That 6-Letter Word!

It has been such a long time since I posted anything, but I have been inspired by reading through a friend’s blog to try and write more.

So here I am. It is the middle of May. My brother has been diagnosed with cancer for five months. I haven’t ever really told too many people about it, though I know through the grapevine most of my friends have found out. And, of course, through the ultimate grapevine several others have found out (catch me after two glasses of wine and ask what I’ve been up to lately and I tend to be very talkative. My apologies go to Lisa, Erica and Pam for finding out in such an unconventional way!). To my friends who I have not told directly, it’s not about not wanting you to know, simply not knowing how to bring it up (without the glass of wineJ).

I suppose some history. The Wednesday after Rob and I returned from our honeymoon my brother called me at work to tell me that he was in such pain he was going to the ER. I knew that he had been having pain in his side for a while, but he kept putting off going to a doctor because he thought it was just another hernia of some sort and didn’t have the time to make an appointment (yes, all Hodo’s are identical in their health-care mentality). The doctors were never able to determine 100% what was wrong with him, so they decided to do exploratory surgery in the area of his appendix. The surgery was finally scheduled for Monday morning. My brother was kept in the hospital through the weekend to take antibiotics and saline drips to ensure there was no infection when the surgery began.

That Monday my father and I went down to be with my brother before he went in for surgery and to hopefully take him home that night. I did have a sinking feeling when the surgery took longer than anticipated. Darren and his wife made the trip down and were waiting with Dad and me. Nothing however prepared me or my family for the six letter word that the doctor came into the room and told us. “He has cancer.” I listened, I asked questions, and I watched the look on everyone’s face around the room: shock, fear, incomprehension. The doctor walked out of the room. To this day I am ashamed to say that I walked out too. I say it was to call Rob and tell him the news and ask him to drive down. It wasn’t, though I did do those things. It was facing my greatest fear – those six letters being diagnosed in my family again. It was hearing it again and reliving the first time, no matter how young we all were back then, there are some moments in your life that you remember vividly. It was because I couldn’t be strong for my brother then and I didn’t want him to see me cry.

It was in January when Chris made the decision to do his treatment through Hopkins. He couldn’t start treatment until he healed from the surgery. We (my brother, his best friend and I) made the trek to Hopkins to talk with them about his actual prognosis, his treatment plan, and when we could get started. Unfortunately this proved to be another shocking day for us. The official cancer that Chris has is Stage III-C Colon Cancer. The survival rate with treatment is 50% for a five year period (5-years is simply the unit of measurement used in cancer statistics). But the good news, when they removed the tumor his margins looked pretty good.

Since then, Chris has started his chemotherapy treatment at Hopkins. His treatment is every other Tuesday and I am fortunate enough to work for a company that understands family values and allows me to take every other Tuesday off to be take my brother to his treatment. Our day consists of Chris driving to my house that morning, of which he is always late (Kristen and Chrisi, I am so sorry for all those years of tardiness – it drives me up the wall – though in my own defense, Chris is usually about 30-45 minutes late whereas I was always 10-15!). We head to the hospital to have his port accessed and blood work drawn to see if he is healthy enough to receive his chemo that day. Again, we have been very fortunate that he has been healthy enough every single time! Then we wait for about two hours for the lab to come back and actually tell us he is healthy enough. During that time we go to the cafeteria at the hospital and eat Subway. I can also tell you that after all of this is done – I don’t think that I will ever eat a Subway sandwich again. Then we go back and Chris gets hooked up for several hours, the home nurse shows up when that is over and hooks him to his 46 hour infusion of the final drug which he carries around in a fanny pack. At first he was staying with us for the two days until the home nurse showed up to unhook him. But now, he is feeling strong enough to drive home shortly after his treatment. (not to mention he gets to see his girlfirend at home whereas up here he just hangs with his brother-in-law)

As of writing this entry, he is hnadling treatment very well physically, though the last several treatments showed his blood work getting worse; it hasn't been bad enough to need to change the chemo-cocktail they prepare for him. The next round of blood work to pray for is in 8 days!

I guess through all of this the person who has been “shafted” the most is my own husband. He is the one who has received the full force of my mood swings from being upset at times to just angry at some of my brother’s reactions and of course, the lack of action / reaction from the rest of my family, especially my father.

Of course, having Rob in the hospital at the same time as the prognosis wasn’t fun either. Again,l as of writing this entry, Rob is doing well and we finally received the last blood results that his kidneys were back within the healthy range - though his glucose levels continue to be a problem, they are improving with a new type of medicine that his doctor gve him. Overall though, we can now just look back on his latest health issues as another experience, just as I am hoping and praying that all of this with Chris will just be something else that he and I can look back on and say, “hey, remember when we used to eat all those Subway sandwiches together!”