Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

If I just listed off all the things for which I’m thankful this year, the list would go on for several pages, and I wouldn’t be able to complete it in one day. As I do have plans to spend some time with my family, I’ll try to keep this short and just point out a few of the biggies:

  • My amazing husband who takes such good care of me, especially on the chemo days when I’m feeling so crappy
  • My creative, beautiful, and intelligent daughter who brightens every day and showers me with kisses and hugs
  • The wonderful people who came over and helped out when I had my surgery and during chemo – Mom, Dee, Sharon and Perry, Kristen, Mary Jane, Diane, Carrie, Candace, and Sommer, to name a few
  • The amazing services that work so hard to assist people with breast cancer such as Komen for the Cure, the Young Survival Coalition, and the Pink Daisy Project
  • Completing chemo – yes, that’s right, I’m done with chemo!
  • My cancer was found before it metastasized
  • The amazing doctors and nurses at the University of Washington Medical Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.  Over the years I’ve received medical care in a lot of different systems, and this is by far the best care I have received in my life.
  • Medicaid. I qualified for medicaid which is making it possible for me to receive this wonderful medical care.  Medicaid is saving my life right now, and 18 months ago it saved my daughter’s life.  I don’t know how we will pay rent next week, or the power bill, but we have food in the freezer, and I can fight my cancer. I’m not proud of the fact that we need this assistance, and I know its a source of embarrassment to my family members who fight so hard to eradicate publicly funded medical care, but I am extremely thankful that this assistance exists and makes it possible for me to battle cancer. Thanks to the health insurance reform bill, my cancer will not prevent me from getting health insurance once we get jobs, so one day I will be able to get off Medicaid, hopefully someday soon.

Here’s wishing you all a safe, healthy, and happy Thanksgiving.

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

my cancer story | Judy Schwartz Haley

 

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It Gets Real

It Gets Real

She had warm eyes and the sweetest smile, but it was her wit that took my breath away. You had to pay attention because her comments were quiet, under-the-breath, but they would make you snort-laugh and shoot your champagne out your nose.

To be honest, I didn’t know her very well, we only met a few times, yet here I sit with a hole in my heart. I wanted to know her better. I intended to get to know her, but we ran out of time, and now it will never happen.

Elizabeth belonged to my support group, the Young Survival Coalition, a circle of friends all battling breast cancer much too young. Daughters and grand daughters, sisters, friends, wives, and mothers of young children – a group of women I embrace, knowing full well that it will lead to my heart break again, and again, and again.

This is where it gets real. You might think losing my hair or the amputation of a breast would make it real, but those are such trivial things when death becomes an issue. I know that in the years to come, some of these women I hold so close to my heart will die. I know I might be one of them. There is so much love in this group, and so much understanding. These women comprehend the pain, the fatigue, the body image issues, the adjustment to life with this monster inside, and worst of all, the fear that someone else will end up raising your child. They live with it, too.

This is the first time since my diagnosis that someone I know died of breast cancer. I hope I never get used to it.

Godspeed E-beth, and love to your husband and children.

bird-1

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

my cancer story | Judy Schwartz Haley

 

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Dear Gem – Month 19

Dear Gem – Month 19

Your vocabulary is just exploding. It’s not just one or two new words a day, it’s several. Big words, like squirrel and butterfly, which is nearly unintelligible, but I know what you’re saying. You’re picking up on concepts, too. The other day when we saw the peacock at the zoo, you pointed at it and said “blue.” You just told me “thank you” when I gave you some apple slices. Make a note, I know you know how to say thank you. It’s de regueur for you now.

This month has been busy. Last weekend we had a memorial service for my grandmother, your Great-Grandma McKinley. We called her Grandma Candy because your cousins, Max and Ilona, couldn’t pronounce Grandma McKinley when they were little. The name stuck.

Great Grandma McKinley

The picture above shows Grandma Candy holding you a few days after you were born. She hand knit the green blanket on her lap just for you. She was going blind and her hands were extremely arthritic. That means completing this blanket was a big challenge, but she didn’t let her fading eyesight or the pain in her hands stop her from making a blanket for you. Because she couldn’t see well, sometimes a mistake would slip through, and then great swathes of the blanket would have to be ripped out and re-knit to get it right, or “just so.” Grandma Candy would say “just so” when describing something that had been carefully and thoughtfully arranged. Someday when you are looking at that blanket, you will notice that a few holes and dropped stitches remain. I  hope that someday you will understand how precious that blanket is, and that those dropped stitches are precious too. She loved you very much.

Along with the memorial service, we had a big family reunion.  This was the first time for you to meet most of our extended family: your aunts and uncles and your cousins and second cousins and even third cousins.  There are more degrees of separation in there, but I’m completely baffled by calculating whether someone is a second cousin once removed.  I finally just settled on calling everyone cousin and left it at that.

You got along well with your cousins and you were charming with everyone. So many people stopped to comment on how sweet you were.  Daddy and I were so proud of you.

Right after the family reunion, it was time for trick or treating.  You were a zebra this year, fitting after all the time we spent at the zoo.  You were a little scared of the costume at first, but once we got it on you, you roared.  That’s your thing lately, you like to roar.  So I should rephrase.  You were a ferocious zebra this year.

baby in ferocious zebra costume

I am baby, hear me roar

You still love to color and draw. It is your favorite way to pass the time.  You lie down on the floor with your feet kicked up, and color for hours on end. I bring crayons and paper with us everywhere we go.

gem drawing in her journal

You sit on your green chair with the white polka dots, with your little bare feet sticking out and your toes wiggling while you fill up your journal with pictures like this:

baby picasso

I love seeing you so happy. There’s something about wiggling toes that goes hand in hand with happiness, too. You can’t stay in a bad mood and wiggle your toes at the same time. Try it. I dare you.

I love you so much.

Mommy