diary of a mad mike

Michele has four more treatments to go and we are literally counting the minutes down until the final one. The cumulative build of the chemo is beginning to show its horns and it is wearing Michele down to a degree.  Trust me when I tell you, wearing Michele down is no simple feat.  This is the same woman that after a very painful (for me) Broadway musical, followed by several dozen oysters at the grand central oyster bar and finally the ‘aphrodisiac’s chocolate delight’ at Max Brenner’s, still required multiple and I mean multiple shoulder taps.  Suffice to say, she can be a tough nut to crack but that is what makes her special.

So Michele is doing OK but I can only hope that a heavy heart does not impact her own health. This past Friday Michele’s Aunt Roe passed away after a long battle with cancer.  Aunt Roe fought her battle bravely and Michele was very close to her.  Yet another loved one that succumbed to the scourge of cancer and it serves as a stark reminder that life is short, and in some instances, tragically so.

Aunt Roe and I did not immediately hit it off. Roe was very protective of Michele and I think she was a bit skeptical of me for a good while when Michele and I started dating and in my view, even after we were married. The rest of Michele’s family were easy marks – a few cannoli here, a few amaretto there and the obligatory insincere acknowledgement that it was not at all abnormal to have your entire extended family live in a ‘compound’ with one house adjacent to the next.  But not Aunt Roe.  Her blessing would not come so easily and it took me some time to discover why.

Michele was the daughter that Aunt Roe never had and for this reason, I think there was some over-zealous protectiveness that I did not understand at first but over time, I came to respect. This was not always a pleasant experience. At many a family function, I would be getting along with Michele’s family members just fine but through the maze of people, ‘galamarr’ and ‘red gravy, I would often catch Aunt Roe measuring me up, making sure in her mind that I was good enough to be by Michele’s side.  Oddly enough, whenever I would catch her in her visual takedown of me, I would have this stupid music from the Brady Bunch trip to Hawaii pass through my head.  I would go home and have nightmares of being woken up by Vincent Price. But Aunt Roe knew Michele had a golden heart and there was no way she was going to allow someone to corrupt it in any way.  What Aunt Roe did not know, and she would not acknowledge it if you told her, was that she too had a golden heart and I think that is why she and Michele were so close.

I think there is a special relationship that develops between aunts and uncles and their niece and nephews when the aunts and uncles do not have children of their own. There is no stronger bond than a parent to child but I surmise the childless aunt or uncle to their niece or nephew is not far behind.  That bond almost disintegrated my relationship with Michele as Aunt Roe served as a very effective guardian, but I never doubted that she was looking out for Michele’s best interests.

Several years back, I do not recall exactly when, I noticed that I no longer was receiving those darting Brady Bunch death stares from Aunt Roe. She finally became convinced that I was not going to harm the daughter she never had and I was committed to do my very best to keep her happy.  Aunt Roe knew better than anyone how monumentally impossible that task was and continues to be, but I like to think that she left this world with one less worry.

Godspeed Aunt Roe. Our world has a big hole that your big heart used to fill.

Michele gets to the halfway point today in this second round of chemo. After this week, there are 6 more weeks to go!  It has been going reasonably well and by that we measure it against some of the rough going Michele endured in the first round of chemo and the hospital stays.  She is tired a lot and her tummy is periodically turned into knots but Michele is pushing through it like a champ.

Turning to other related topics….Michele thinks I write sentimentally in this blog with not completely pure intentions. She believes I am being genuine but also thinks that a small part of me yearns for accolades and does not think I love her as dearly as I profess to in my writing.

How do I know this? She told me!  She thinks a certain aspect of my writing is fueled by my want for a pat on the back, especially from the female readers who may think ‘he must really love her’ and all that ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ mushiness. And she is not entirely wrong as I do have a slightly selfish motivation beyond the expression of my feelings: I want to inflict relationship aggravation on my male friends as I wrote in this overly long post back in April.  I have no idea if it has been working or not but the way I see it, it does not cost me much and as a byproduct of my honest commentary about Michele, it can only be a win-win for me.

I am however, befuddled by Michele’s thinking. At the end of the day the only perspective that matters to me is hers so I feel I need to address it.  I consider myself one of the luckiest guys in the world to share my life with her.  To this day I am even more befuddled how she ended up falling in love with me.  I think it is rare when a couple can actually pinpoint the moment when the lights went on in their relationship but I think Michele and I did have that happen to us.

One of the first times we met was on the softball field when we were both playing for the EY corporate team. I am quite certain she saw me for what I was: an extremely unorthodox looking character that seemed to move around in a discombobulated rhythm of fits and starts.  Back then I was less round, storky skinny with especially thin pipe cleaners for legs (I still have those).

Apropos to her domineering personality, Michele somehow managed to assume control of the lineup, despite the team being filled with more senior people. Being a college softball player and an extremely competitive person to boot, I am sure she sized me up as a permanent 3^rd base coach.  But at this particular game there was not enough guys to fill out the lineup so she begrudgingly inserted me as 10th in the order and I although my memory is fading, I am pretty sure I saw her out of the corner of my eye looking for her glove as I came to bat for the first time with two outs.

Now the other team must have viewed me similarly. There was this long necked gawky character staggering his way to the plate and the entire outfield moved in assuming I could not hit the ball very far.  What they did not know, nor did Michele, was that I do possess decent coordination despite my ungainly appearance that resembles a King Kong nasal hair at mid-sneeze.

So as I launched the ball far over everyone’s head and easily rounded the bases with a trot that probably reminded people of a malfunctioning Dyson ball vacuum cleaner with two pencils jammed into its sphere, It was at that moment that Michele took notice and said to herself “that skinny awkward kid can play!”. One thing led to another and she hunted me down from there, even following me to Dallas for a year when I relocated for work.

OK now that you have that little sidebar on how Michele fell in love with me, I need to publically hash out this misconception Michele has about my want for anything other than her and her unconditional happiness.

If this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen.

I’m not letting you stifle my love for you. How about that?

What you may not understand is that without you as my inspiration, the entire equation crumbles. When I write heartfelt passages about how much I love you, the spark that ignites this creativity is the love I have for you. Without you the inspiration vanishes and the entire formula returns a ‘#DIV/0!’  It is a calculation, a compound that simply cannot exist without you in it.

We live in a cynical world. A cynical world where spouses think unvarnished and raw professions of love put out there for the world to read are not entirely sincere.

I love you. You—compute me.  And I just had…

At this point I can envision (hope) Michele jumping in and yelping:

“You had me at awkward! You had me at awkward!”

But not finished, as we embrace and the sappy tears surround us, she whispers in my ear: ‘You do know formulas work MUCH better when you insert those $ signs’.

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As you may have imagined, chemo treatments can make someone irritable and hyper-critical but fortunately for me, Michele has been remarkably emotionally balanced throughout this ordeal. This, of course, does not include her renowned fits of jealous rage that erupt from time to time but in truth, those bouts were present long before chemo and have been an ‘endearing’ trait of Michele since I met her.  If you have any doubt about this, please read the previous post on this blog and you will know why I suffered a day long cross examination of ‘Who was this tramp Stacey??!’.

The only times when Michele goes a tad off the reservation is the day of chemo treatment and yesterday was one of those days. I have been trying to make most of Michele’s chemo treatments (and I am thankful for the flexibility afforded me to do so) but I also do this knowing that I will be drowned in an endless assault of benign verbal abuses that make me feel like Oprah’s bicycle seat.

It started right at wake up while trying to get the girls ready for daycare. Apparently it is my fault that they make defective children’s clothes where one cannot figure out what is the front and what is the back of their tops and bottoms and I am not the one that bought the cheapo hair ties that tie up nothing but my fingers.  Further, I see nothing wrong with extracting some crusty debris from Anabella’s nose and putting it in a snack Ziploc for Liliana for her to use as her show and tell for the letter ‘B’.

It got worse from there but there was a ray of hope in that Michele had a work conference call that was scheduled to start after we dropped the girls off at daycare. I figured this would provide a tranquil setting while I drove us to the hospital…but I was wrong.  Even before we got on the highway I was told that my radio stations were ‘horrible’ and that I press the brakes too hard and it is no wonder why we have to replace them so frequently.  Confounded, I started a little game where I began counting the white stitched lines that separate the lanes on the highway.  The game was to see what would end at a higher total, the number of white lines or the number of things Michele would tell me I was doing wrong that morning.  The work call offered no relief as being an exceptional multi-tasker, Michele was able to continue her onslaught with hand and non-verbal gestures (I counted them as double).  It was so unrelenting that I had to start counting the other two lanes of white lines in additional to our own lane on the turnpike to keep up.  In the end, I added up the totals…it was a tie.

As you may have inferred, I may have injected some slight embellishment in the above. In fact, Michele is doing a fantastic job of maintaining a great attitude and she is remarkable in the way she can compartmentalize her ill health and still present herself with her cheerful and magnanimous personality to one and almost all (me being the exception).

So once again I was saved by Benedryl. Michele began to get sleepy as the drug dripped into her port and the chemo would soon follow. Although I was working beside her, I would lift my gaze from my computer every few minutes to make sure she was doing OK and to silently marvel at her strength, courage and unpretentious beauty (and simultaneously be thankful her mouth was not vilifying me). If I have to endure some undeserved abuse every treatment day, I consider it a very small price to pay on the toll road to her recovery.

Speaking of tolls, I was scolded by Michele on the way home for picking the wrong EZ pass lane on Turnpike but Michele started dozing off again shortly thereafter. Alone with my thoughts, I began counting the white lines again. This time it was to serve as a mental note to me, recognizing how many ‘I love you’s’ that I owed Michele, as we drive together on this winding, hilly and wildly unpredictable life we share.

Note: I was doing research on how I can best care for Michele and I came across this amazing piece of information that I always suspected was true and am comforted that it has been confirmed:

“The scientific evidence is clear: afflicted with similar illnesses, be it common colds, influenza or related maladies, the genetic structure of the male leads to exorbitantly higher degrees of suffering than females, all other things equal. Although there are no means to treat this phenomenon differently from a medical standpoint, we can deduce that psychological and social settings would be vastly improved if males were afforded sympathy and empathy from their female companions commensurate with the heightened and exorbitant discomfort nature has bestowed upon the male sex.”

Dr. Maximus Mann, MD, PhD. Chief of Estrogen Research, the Yale School of Medicine

I last updated on Michele’s 42^nd birthday (June 6) and 17 days ago today Michele was discharged from the hospital after she recovered sufficiently from the infection that had developed. During her hospital stay they pumped Michele with all sorts of immune boosters and we were thrilled that it helped push Michele back to health but this has also resulted in some not so wonderful things for me personally, but more on that later.

When they discharged Michele the plan was start phase 2 of her chemo (phase 2 being a different drug combination that will be once a week for 12 weeks) the following week but the oncologist (who flirts with me incessantly) felt Michele needed an additional week to recover before re-starting chemo so it was delayed until this week. Personally, I think the oncologist just wanted another week to flirt with me and really, who can blame her?

So Michele started chemo this week on Thursday (so far so good) and as I alluded to, this will continue for 12 weeks in total.  With this chemo (Taxol for those keeping score at home) they give Benadryl at the same time to offset some of the side effects and I cannot tell you what a prayer from heaven this has been for me.  This because Benadryl makes many people sleepy and you have no idea how badly Michele needed this type of inducement because up until she was administered the Benadryl some minutes prior to receiving the Taxol, Michele has been on an immune booster fueled rampage of spousal chore abuse like this world has never seen.

We were not even out of the parking lot at discharge before I was yearning for tea and crumpets with Thomas of Torquemada. I do not know what was in those immune boosters but they should develop an antidote ASAP.  The ‘off week’ that the oncologist proscribed has resulted in a non-stop onslaught of ‘things I needed to do’.  I will not detail them all here for if I did, you would grow old in reading them all.  But suffice to say, as I type this with bloodied and blistered fingertips, I have been a very busy man.  The Benadryl has provided a thankful and temporary reprieve but oddly enough, when Michele started to doze off into a soft Benadryl induced dream, I could hear her softly whisper, ‘break out the Spanish Tickler’.  Oh Benadryl, you are a deity.

I tease, I tease. Michele is actually very nice as she barks out orders like Stalin on week long crack cocaine binge.  She is well worth the agony.  How do I know this?  Of course I know this instinctively but recently I had a strange and unforeseen affirmation of it.

I like to think I am normal by remembering random things from adolescence. Some of them have meaning but others are just odd things that for whatever reason, I remember from when I was very young.  One of those things was something I swore I would never forget and for a long, long time that remained true.

When I was growing up, my dad had relatives that owned a house on Long Beach Island (this is in NJ for the unfamiliar) and they were very generous to offer my family their beach house for a week or two every summer. It was during one of these weeks when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old that I met the first love of my life.  Of course, like many, many instances since that time, this love was unrequited but it was the first time I recognized that I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to please a species that was genetically programmed to be incompatible with being satisfactorily pleased.  I was mesmerized and Stacey was her name.  She was a few years older than me and there was no doubt that she paid as much attention to me as she did the jellyfish that were farting bubbles into the surf some 30 yards from the shore but that mattered not to me.  She was beautiful and because I was smart enough to realize my chances with her were as good as a mildly sentient person finding the show ‘Friends’ funny, I knew I had to create a world where the miracle of Stacey liking me could become a reality.

I managed this through the very powerful medium of music. Removing anyone’s doubt about just how much of a fossil I am, the ‘song of the summer’ that year was ‘Every Breath You Take’ by the Police.  That song has been played millions of times since it was released (1983) but none more than that summer.  Within that song lived my first genuine crush and my heart burst with ache whenever I heard it.  Stacey embodied my entire world when I was 11 years old and she dominated my thoughts (even at 11 my thoughts were not fit for print).

Years went by but every now and then I would hear that song and that perfect polaroid of Stacey would be pulled forward from my memory banks and I would laugh to myself about how unbelievably vulnerable I was at that age. But I never forgot the hunger in my heart that Stacey instilled.

I had not heard that song in years but I heard it on my way to work the other day. Considering how many times I heard that song over the years and how each time I could easily retrieve those mental images of my first love, I just presumed that the normal routine would again flow through my mind. But that did not happen.  As the beautiful song made its way through my ears and into my head, there sat Michele, dominating my mind and consuming my soul.  Indeed, every move she makes.

Because this was my head and I make the rules (at least for now) I leaned into the image hoping for a kiss but instead I heard her whisper, “the lawn needs a mowing’.

Just a quick shout out to Michele on her birthday.  I searched long and hard to find a suitable song to post that contained the lyrics that capture my affections for her. I had to watch this video several times to make sure it was the perfect match.  It was exhausting and debilitating but Michele is so worth it.

I would do anything for my girl.  Happy Birthday!

 

Michele was mercifully discharged today!  It was just short of a week in the hospital but do not let the relatively short stay mislead you to believe that it was a minor or uneventful stay.  Michele got infected with a particularly nasty bug that according to her doctors, was highly unusual for a breast cancer patient (the bug is usually found in respiratory patients).

There were some scary moments along the way when Michele had fevers reaching 106 and they had to pack her with ice to bring her body temperature down.  Thankfully the antibiotics started to do their thing and Michele turned the corner on Friday into Saturday.

Speaking of Saturday, we decided to go forward with Liliana’s 5th birthday party as we did not want her to miss it (especially after we had been threatening her with cancelling it for not listening to us on a daily basis – I think she has totally figured out that our threats are as effective as the ‘Drink responsibly’ signs that are everywhere during Jets games).

So Michele was absolutely bummed to miss Lil’s party but nobody was more bummed (or terrified) than me.  We had about 50 people coming over and there I was, ready to hand out sporks so everyone could dig into the 75 cans of Spaghettios I had just dumped into a pot I put on the grill.  It was like that big British guy from Dinner Impossible showing up and saying “F8ck this!  You are on your own you pasty Yank!”

Complicating matters further, our 19 month old tornado (aka Anabella) spiked a fever of her own on Friday night.  Fortunately for me, Michele had already booked a caterer and someone to help with the food serving/clean up.  This plus our family helping me out with the girls, made the whole event relatively easy for me.  Thus, while Michele was eating something gray that the hospital called ‘similar to meatloaf’, I was trotting around our yard like the Great Gatsby.  The party went very well (we were able to face-time with Michele the blowing out of the candles) and a big thank you to all that pitched in/offered to help.  We very much appreciate it.

So this trip to the hospital was very serious as is Michele’s diagnosis and yet I still find myself inserting less than serious anecdotes in these updates.  I explained in one of the first updates that this a better way to communicate certain things but it does not mean that I am anything but serious about getting Michele back to good health.  Besides, Michele encourages me and I do what I am told!

Welcome home babe!

 

 

 

A short but not sweet update on Michele.  She started feeling unwell on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning she was running a fever.  She was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon and immediately started receiving IV antibiotics.

It is a nasty bug that is spiking high fevers and combine that with a depleted immune system and it is not an ideal situation.  They identified the bug in the blood cultures and she is receiving the right antibiotic but it is going to take some time for her body to rid itself of this little f*cker.

Michele is amazingly maintaining a very upbeat attitude and is determined to beat this bugger into a fine pulp.  She will be in the hospital for several more days as her body musters the strength needed to get back on its feet.  I can attest that although her body is less than 100%, her mind is still razor sharp as she has been barking orders through the phone to ensure Lil and Anabella survive under my care. I am honestly quite thankful for it.

Thanks for all the support.

We went to the Relay for Life event in our hometown of Nutley (I affectionately call it ‘Cell Block N’ – people grow up here and NEVER LEAVE! Michele is just one of nearly 30K people that think Nutley is the Vatican and the rest of the world leads unholy lives beyond its borders). The town does an awesome job with this annual event (10^th year) and they announced over a million dollars raised to fight cancer over the past 10 years. Seeing all the people, many there to honor loved ones that have been lost to the menace that is cancer, was inspiring. It stirred strong emotional strings from my past when, through unfortunate circumstance, I learned the importance of taking a step back and being thankful for all that life brings to you, even the ache of losing someone you love, because without love, there can be no ache and without love, life has no virtue.

So as I watched my three girls from a short distance in the park where the Relay for Life was being held, I became nostalgic and thankful for the abundance of love that I have in my life. As we packed up and headed back to the empire of estrogen we call home, I remembered a couple of things I wrote in the past that I think do a decent job of conveying the importance of taking a step back and being thankful, even if your current situation is not ideal at any point in time.

I originally wrote down the following words on the third anniversary of my daughter Gabriella’s passing. I modified it a little to include some more recent developments:

Alone with your thoughts just prior to sleep allows you to ponder a seemingly endless array of things that race through your mind. Some of those things make sense and are easily digested but some fill you with rage, strain your consciousness and ultimately question your faith, whatever that may be. The passing of my daughter Gabriella six years ago falls into the latter category as does my wife Michele’s cancer diagnosis. Six years has not dulled the pain of losing Gabriella but it has greatly enhanced my appreciation for the things in my life that mean so much to me, most importantly my wife Michele, my daughters Liliana and Anabella, and all my family and friends that care for me and I for them.

Without warning things can suddenly get utterly and hopelessly perplexing and there is nothing you can do or say to make it right in your heart or mind. I encourage you to pause for a moment to embrace and cherish the things that make sense in your life.

A few posts prior in this blog (Pause) I described a situation where our daughter Gabriella had to undergo a harrowing intubation to help her breathe. She survived but not without significant ramifications. The intubation had many complications and it resulted in her suffering severe brain damage due to a lack of oxygen. I posted the below shortly after we got home with Gabriella in a blog Michele and I set up to keep people up to date with Gabriella and her health odyssey. It most certainly hurt to read it again but without love, you cannot hurt. Michele is hurting right now but she is alive and she is fighting with the enthusiasm of a woman with a no limit credit card on the floor of Neiman Marcus.  Although she is spending money like there is no tomorrow, there will be an infinite number of tomorrows, even if that means I will have to take on 3 or 4 secondary jobs to match her spending. It hurts so good.

Saturday, May 24, 2008 1:10 PM CDT

Although our lives are far from normal, things have settled into a routine over the past few weeks. Gabriella is relatively stable (although sometimes too stable in her pooping schedule) and we have initiated the process of requesting home nursing care via Medicaid. We currently are receiving Hospice in the form of a health care aid for 3 hours a day during the week and 2 hours a day on weekends. If we are approved for Medicaid, Hospice will roll off and Gabriella will have a nurse aid for at least 10 hours a day.

While we look forward to receiving home nursing care, the mental anguish of dealing with Gabriella’s current condition is grueling. Being able to hold and hug Gabriella does provide some comfort, but her not being able to return the hug, smile, cry or simply provide a flicker of the Gabriella she used to be hurts beyond description. From the moment the neurologist informed us of Gabriella’s severe brain trauma, we have been trapped in a dreadful reality where we live in a fog of despondence. Gabriella is alive but hardly living. Robbed of hope, we carry on, force smiles and do our best to suppress our despair. Thanks to the support from everyone, we are hanging tough, just like Gabriella. Not wanting to be too depressing, I will share some inner self where I may risk my reputation of having a stiff upper lip.

I enjoy movies and sometimes I will actually allow myself to get emotional while watching them. I believe movies (or books for that matter) provide an avenue for emotions to escape your being that otherwise would remain dormant. The key being that whether the emotions are released or they remain within is entirely up to you. If they escape, they are on your terms and those terms are dictated by what those scenes mean to you and you alone.

I was flipping through the channels the other day and I came across one of my favorite movies and as I watched, it got me thinking of some scenes from some of my other favorite movies. I was dumbfounded by how I initially recalled these scenes but how I now see them from a perspective dominated by Gabriella.

Some of the scenes that came to my mind are probably very familiar to a lot of people. In The Shawshank Redemption, I was always moved by Brooks’ need to carve “Brooks was here’ in the ceiling of his room in the halfway house. He felt so alone and insignificant that he was compelled to etch his name in the wood or risk perishing from the world without anyone paying mind. It was incredibly depressing to witness a person exit life in that manner. I take solace in that Gabriella need not worry about her significance in this world. Her impact will far outlast the time she is with us.

“This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime”. From the first time I saw the Bridges of Madison County, I felt that line by Clint Eastwood (Robert) to Meryl Streep (Francesca) was as moving and poignant as any dialogue I had seen in a movie. His genuineness is unmistakable and he leaves no doubt about his unrestrained desire to spend the rest of his life with Francesca. It is gut wrenching to watch the next day as Robert stands in the rain in the middle of the street, waiting for Francesca to pull the door handle of the truck and join her true love in a life she always desired but could not have. Now I would love to insert a romantic Michael-n-Michele moment here but as I mentioned, I am experiencing this through the prism of Gabriella (besides the fact that many a night I have tried to initiate what a man and wife sometimes do only to be answered with an emphatic ‘NO’. When I persist, I get, ‘This kind of certainty comes but once every night. Good night”). What I am certain of is Gabriella’s unique beauty and how it will never be matched. No matter what happens from this point forward, no matter who I meet or who I encounter, I know Gabriella’s majesty will never be equaled. Of this, I am certain.

Lastly, although I could go through a myriad of movies, the film I was watching the other night that triggered all of this was The Untouchables. Specifically, I loved Sean Connery’s performance in this movie but all of the acting and the score was top notch throughout. Connery is Officer Jim Malone, an honest Chicago cop that refused to succumb to the corruption that surrounds him and his career suffers accordingly. The corruption is derived from the notorious Al Capone (Robert De Niro) and Malone agrees to help Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) whose mandate is to clean up Chicago’s infamous crime ridden reputation. After their initial chance encounter on a Chicago bridge, Malone brings Ness to his church where he explains to Ness the depths and the seriousness of the commitment he needs to make if he expects to accomplish his goal of taking down Capone and his crime syndicate. “What are you prepared to do?” he asks Ness. Towards the end of the movie Malone is shot by one of Capone’s henchman, riddled with bullets from a machine gun as he chased a knife wielding assassin from his apartment. Knowing that he and he alone possessed the vital information about the whereabouts of Capone’s bookkeeper, the would-be key witness in Capone’s criminal trial, Malone drags his bullet ravaged body down the hallway using all his remaining strength. He knows he needs to convey the whereabouts of the Bookkeeper to Ness, if only he can stay alive long enough until Ness arrives. Ness arrives and follows a trail of blood that ends at Malone in his dining room. As he rolls Malone over he is relieved to see he is still alive but he realizes death is inevitable. After clasping his Rosemary beads, Malone manages to grab the train schedule and provides Ness with the invaluable information of the Bookkeepers’ itinerary. In his last breath, Malone again asks Ness, “What are you prepared to do?” Gabriella can no longer talk but even when she could, she was too young to make metaphysical declarations but I am comfortable making one in her stead.

Life is truly a wondrous gift that is easy to lose sight of when trying to come to grips with a sick child. It has been excruciating to watch Gabriella fight through one medical emergency after another. Witnessing your baby endure unspeakable agony can alter your belief system at its most basic level but I think it is important to recognize that life is precious and even if it is scarred by pain and significant setbacks, life beats no life every time. Given the choice between doing it all over again or not at all, I am sure Gabriella would sign on to life in a heartbeat. Despite all the hurt , the special moments we shared make it all worthwhile. Gabriella lives her life to its fullest every day and she would be mystified if she encountered anyone that took life for granted. “What are you prepared to do?” she would ask of someone that was not appreciating life for the miracle that it is. To all of us, “What are you prepared to do?”

It is has been a little over a month since my last update and both a lot and a little has happened since. As I indicated in the previous post, Michele was set to begin her chemo treatment and she did start the first of four every other week treatments on April 7.  Having completed the third treatment this past week, she has one more treatment with the first regimen of chemo and then she has a different regimen that will be once a week for 12 weeks.

Now I will not sugar coat anything; chemo is not a walk in the park but as you probably expect, Michele has been a real trooper and is taking it all in stride. She started losing her hair so she shaved her head and she looks very sexy IMO.  In solidarity I shaved my head down real close as well but what I did not tell her was that my doctor told me: He said I needed to shave my hair real soon because my brain power was starting to exceed the capacity of my skull and that if I did not ‘let it breathe’ I might start facing unforeseen consequences.  So although my shaving was done with Michele in mind, there was a smidge of selfish, self-preservation on my part.

Chemo treatment has come a long way with the inclusion of counter acting meds to offset some of the horrible side effects but they still can take a lot of you and Michele is handling it all with grace and courage and I am so proud of her for it. She still does far more around the house than she should but she cannot help herself as her domineering impulses cannot be quelled by feeble chemo toxins!  Try as I might to fill the girls’ lunch bags with sour patch kids and red bull, Michele insists on getting involved and making sure that the girls have what they need as they go to daycare each day.  I poke fun but the truth is Michele makes our family work and I am just a day and night laborer, thankful that she is there providing the direction that I so desperately need.  For example, the other day I was playing with the girls and Michele interrupted and told me I only had 37 inhales the previous minute and that I should be closer to 40, give or take one.  I love it!

All kidding aside, I am mesmerized at how brave and strong Michele has been in handling this shitty hand she has been dealt. Michele maintains a great attitude and does not allow cancer to dictate how she approaches each day.  I like to think I would act similarly if it was me who was fighting cancer but I suspect I would fall short.  This does not surprise me in the least.  I hitched my wagon to a stupendously high quality person and I wake each day hoping I can come close, even if only temporarily, to matching her splendor.   Tomorrow I will try again; I will fail. Wash, rinse repeat.

It has been a long time since the last update and for that I apologize. Oddly enough, both a lot and a little has happened since the last one nearly three weeks ago.

As a refresher, Michele was in the hospital a little more than three weeks ago due to an infection that developed around the wound in her stubborn right breast. This is the breast that has been taking a long time to heal and we need it to fully heal before we can start the chemo.  Fortunately, the hospital stay was short (a few days) and entertaining (Michele’s roommate was ‘interesting’; I bet after  10 minutes Dr. Phil would have pulled that stunt the priest did in that final scene in The Exorcist).

So Michele has been home resting and healing, albeit slowly but therein lies the problem. Protocols for administering chemotherapy stipulate that 90 days post-surgery is the outer limit on how long chemo can be put off and we are fast approaching that threshold.  The healing has been making good progress and we hope that is far enough along where we can start chemo this week.  Michele has an appointment Wednesday with her plastic surgeon and if the wound is ‘close enough’ chemo will start this Thursday. Michele is very anxious and so am I.  We want to get this started and finished even though we both realize this is going to be a tough grind.  We are blessed with an amazing network of family and friends and we so appreciate all the love and support that has been sent our way.

On that topic of love and support, I was driving home from work the other day and I was cursing myself out unmercifully. What the hell was I thinking? I am the least crafty/artsy person I know and yet this did not stop me from asking family and friends to send me pictures that I would assemble into a collage (or something) to show Michele how many people were standing by her side in her fight against cancer.  It seemed like a great idea in theory but the reality of putting it together and make it look presentable is another matter altogether.  It’s like a bunch of people provided me with world class ingredients to make a wonderful dish and I am an ossified Chef Boy R Dee after a weekend bender in Vegas, hoping nobody actually takes a place at the table.

As I continued to curse myself out during my slog of a commute home, a song came on the radio and I had an out of body experience. Rachel Platten was the artist but the music was in the background.  Drowning out the music was her voice, Field of Dreams style, which was speaking directly to me.  I heard “Hey you” and I thought I was hallucinating but then I heard her say “Mike Giannone, you are a very sexy man!”, and I figured it must be legit. Nonetheless,  I was still stunned when I heard what I thought was  “I want you” but I could not hear her clearly because people were honking their horns at the big shot with New York plates doing Lawrence Taylor in the left lane.  This driver appeared to be singing her head off (probably to Billy Joel), completely oblivious to the people behind her, waiting for the longest time to pass her.   The people that fail to keep to the right have a way about them, I don’t know what it is, but they are the most irritating motorists on the road (this is predominantly a New York state of mind phenomenon). I had the urge to tell her about it and to get her moving out of the left lane, but it became readily apparent that she was unwilling to take action, despite the pressure to do so.  This particular driver made me want to go to extremes and start a fire in the back seat of her car.

Anyway, when the honking quieted down I was able to hear Rachel again. “If you try to make a collage by gluing and pasting, no matter how many glorious pictures you have been provided, your shitty artistic talents will make your end product resemble something that looks like Sloth from the Goonies trying to force a cross-breed between a raccoon and a squirrel.”

And then BANG!, a pot hole the size of an empty Philadelphia Eagle championship trophy case rattled my Durango and snapped my attention back to the road. Rachel’s voice faded away on Route 21 southbound.  Perplexed, I realized this was a sign and Rachel was beyond right…on everything she had told me but there was only one thing that I had the power to modify. I scrambled my brain for a better way to leverage all the wonderful pictures that were provided to me (and to spare raccoons and squirrels everywhere).   Below is what I came up with and I hope you like it but more importantly, I hope it adequately conveys to Michele how she is adored by so many, myself most of all.

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