Sepia Saturday – Environmental Impact?

Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

I lived the first two years of my life at a truck stop. I might also include the time I was growing in my mother’s womb. My grandparents, Charles and Abbie Smith, owned the truck stop; I think we lived upstairs. My dad had a motorcycle business on the same property.

After my parents’ divorce, I spent every other Saturday at my grandparents’ truck stop. Saturdays were supposed to be time with my dad, but it was more fun and more appropriate for a little girl to be supervised most of the day by her grandmother. Grandma Abbie managed the inside of the truck stop – serving coffee, cooking diner fare, waiting on customers, washing dishes, selling groceries and cigarettes and whatever else truck drivers and travelers and local farmers might need or want.

I looked forward to being old enough to help my grandfather outside – pumping gas or asking customers what kind of gas they wanted. Regular or ethyl? I thought it would be funny to ask, “Lucy or Ethel?”

My mother and I lived with her parents and I spent my days following my grandmother Hoskins around and helping her. We lived in Iowa and winters were cold. During the winter, the house was primarily heated by a large coal burning heater that stood in the living room. On cold winter mornings, my grandmother would lay my clothes for the day on the coal stove to warm them, then carry them upstairs to me to ease my transition out of my warm bed into the chilly room. That’s the coal heater on the far left, although it is not the one I remember. Perhaps it was replaced for a newer model. There was an oil burning heater in the kitchen, but I don’t remember it being used as much.

This was the general pattern of my life until my mother remarried when I was seven and we moved away.

After we moved away, I spent a month every summer and every other Christmas with my father. By then, my dad had a small house on the property next to the motorcycle business. I would spend most of my days at the business – where my dad was, often hanging out in the repair shop where engines and mufflers were worked on and engines were revved to listen to the inner workings.

Sometimes I played at office work…

or played pinball (free for me!) in the show room and, when I was older, I helped assemble Hondas out of the shipping crates. We went almost everywhere by motorcycle and attended many motorcycle races and hill climbs. Sometimes my dad was a participant.

There were go-cart races on Saturday nights on the property behind the business. And I would ride a Honda 90 around and around the track on long summer days. The property itself was surrounded by cornfields.

Less than a year before my mother remarried, my grandfather Charles died of cancer. I remember him as a smoker, yet I have no memory of seeing him smoke or of any photographs that indicate that he was a smoker. Perhaps this is a false memory that a six-year-old child created after hearing that her grandfather had “three kinds of cancer,” having a vague memory of her last visit to him in his bed at home with what seemed to be a large wound in his chest, and knowing that smoking causes lung cancer and that the wound was approximately where his lungs were. I suppose I should verify my memories with someone.

I don’t have a lot of clear memories of time with my grandfather, but photographs show, and my feelings confirm, that I felt love and affection and ease with him.

I didn’t think I’d participate in Sepia Saturday this week. I was supposed to be in the hospital undergoing a complex surgery today and have had other things on my mind. But I caught a cold, had a fever two nights ago, and my surgery has been postponed. So here I am.

I didn’t know what to do with the prompt photo, but the last couple of days I’ve been pondering why I seem to be a cancer maker (three times now) when there is so little cancer in my family. One grandfather, who I would assume developed cancer due to environmental toxins. Grandpa Charles was a farmer for many years, then he purchased the truck stop and pumped gas every day. So whether or not he was a smoker (prompt photo connection), there were certainly cancer causing agents in his life. One first cousin had a lymphoma. And my mother’s sister died of cancer. That’s it. Not any of my sisters or parents or other cousins or other aunts and uncles. Just these three.

My first cancer was nothing. It was cured before it was diagnosed. I had a large nodule on my thyroid and the doctor said it had to come out whether or not there was any cancer. The biopsy confirmed cancer, but the doctor said it was so small that it could easily have been missed in the biopsy.

About five years later, I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive Non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

The other day, something popped up on my Facebook feed about blood cancers and I decided to read it. It linked several blood cancers, including Non-Hodgkins lymphoma with exposure to benzene. Where does one find benzenes?

From The American Cancer Society:
“The highest exposures have typically been in the workplace, although these have decreased greatly over the last several decades due to federal and state regulations. Some other exposures have also gone down over time, such as the amount of benzene allowed in gasoline…
… Other people who may be exposed to benzene at work include steel workers, printers, lab technicians, gas station employees, and firefighters. Federal regulations limit exposure to benzene in the workplace …
… Areas of heavy traffic, gas stations, and areas near industrial sources may also have higher air levels …
…Cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke are important sources of exposure to benzene. Cigarette smoke accounts for about half of the exposure to benzene in the United States. Benzene levels in rooms containing tobacco smoke can be many times higher than normal.

Benzene is known to cause cancer, based on evidence from studies in both people and lab animals. The link between benzene and cancer has largely focused on leukemia and other cancers of blood cells.”

A document created by the EPA contains the following:
“Benzene is found in emissions from burning coal and oil, motor vehicle exhaust, and evaporation from gasoline service stations and in industrial solvents. These sources contribute to elevated levels of benzene in the ambient air, which may subsequently be breathed by the public.”

Other sources I read included exposure to weed killers.

I didn’t mention that I also worked for ten years with a boss who smoked like a chimney. I shared office space with her and later spent many hours in her private smoke-filled office. Once I became pregnant, I refused to go into her office.

And now, about five years after my lymphoma diagnosis, here I am with ampullary cancer – hopefully caught early enough for the primary treatment – a major abdominal surgery commonly known as a Whipple procedure. Whether I will need further treatment depends on what the surgeon finds when he gets in there.

I have no evidence that my exposures to benzene at such a young age has anything to do with my cancers, but it is something I’ve been thinking about. Perhaps there is some genetic predisposition. My family doctor suggested to me today that I should surely qualify for genetic testing with my history. (I am the only child of this union. All of my siblings are half sisters.) Perhaps there is a toxic mix – a genetic pre-disposition paired with a trigger. Who knows? Some questions have no clear answer.

In any case, I hope we can get back to protecting our environment and ourselves from the many, many toxins that impact our health.

If I’m MIA from my blog and from Sepia Saturday for a while, you know why. Once I have surgery, I’ll be in the hospital about a week and then have a another 6-8 weeks of recovery at home. Hopefully, I’ll have a brain that functions reasonably well and a level of comfort that will allow me to keep up here.

I apologize for the rather morbid content of my post, but it is what I am thinking about today.

A prompt photo that features cigarette advertisements and a building in disrepair.

Please visit other participants who have surely posted fun photos and interesting takes on the prompt by clicking this link: Sepia Saturday.

My 1st Rebirth Day … Living in the Land of Or

I’ve been neglectful again! Not old family history, but an update on me, copied from my caringbridge.org journal. I’ll try to “focus” on this blog soon.

My life-giving stem cells

My life-giving stem cells

Yes! It has come and gone. The anniversary of my stem cell transplant was Thursday, Feb. 12. I’m a whopping one year old. One of my well-wishers on Facebook called it my rebirth day. I like that designation, so I’m keeping it.

I wanted to celebrate and to reflect on the significance of the day and I devoted most of the week to doing so. 🙂 I left some things unfinished or undone, so I guess it will continue in starts and stops. Here’s a run-down of my rebirth day activities:

·     I read through my caringbridge journal – up to and including the day of the transplant. I have yet to finish. You can create a pdf file and print it – but it was 100+ pages – so I didn’t. (Spacing issues made it longer than need be, but still…)

·     I started reading through the notebook where I recorded everything people did for me during my illness and treatment, then I went back and started lifting up a prayer of gratitude for each of you as your names appeared. I haven’t finished that either, I am sad to say. (We’ll be discussing my issues with completing what I start a bit later.)

Goody Bag 1·     I made birthday goody bags to take to the infusion/chemo room where I have been a patient. A nurse suggested 40 would be good to cover the number of patients they might expect in a day. Thankfully, Melissa took me shopping and helped me make decisions or I might still be standing in the middle of Target trying to make up my mind!

Goody Bag 2·     Wednesday morning, Gayle went with me to TX Oncology South to deliver the goody bags. It didn’t take us as long as we anticipated, partly because there were quite a few men that morning and men tend to sleep or at least recline with closed eyes during chemo while most of the women do not. Those with closed eyes were not bothered – I just left a bag for them on the chair side table. We left the rest of the bags at the nurses’desk where everyone checks in.

·     After the goody bags were delivered, we met more friends at Taco Cabana for lunch and as a meeting place before walking across the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge. I hadn’t walked across before and it just seemed a fitting way to celebrate my health. It was a beautiful day! Warm and sunny, made more so by beautiful friends.

Bridge 1

·     Thursday is the day I teach English as a Second (or other) Language at church. I had told the students in an email that I would be giving out hugs on my birthday, so I gave and received many! As I told my students, all during my illness, one of my goals was to get back to them because teaching them is a great joy to me.

rebirth dinner·     That evening we enjoyed a celebratory dinner with Angela and her husband, Frank.

·     Friday I had time to write a couple of notes of thanks to Dr. T and his staff and the infusion room nurses and to deliver them, along with some treats.

·     Saturday I enjoyed lunch with a few more friends.

As you can see, I succeeded in making the celebration last the entire week! I didn’t get to see everyone and give out all the hugs I have to give, so the invitation still stands. I’d love to lunch or coffee or walk or talk any time!

Sunday gave me another moment for teary eyes (teary eyes happened as I read my journal, but especially when reading my notebook of kindnesses. As I read through the notebook, the idea came to me that your names are recorded in my Book of Life). The sermon on that particular Sunday just happened to be about healing and I had spent the previous two weeks thinking about my healing and the confluence of multiple factors that, I believe, came together for a positive outcome. The points in John’s sermon echoed the thoughts that had been floating around in my head all week. I was so glad I was there to hear it!  I asked John for a copy of his sermon and if I ever put my thoughts down, I may share with you.

I guess you might want to know how I am one year post transplant. I feel really well! I still get fatigued rather easily, but I can go much longer now before hitting a wall. The neuropathy is pretty much gone. Sometimes I notice that a big toe is numb, and I have noticed that when it is cold my hands ache and sometimes get a little weak, but that’s about it. My muscle tone isn’t great, so that’s my goal for the year – getting stronger. I have the weirdest leg and foot cramps, especially at night. You know how when you get a cramp like that, the thing to do is stand on it? Well, I can’t stand with a flat foot for a minute or two because it literally cramps my ankle muscles into a curve. I had a CT scan and all was clear. For some reason, Dr. T didn’t include my neck, so I’m going to have an ultrasound next week (need it to check my thyroid anyway). I’ve been getting my vaccinations – 5 or 6 at once! The fracture in my upper arm healed very well and I have good range of motion again. My brain is much improved, but still not back to the old me.

And that is the why of the second title – Living in the Land of Or. I want very much to live in the Land of And, but I’m stuck here in Or. It’s not that I’m trying to multitask in the sense of doing several things at the same time. What I’m simply wanting to do is to be able to hold several things in my mind so that I can get back to them when I want or need to.

I can either keep up with my writing OR reading OR cooking OR getting exercise OR keeping in touch with people OR  OR  OR… So what happens is that I focus on just one thing at a time. Now – I’ve always done that to some extent. If I get really into something, I’ll let other things slide. Or I’ll procrastinate. But this is different. I kind of think of it like putting a call on hold. The thought or project or task is still there blinking and you can get to it when you finish on the other line. My problem is that I completely lose the connection. I have to redial or wait for a call back. I just can’t seem to keep the thoughts and ideas that pertain to more than a couple of things in my head at one time.

I’m accustomed to having lots and lots of ideas and thoughts rumbling around in there at once and picking and choosing from among them at any given time and throwing in more at will. I have to concentrate on one project at a time because the “hold” option is not always available.

And decision-making … I’ve always fit the Libra profile of having a hard time making a decision because all alternatives must be thoroughly weighed. But again – it’s different now. When I was trying to decide how to celebrate, I had some ideas, but they would just swirl around in my head. They just kept swirling around in there and I could never prioritize or decide what to throw out and what to keep. I had to call friends to help me make decisions about everything I did to celebrate – is this a good idea? Is this a little weird? Is this too much? And each decision came one. at. a. time.

Thank goodness, I don’t have to prepare the lessons I teach for ESL or I’d be up a creek without a paddle. Or a boat!

Well – enough of what must sound like a lot of complaining. I just always hope that whatever I share here with you may shed some light on this thing (or these many things) called cancer and cancer treatment. It helps me to talk about it and I hope it is helpful in some way to some one. I am truly, truly grateful that I am sitting here writing this to you today – weirdo brain and all!

You know, once a cancer diagnosis arrives, it never leaves. The transplant greatly increased the odds that this cancer won’t return and each year I check off brings me closer to that 5-year mark (or was it 7?) where the chance of this bad boy returning becomes negligible. You may remember that I was trying to come up with a name for life after treatment – especially because of this cancer’s proclivities. I’ve been thinking of one I recently heard from Kris Carr (she has been living for several years with a cancer that really has no treatment and writes books and cookbooks about the healthy transformations in her life). The term is Cancer Thriver. I like this because it encompasses living with cancer at any stage. The goal is to thrive no matter where you are on the spectrum and no matter the outcome, you can still be a thriver.

heartsMay we all thrive in the coming year! Cheers and applause and hugs and kisses to you, my dear ones, who carried me and kept me from “falling off the wacky end” – as my friend and fellow cancer thriver, Jan, expressed it so well!

If I keep focusing on this writing thing, I may be back here again soon. 🙂

Thanks for sticking with me here. I really do have intentions to write more about Fred M. Webber, the Bryan Family Bible, the Elgys, and more! But, as I said above, it’s kind of an “all in” or “all out” situation for me at the moment since the hold option is not always available. 

 

My Recipe for Portacath Pillows

2/03/2016 – Update:

So this is crazy! I have been getting so many views of this post coming over from Pinterest! Thank you for coming by and for all the good you are doing for your friends, family, strangers – or maybe even for yourself. Hugs all around!

With so much traffic to this blog post, I’ve decided to update a couple of things – some thanks to the suggestions of readers. So – anything you see in this color is an addition or change to the original post.

And just so you know – I had a CT scan recently and there was no visible sign of cancer. I’ll be celebrating my 2nd birthday (stem cell transplant anniversary) on 2/12. 

Enough hair for a little trim!

Enough hair for a little trim!

I’ve been neglecting this space again! Jana Last even included my last post – Mom’s recipe for Blender Custard Pie – in her Fab Finds. A  week ago! I didn’t realize it until today.

I usually post family recipes on Friday, but today will be a different kind of recipe. Not really a recipe – I’m fudging cheating. It’s a pattern.

If you are a frequent visitor, you know that I had a stem cell transplant on February 12th – my new birthday. That makes me 7 months old today!

On August 12, my six month new birthday, I celebrated by taking snacks and portacath pillows to the infusion (chemo) room where I received six rounds of chemo from Sept.- Dec.

On my first day of chemo I was scared and apprehensive. A friend texted me after a couple of hours and asked how it was going.

My answer to her: It is strangely pleasant here.

Cancer free! 12/14

Cancer free! 12/13

And it was. My nurse, Emily, took such good care of me, patiently explaining everything and making sure that I was comfortable. The woman across from me had a friend with her and they were playing cards and laughing. They wanted a picture taken with Emily, so I suggested my husband take it. 🙂 There was a volunteer in the room who came around every so often and offered to get water, coffee, or a snack for my husband and me. It was so nice to be looked out for in that way.

Hours spent in the chemo room were mostly pleasant and I always had wonderful nurses and the best of care. But there was never a volunteer with snacks on any of the other days. 🙁

Now that I am able to be on the giving side of cancer, I decided that, once I felt up to it, I would spend some time in the infusion room and try to return just a bit of the goodness that I had received there. I’m not up for doing this on a regular basis, but I decided that I could do something once a month to celebrate on the anniversaries of my transplant.

Now let me tell you about those pillows, as they are the main point of this post….

In the infusion room, there was a basket that held hats that had been sewn or knitted or crocheted by volunteers and were free for the taking. Friends who had been cancer patients told me to look for the basket and to find a hat to wear to bed because my head would get cold at night. (They were right!) I found a hat I sort of liked …. (I’m not much for turban-style pink hats that scream CANCER), but it was just the right weight – not too heavy and thick – a nice, soft fabric for a sleeping cap.

my pillow

my pillow

The other thing I found in the basket – and there was only one – was a portacath pillow. There was a note with it saying that it had been made by a woman in her 80s who is a cancer survivor and her daughter is a cancer survivor. It even had her address so I could send her a note of thanks. 🙂

Many cancer patients have a power port or a portacath “installed” under the skin a couple of inches below the collar bone. You know – right where a seat belt will fit perfectly over it, pressing firmly to make it just a bit uncomfortable. This great little pillow attaches to your seatbelt and holds it off of your port. I prefer to have the pillow higher than my port as I find that if it is right over the port it still puts pressure on it.

lots of pillowsI used the pillow I took from the basket as my pattern and made 31 for the infusion room last month. There were none in the basket today. Time to make more! I’m sharing my directions with you, in case you would like to join me.

A friend helped me pick out the gold fabric off the discount table at the fabric store, noting that is is gender neutral. What smart friends I have! I made some from denim I had on hand, but they take longer to make because of the little bit of hand sewing. It’s dense and hard to poke a needle through, so I don’t recommend denim or old jeans unless you are only making one or two or have special denim super powers. Just plain old odds and ends of poly/cotton or cotton or muslin will work fine. (At first I hesitated to suggest fleece because I was afraid it might cause a little shock from static electricity during cold weather. I tried one out a couple of times and didn’t have a problem, so I think it’s ok after all. Fleece sews up easily too.) Feel free to alter as you like. The pillow I have is just a little bigger than the ones I made.

What you need:
Enough fabric for two 7-x-4-inch rectangles.
Velcro – the sew-on kind, not with sticky backing. I used 5/8-inch width.
Fiber fill stuffing
thread

A word about velcro. One time I picked up several packages of velcro in a variety of colors and thought it was so great to have more color options. But – the velcro backing was very stiff and I didn’t really like it. I even cut rounded corners because I didn’t want it poking people. I don’t have a package to tell you a brand, but I bought it at Hobby Lobby. Last time I bought velcro I saw that some are labeled by how stiff or flexible they are.

Cut two 7-x-4-inch pieces of fabric.

Cut two 7 x 4-inch pieces of fabric.

Cut Velcro to 4-inch strip. (It has been suggested that a 3.5 inch strip is so much easier to sew. Duh!! And it should not cause a problem with snagging clothes because the little bit of velcro that will be exposed will be facing AWAY from clothes – not toward them.) Machine baste one side of Velcro to right side of fabric – fuzzy/loopy side up. Stitch only one end of Velcro, leaving the other end free.
baste 1

 

Baste other half of Velcro strip to opposite side of fabric – loopy side down.
baste 2Put fabric pieces right sides together and make 1/4-inch seam all the way around, leaving an opening about 1 1/2 – 2 inches at one end. Be sure not to catch the “free” ends of the Velcro pieces in the seam. (See above. If you cut your pieces to 3.5, you won’t have to worry about catching the free end.)
right sides openingTurn right side out and stuff.
turn and stuffWhip stitch opening to finish. Ta Da!
finished

These are great to do assembly-line style, if you want to make more than one or two.

I look forward to celebrating many more 12ths of the month and practicing this small act of gratitude.

And if you are the praying kind, join me today in offering a prayer of thanks for doctors, nurses, researchers and modern medicine, and for those receiving treatment today and those caring for them.