The scream

Our perfect summery carefree Easter ended with a bloodcurdling, gray-my-hair scream at the bottom of our basement stairs.


Jilly has always been a screamer. A great screamer. When she is angry, she will scream knowing that it is as painful as a slap. When she falls and scrapes her knee, her hands, her elbow, I’ll hear her scream and rush to her side. A band-aid fixes all.

But, this scream couldn’t be stopped with a band-aid. Missing the first stair in our cold concrete basement, she fell sideways and slammed her tailbone into the corner of the stair. A red welt rose up where she hit.

We carried her to the couch, covered her bottom with ice and fed her candy which helped. But an hour later, she needed help to get dressed and brush her teeth. She cried out in bed, but more ice and pain reliever tablets helped her relax enough to sleep.

And, now I wait at my kitchen table to see what today will bring. Will there be more ice and pain-relief tablets, or a hospital visit for x-rays?

In the early morning light, I wait for her call, although I naively hope that she’ll bound down the stairs instead and ask for candy.

This morning? She can have it.


—————————————-

My little girl is standing on her own now. She can walk v-e-r-y slowly and is sitting up on a pillow. I think it’s just a bad bruise, so we’ll just take it easy for a few days.

A river runs through it


The rains have finally stopped in our area of New England and, other than a very soggy yard, we’ve been very, very fortunate. But, watching the news of all of the swollen and overflowing rivers brings back memories of a time when the knock on the door of my childhood home was from a policeman telling us to evacuate.

I grew up in Agawam, Massachusetts, just a couple of streets from the banks of the Connecticut River. In June ’84, the banks overflowed and came down my street.

Photobucket

(the Barbie sailboat was my sister’s and often had a beer floating on it for my dad who stayed behind to pump out our basement and watch our cat)

The water never entered the first floor of our ranch, but it got pretty close (our house is the yellow one to the right).

Photobucket

It was pretty surreal to see our street covered in water, a boat bobbing by the curb.

Photobucket

My sister and I thought this was great fun when we had to stop home for dress-up clothes for my BFF’s high-school graduation.
Photobucket

My mother, however, was a nervous wreck.

And now, after watching our yard fill up with water, checking to see if our basement was dry–still dry–, hearing the news stories of evacuations and damage and crumbling dams, I finally understand why she was so nervous.

Mother Nature, take it easy on New England this spring, ok?

Pregnant with Cancer? You aren’t alone. . .

Two years ago, I wrote that my sister-in-law was going in for a double mastectomy for breast cancer.

Later that year, I showed you the beautiful photo of her baby girl.

But, that wasn’t the whole story. There was a big story in between “mastectomy” and “baby”.

After her mastectomy,

after she canceled her June wedding,

after she canceled her Italian honeymoon,

after she realized that she’d probably never birth a child once chemo had finished ravaging her body and, probably, her supply of eggs,

and right before she went in for a second surgery to remove lymph nodes to check them for cancer,

the doctor shut the door to the exam room and told my sister-in-law that she was pregnant.

Newly pregnant, but needing chemotherapy which could not be done in the first trimester.

Her choice in those early days was a) delay chemo to protect the baby, but likely give own body over to cancer; b) abort and start chemo right away, as her first oncologist recommended, but most likely never get another chance to have a child.

Her dream of having a child of her own collided head-on with the nightmare of having cancer.

She is now telling her story so others who have to walk the same scary path won’t have to do it completely alone. Please stop by and say hello to my brave sister-in-law, and friend, at her blog, ChemoMama.