The Effing Truck

 

Photo by Ian Parker on Unsplash

Back in May, I wrote about my oncologist Tim using the truck analogy for the first time with me. In short, the truck analogy is that with an incurable, progressive cancer, the disease is like a truck  that has started rolling down the hill it was parked on. You can slow the truck, maybe, but cannot stop it.

The truck. The effing truck. 

In the last three weeks, I have had good (great) consultations both with my Mayo oncologist (by video) and a Mayo neurologist (in person). They—both the doctors and the discussions—gave me reassurance as where I am on the myeloma path (persistent but stable) and what the neurological landscape looks like (low end of the neuropathy scale, no red flags, keep walking). 

Both of those discussions lifted huge weights off of me, some of which I was aware of and some not. The utter relief. The sheer exuberance of those worries lifting away.

But I would be kidding myself if I pretended or ignored the reality of the myeloma in me. It is a daily presence. It is the effing truck.

My dad has outdated and homespun notions of what cancer is and what my cancer is. Until my older brother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer and my father started going to oncology appointments with him, Dad thought cancer was something you caught. In fairness to him, he is almost 89 and came up in a hills culture, so I get it. He will sometimes make a comment, if I say I am tired, that "your cancer is chewing away on you." His cancer experience and images are of tumors eating away at livers and brains and other organs.

But here's the thing. My cancer doesn't have to "chew away" on me. Tumors "chew away," yes, because that's how they move through the body to new locations. But myeloma? Heck no. Dr. Leung explained it best when Warren once raised a concern about the myeloma metastasizing elsewhere in me. "It doesn't have to. It's already all over her body in her blood and bone marrow." 

I am bathed in it. 

The effing truck will roll down the hill.

My challenge going forward is not how to slow the effing truck, but how to accept it. I go through this process—how to accept the disease—increasingly as I age, as the years with myeloma accumulate, as my energy declines. What is important? Keep that. What is not? Let that go.

The effing truck is what it is. I don't add it to the process, only acknowledge it. The rest of my life is what matters.

I am writing this out by hand sitting on the front porch. We had heavy storms pass through in the night and the air is cool and damp. There are bees in the spiderwort. I just rescued a firefly from a spider web. I will get a walk in soon before the high temps move in and the morning turns on me.

What is important? Bees in the spiderwort. 

***

[An editorial note: I use the adjective "effing" on purpose. I am married to a wonderful man who grew up without being exposed to swearing and who is very uncomfortable with it under any conditions. I, on the other hand, went to law school during a time when female students were very much a minority and swearing was a way for women students to make it clear we were there to stay. It was (and perhaps still is) embedded into the collegial side of the law: we swear a lot. What can I say? Marrying Warren cleaned up my language a lot and I do not regret that, but it is an effing truck.]

This Year's Gardens: Part 9

 As I wrote last time, I went on a tear in the Hej garden just before we left for Mayo. What more damage could be done, right? 

We had three days away this week courtesy of our trip to Oz, and returned home very late Thursday night. I spent Friday dealing with the detritus of our travel. 

Yesterday Warren said, "So you want to go look at the garden?" 

Did I? I wasn't sure. Then I reasoned that the worst result would be the plants were in better shape, Warren having fenced the garden before we left, and the rough zucchini sowing would have come to naught.

We walked down together. I had not marked the hoed rows before covering them with grass, but I knew roughly where they were. I carefully kicked the grass away and...seedlings! 

We are still a long ways from the first zucchini and I noticed that a blossom on one of the older plants looked bug-gnawed. 

But...seedlings! 

This Year's Gardens: Part 8

Well, I almost threw in the towel there. Back in mid-May, I was bragging about getting the Hej garden planted. Look at my cabbage and cauliflower rows! Look at the zucchini! 

I was on a roll.

Ha.

Within ten days, maybe less, the Hej garden was a disaster. An absolutely frigging disaster. 

Why, you ask? Well, we have an abundant rabbit population in the neighborhood this year. Rabbits apparently love cauliflower plants. Those little demons ate all nine of them to the ground. Two might come back, maybe three, but the others are done. Apparently rabbits do not care as much for cabbage, so five of the six plants appear to be thriving.

[A note: I grew up eating rabbit, which my dad would hunt. As a young child, I helped my dad with the skinning and preparation of them. A few days ago, I eyed a rabbit inching closer to the kitchen garden and said, loudly, "Listen, dude, I have no qualms about trapping you and eating you. Understand?" It took the hint and fled.]

And the zucchini? The 20 zucchini (I'm sorry. Am I shouting?) that I planted so carefully? Some bug (insect or viral) got into them. First tiny, lacy holes appeared in the leaves. Then, within a few days, almost all had withered away. Not just drooped, mind you, but withered away to nothing. 

Nothing. 

I was so discouraged (and tired and not feeling well, which is separate from being tired) that I told Warren I wasn't sure I even was going to replant any of it. The farm market I prefer to get my plants at was, this late in the spring, all out of everything but tomatoes and some really hot peppers. Two other places had cabbages and even zucchini, but at $4.98 per plant, it made no sense to buy any of them. 

Warren and I had several strategy sessions standing at the garden. (And keep in mind that while the rabbits ate and the zucchini died, the weeds grew voraciously.) He was looking for ways to support and encourage me. What if? Or what if? 

What if we cage the surviving cauliflower? (Done.) What if Warren fences the two open sides of the garden? (We bought fencing yesterday at TSC.) What if I take a hoe and a rake to the garden, hack out the worst of the weeds, and then mulch? And what if, while working away, I open the second packet of zucchini seeds, hoe a coupe of lines, drop 'em in, and see what happens?

Those last two events happened at 6:30 this morning. (Yes, Katrina, I overdid it. On purpose.)

So here is what the Hej garden looks like now:

Warren will get it fenced later today. And then we see what happens.

We leave for Mayo early Tuesday and I wanted the gardens in order before we left. (Well, either in order or totally abandoned in the case of the Hej garden. "In order" won out.) I weeded the kitchen garden last night, so it is in decent shape. 

We have fresh lettuce up and ready to enjoy:

And the tomatoes are starting to blossom:

Let's see what the gardens look like when we get back later this week.