare but unforgiving disease.  Tomorrow Michele and I are heading to the Giants/Ravens game.  A friend of ours (The Beef- if you do not know who he is, shame on you) hooked us up with VIP access to the Giants pre-game ceremony that will honor breast cancer survivors.  If you are watching NFL football tomorrow, keep an eye out for the pre-game ceremony at Met-Life stadium, you just might catch a glimpse of Michele.

But back to the event related to I Cell disease. It is organized by the Gandhi family, who was the first family that we got in touch with after Gabriella was diagnosed.  Their son Yash, passed away shortly before Gabriella did and we have worked with them over the past several years to raise money and awareness for I Cell.  The Yash Gandhi Foundation does an awesome job of generating funds for research for I Cell, a disease that lacks the funding of the more common diseases.  Each year it hosts a 5K walk/run that brings together the families that deal with this disease and its aftermath and that is where we spent our Saturday.

I will not lie, seeing beautiful little children afflicted by I Cell always bring back painful memories. To speak and exchange stories with parents and grandparents is an equally cathartic and tender experience.  We were in the same place as many of these parents, heartbroken but determined parents of a terminally ill child (or children in some instances) and hoping against hope that someone or something would alter the destiny that we knew was the ultimate sorrow.

There is no greater torment that the demise of your own child and I suppose there is nothing that could heighten that torment more than knowing that there is nothing you can do to alter that outcome. But get-togethers like we had today, where families gather to share heartache, to provide comfort and to attempt to make sense out of the senseless does deliver comfort.  We come together scarred, cracked, and bruised but we are not broken.  We come together to defiantly say, we’re not going to take it anymore and we are confident that we will meet again one day in celebration of not just the people who have suffered before but in celebration of the children that will be cured.

This video was done with childhood cancer in mind, but it applies to any childhood disease. We’re not going to take it and we are so proud to know, love and fight with the people we spent the day with today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DhlrMqKNk

For the people in the northern NJ area, Michele’s friends have organized a fundraiser benefitting the Nutley Thriving Survivors, a group that celebrates and provides support for breast cancer survivors in our community. It is being held at the Franklin Steakhouse in Nutley this Saturday October 22 from 4-10PM and it will have multiple activities for kids.  If you have extra cash that you are willing to donate to a great organization, please consider coming out this Saturday.  We would love to see you.  Michele’s friends are really putting their blood and guts into this and we are so very humbled, proud and thankful for their efforts.  The link in facebook only works if you were invited so if you do not has FB or were not invited and are interested in the event, please contact Tricia Cammarata Amadio@ tamadio212@yahoo.com.

https://www.facebook.com/events/649612665207497/

Michele visited her plastic surgeon on Wednesday (Sep. 28) this week and we think and hope it his decision to cancel the surgery to close the wound on her breast (originally scheduled for Sep. 29) will be a permanent one. He sees the wound making progress in closing but did not want to totally rule out surgery so Michele has another appointment with him next week to reevaluate.

Our lives at home have started to return to normal and by that I mean that I am certain the hairs growing back in on Michele’s head serve as an official counter for the number of times Michele has pointed out how many things I do wrong on any given day. This creates a very odd psyche within me as Michele’s onslaught on my imperfections, while irritating, simultaneously serve as a very comforting feeling that our lives are turning back to a sense of normalcy.  That said, I am in the beginning stages of a new hobby which is researching if chemotherapy drugs have an undocumented side effect of periodically impacting patients with spasmodic episodes resembling a sex starved orangutan in a branchless jungle when it comes to criticizing their spouses.

The night before Michele went to see her plastic surgeon I ventured outside to stare at the sky for a few moments. I do that from time to time when I feel I need to ground myself and I will normally pick out one star arbitrarily.  My skyward gaze never fails to deliver an acute sense of insignificance.  There is that star, light years away, blinking at me. And there I stare, knowing that it took light years for that beam of light to reach my eye. All of human existence that we know of has taken place before that beam of light left the starting gate from that star.  Taking it in, it is enough to make you feel stripped of significance, wondering whether you and your troubles or your fortunes amount to anything at all.

I believe we would all be consumed by these perplexing questions about our own significance if it were not for that unquantifiable human emotion of love. Love forces us to steadily grip the things in our lives that ground us, the experiences that deliver meaning and motivate us to carry forward and lead our lives as best we can.  This self-reflection always ends up with my realization of how fortunate I am to share my life with Michele.  Whenever dour circumstance rears itself and that lurking sense of insignificance creeps into my head, there is Michele, reminding me that she is so utterly significant to me and who I am and how I love her unconditionally (she is also reminding me of the things I need to do around the house).

So as we await the next appointment with the plastic surgeon who will hopefully decide surgery is unnecessary, I will steal some lyrics and hope what I wrote in this post resonates with you.

“Last night I fell apart,

Broke from my swollen heart,

Born at a simple time,

Raised with a simple mind,

You may be a natural woman

I may be worthless without you

I’ll never decide to replace you,

Amen, the worst is behind us now”

So here we are. A week ago I posted an update that informed you that Michele had to get admitted to the hospital with another infection.  Thankfully, the stay in the hospital was very brief and Michele was released after just two days and she was back home, yelling at me incessantly. I could not be happier!

Today is Friday and Michele had an appointment with her oncologist. It was unclear whether or not her oncologist (a.k.a Dr. Hottie) would push ahead and continue with chemo treatments, delay them for another week or stop them altogether.

After an extended and affectionate embrace, Dr. Hottie released me and turned to Michele to shake her hand and congratulate her on the happy news: No more chemo!  After Michele’s group of doctors conferenced, which included the infectious disease team, the verdict was that with the multiple infections Michele has developed while on chemo, she would be ‘playing with fire’ if she went forward and took the two remaining doses of chemo.  Ultimately, Dr. Hottie felt that Michele received a sufficient amount of chemo and was OK with ending the treatment 2 doses short of plan.

Michele could not be happier that this part of her path back to full health is over. The only person more gleeful is me, although Liliana and Anabella might be able to fight us both for the happiest person title.  If our children had to endure any more meals or dressing sessions led by me, they just might personally march me to the gallows pole.  That said, Michele is still administering IV antibiotics to herself (she really should get her nursing certification) for the next 10 days to ensure the infection she was admitted for is fully flushed out of her body.  She also still has a small wound in her reconstructed right breast that has been quite reluctant to heal and thus, she has surgery scheduled for September 29 to close the wound for good.  However, the wound has been showing signs of healing on its own so we are crossing our fingers that it heals on its own and surgery will not be necessary.

What a topsy turvy ride it has been thus far. Without question, Michele and certainly myself, could not have carried on through it all without the stupendous support of our family and friends.  We are so grateful and thankful for the people that stand at attention, willing and committed to provide glue when portions of our lives get unstuck.  We thank you and although it was impossible to include everyone in the video, I am reposting the one I created when Michele started this journey.  I will continue with updates as needed but I hope and expect them to be less frequent going forward.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_NrHOPYq9L0VTJ2TmZqZEVsWmc

https://diaryofamadmike.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/paging-michael-buffer/

It has been a little over two weeks since my last update and there is a lot of goings on that I need to share. Because it is a lot and I do not want to make you endure my sometimes never-ending verbosity, I decided the best way to try to capture it all was to present it in a timeline sort of fashion:

Friday Aug. 26 – Saturday Sep. 10: Michele is home, doing well and being the super mom and wife that she is.  The times that she is in the hospital really drives home the realization that I have no earthly clue what I am doing as a parent.  Lil and Anabella look at me as if I am Gary Busey trying to sell feminine hygiene products door to door on the upper west side of Manhattan.  Even at their ridiculously young ages, they know that I am out of my league. I hit my prime when Lethal Weapon was in theaters.  Anyway – below is a more detailed accounting:

Friday Aug. 26: Michele is discharged! The plan is to have 3 more days of out-patient iv antibiotics followed by oral antibiotics and to join my parents and sister in LBI for some much needed vacation/beach time.

Saturday Aug. 27: Michele’s oncologist calls to see how Michele is doing but to also ask why I was not present at the last chemo treatment.  She tells Michele that my beautiful smile is helping her treatment and that I should be present as much as possible.  My parents take Liliana and Anabella (aka Anazilla) down to LBI so they can maximize beach time and hang out with their cousins Lucas and Mackenna.

Sunday Aug. 28: My father and sister Donna require oxygen after a day at the beach chasing Anazilla.

Monday Aug. 29: Michele gets iv antibiotics and after I masterfully pack the truck, we are on our way to the beach. A fight over the radio station breaks out and Michele starts yelling as she is counting the paint stripes on the parkway to serve two purposes 1) to protest the way I write updates and 2) to drown out the nerdy economic interviews I was trying to listen to.

Tuesday Aug. 30: There allegedly were two Victoria Secret type girls on the beach approximately 31.56 feet away from our set up on the beach.  Supposedly they were wearing ‘string like’ bikinis that looked very much alike but if one looked closely, there were some subtle differences.  All of this was relayed to me after we left the beach as my time at the beach was spent with my nose in ‘Men are from Mars’ as I like to read that fabulous book at least 3 to 4 times a year.

Wednesday Aug. 31: I make a rookie mistake and say within earshot of kids under 10 that I think I see a rare ‘beach pool’ about 500 yards down the beach that was created from an extra high tide the night before.  I compound this mistake by mentioning there are a lot of other kids playing in it.  This mistake leads me to taking all four kids to this approximately 200ft by 50ft ‘pool’ in the middle of the beach, a good distance away from our set up.  Of course I was cursing myself out the entire walk down there as I knew it would be nearly impossible to convince the kids that it was time to head back.  I tried to make the most of it, especially with Anazilla who really liked the pee warm temperature of this pool that was only 2 feet deep at its deepest.  But suddenly my chance to exit arrived in the form of an Anazilla ‘don’t you make my blue diaper brown’ moment.  As I picked her up I noticed leakage but then was quickly challenged with a very difficult conundrum:  If I announce to the three other kids why we have to leave, I risk a full blown ‘Brown Jaws’ panic as there are literally dozens and dozens of other little kids and parents wading in this petri dish of humanity.  So I do what any other rational parent would do faced with similar circumstances – I tell the kids I hear the ice cream man back where our blanket is. As I step over two unknown 5-7 years olds that were snorkeling near us, I tell them to snorkel south, as the waters to the north are a bit murky.

Saturday Sep. 3: We need to hightail it out of LBI as some Casanova named Owen was putting a charm offensive On Lil.

Wednesday Sep. 7: Lil’s first day of kindergarten! She tells us she loves it… and then proceeds to articulate 4 dozen things that annoyed her that day.  Good luck Owen…I double dog dare you.

Friday Sep. 9: Michele restarts chemo treatment. This is treatment # 10 of 12 (after having been delayed a couple of weeks since the last infection).  Michele handles it like a champ.  Our friends Kim and Mike come over with their kids and we enjoy the pool, order pizza and relax.  When it is time to go inside we realize Anabella had no problem once again turning her blue diaper brown.  No worries though; I hold her hands and Michele cleans her up…or so I thought.  Fast forward 30 minutes to the living room where Mike and I are watching team USA bundle team Canada in a World Cup of Hockey exhibition.  Michele and Kim take turns for a half an hour claiming that they still smell poop.  I do not smell anything, which is surprising because apparently Anabella stepped in her poop while we were trying to clean her up and I was going on a good 20 minutes of making her laugh by rubbing her feet into my goatee.  So now I am wondering if it was my facial hair tickling her feet that was making her laugh or if it was her knowledge that I was repeatedly smearing her turds into my face that she found so amusing.  I guess I will never know.

Saturday Sep. 10: As we are getting ready to go to my niece Maggie’s birthday party, Michele notices that the skin around her breasts is discolored and she fears that an infection may be coming back. She packs a bag in anticipation that we may end up at the hospital again.  I am writing this after having just gotten home from the hospital.  She has been admitted but things could be worse. She has no fever and the hope is that she can get a few doses of iv antibiotics overnight, a discharge tomorrow afternoon and then out-patient iv treatments for a week (or until the infection is cleared).

We thank everyone (especially our family members who help us out without hesitation) for their love and support. I now need a shave.

 

I am thrilled to report that Michele was discharged today (Friday) after four harrowing days in the hospital. Oh no, please do not be confused. The four harrowing days was the time spent by me trying to get the girls ready for school and fed each day while Michele was away. Her hospital stay was paradise in comparison.

Of course I say this in jest, despite the fact that I did send Anabella to school this morning in a pair of Lil’s underwear stuffed with cotton balls because I could not find a new package of diapers. As far as I know, ‘clean up in isle A’ was not so bad but all I know is Anabella came home today in a nice fresh and clean diaper…and Michele is here to affix new ones! Life is good!

Of course, ‘Life is good’ is always relative and I want to share an anecdote about that cliche that was evident within this latest ordeal.

Michele was fortunate to have a roommate during this stay that has some shared experiences with her. For the sake of this update, I will call her Hope. Because of their shared experiences, Michele and Hope talked regularly over the course of the past few days, a lot of the time through the curtain that separated their hospital beds. Michele conveyed some of this to me and my most pressing observation was that it was a relief for Michele to finally have a ‘normal’ roommate and the fact that they shared related health issues was a bonus.

Unfortunately, for Hope, as Michele’s infection started to clear, Hope’s health issues were deteriorating. I did not drill Michele as a reporter would for a story about the details but from what I took in our conversations, Hope is a stage 4 breast cancer survivor that had been cancer free for the past 12 years after a mastectomy and radiation/chemo treatment. At the time of the mastectomy, there were some spots on her liver that were dormant and last week they decided to make themselves relevant.

Hope was admitted with severe pain in her back. Apparently these spots were causing her liver to expand, creating excruciating pressure on her spinal cord. For the first few days, this pain was being effectively managed by an epidural but last night, apparently the epidural became dislodged, placing poor Hope in indescribable agony. From midnight until 5 AM, Hope was writhing in level 10 pain and Michele was there, in the room trying to comfort her as best she could. I am putting aside the apparent inexperienced mistakes of Hope’s nurse during this ordeal.

For the 4 days and 3 nights Michele shared a room with Hope, she met her husband, her sister and her two children and conversed with them each day. I know my wife well enough to affirm that if she could have taken away some of Hope’s pain last night to share the burden, she most certainly would have. Putting herself before others is just one of her many angelic attributes but I think there is a deeper, more guiding force that centers Michele’s outlook on life that I only wish more of us recognized and made it a driving energy that grounded our own lives…and I include myself in this charge:

No matter how badly you believe your current circumstance to be, you would be wise to recognize that there most certainly is someone, undoubtedly multiple someones, that have circumstances that dwarf your own in their graveness. Be it a loved one in pain or worrying about when your next meal may come, inevitably, the recognition that your personal shitstorm would be welcomed by someone else far less fortunate should be a wake-up call. Yes, life can throw hurtful challenges but unless you can lay claim to the worst possible scenario this world has ever seen, you are better off making the best of your shitty situation and doing what you can to share the burden of someone that has a bigger pile of shit to eat than you do..just like Michele did last night.

Now if you would excuse me, I need to run to the 24HR CVS and grab several packages of cotton balls.

Michele developed another infection and was admitted to the hospital yesterday (Tuesday).  It looks eerily similar (on her skin) to the one she had several weeks back.  The one positive is that Michele felt this coming on and she was being admitted before she spiked a fever.  She had a fever last night but it seems to be under control and she is receiving IV antibiotics.

Hopefully this is a short detour from the road to recovery.  Not only is someone cruelly moving the goal posts but that little b*tch Lucy seems to be picking up the ball before Michele can give it a good kick.

Thanks for all the support.

On Thursday Aug 19, Michele had her 4^th to last chemo treatment. For those that are paying close attention, you will note that this week should have been her third to last.  However, Michele has been experiencing neuropathy, the loss of feeling in her extremities and for that reason her oncologist recommended Michele skip last week and resume this week.  Beyond that, there is no new news to report (that is a good thing).  Three more weeks (assuming no more set backs)!

In an effort not to bore you with a ho hum update, I will try to entertain you with a day in the life within our home.

Lil is our 5 year and for several months now she has been coming into our bed at some point in the night. We fought this at first but I ultimately convinced Michele that she would grow out of it and the day that she does, we would miss it.  So my brilliant theorem has been working brilliantly.   Lil comes every night and I sleep on about 8 inches of space.  Genius!

On a recent night, Lil had an ‘accident’ and despite my protest that it was perfectly fine to wait till morning to deal with it, there Lil and I stood as Michele stripped the bed of sheets and remade it, suitable to sleep on again (I once tried to convince Michele that our late little pug Austin’s vomit could wait till morning but I lost that argument too).

No less than 3 hours later, Anabella, our rambunctious 21 month year old, awoke with a clamor. She had been flirting with potty training for a few weeks and she was adamant that she needed to do ‘pee pee’ as she woke up.

So we grabbed her and ran into the bathroom as a family and plopped Anabella onto the potty and encouraged her to do what she needed to do. With minimal hesitation she tinkled a trinket and we erupted into a hooting and clapping frenzy, trying to convey our enthusiastic approval to a 21 month toddler who had no earthly clue what we were howling.  Anabella accepted these accolades with fervor; she was eating it up.  But just as Michele and I exchanged happy and prideful glances, Anabella pounced off the potty and started to jump up and down in celebration. Sometime between the third and fourth jump her little butt-cheeks must have spread too wide and a little brown sardine snuck out and presented itself on the tile floor as if to say “hey, I am not one to miss a party!’

So there Michele and I were, paralyzed in an instant; we should have been thrilled that our 21 month old child had her first pee pee in the potty but in that same moment she had produced a Mr. Hanky on the floor, like a new color for Play-Doh. Of course, our 5 year old Lil was screaming “DOODY!!” over and over again in the background so the moment was tense and chaotic.  How best to handle this paradox?  ‘You did great Anabella!  We are so proud of you for going pee pee on the potty…but that stinky turducken you just dropped, well, you really need to be more efficient!’.

Frozen in contemplation, I did what any other guy would do…I started laughing uncontrollably and left the room and ran upstairs, leaving Michele to deal with the mayhem. In the end, as she always does, Michele made it all work out.

So there you have a day in the life in our home. If only I could adequately convey how I cannot spell home without m_i_c_h_e_l_e, but I am pretty sure the people reading this need nothing further.