Riding The Wave – Multiple Myeloma

As with many things in our lives, initially Dave was, “I’m fine. You don’t need to come. Let’s wait and see…” I hesitantly go off to work the next morning and within about 30 minutes, I have secured a flight, and started making arrangements to get out there the following day. Carmen graciously and with insistence is picking me up at the airport.

I’ve called Dave, “I’m coming tomorrow.”

What to do now…I tell a couple of key people at work and then and only then, do I feel the stoic genes of my grandmother, beginning to crumble around the edges. No problem, they say, you go, we’ll take care of things here, let us know Lori, keep us posted. All the usual things wonderful people say at a time like that. What else is there? I mean, we don’t even know he has Multiple Myeloma yet, we just know they have said, “CAN-cer!” It can’t be. He’s been fine, a little tired, his shoulder had been hurting him – but he was moving boxes, his back has been bothering him – but he was moving boxes. He had a physical in November 07 – all was fine, he had kidney stones in January 09, but when he got kidney stones in April 09 again, I began, I now recall, to get a little suspicious…but I was busy taking care of things, working, the house, house hunting, etc… HOLY SHIT DAVE HAS CANCER! It can’t be, its a mistake, but something isn’t right, but its all a mistake, it can’t be cancer. The oncologist will straighten it all out tomorrow and I’ll have flown out for naught…

I call Jude and we talk. Like me, she is strong and certain we will get to the bottom of this “mess” in short order. No let’s not tell the kids just yet, or Dave’s parents, we don’t really have anything to tell them. All we have is a dx we don’t believe is correct (we were right, it wasn’t metastatic cancer of the spine as we were told), but we know something is wrong, but we don’t know what. Why get everyone all worked up and worrying, thinking the worst, until we know what we are dealing with. Ok. Agreed.

The following day, Montana (my daughter) comes home and we sit on the back stoop and I tell her, Dad’s in the hospital and we aren’t sure what’s wrong. I’m flying out there tomorrow. I don’t want you to worry. She presses, I tell her everything I know, and everything I think. She is strong and like Jude and I, her sense is, the same, something’s wrong, but its not metastatic cancer of the spine. She believes her Dad will be OK. She’s fine. Now I have to tell Hudson so I call him on the phone. He’s quiet. Keep him posted.

I go to my neighbor Gail to have her take Kip (our beloved Lab). I lose it. I’m crying now. I’m a mess. She’s crying. Gail and I do that to each other. We blubber like babies and spur the other one on. Its comforting though. Gail has been my good friend and neighbor for the past 9+ years and we have a lot of history together. She’s very dear to me.

Russell (Jude’s husband and my pretend “boyfriend”) drives me to the airport (BWI) the next morning, door to door service. Jude has made me a lunch to take on the plane with strict orders to make sure I eat and stay nourished.

I’m in the air. Small talk with the passenger next to me, as usual. I’m light and keep the conversation on them. You see, I’m a very OPEN, high disclosure kind of person. I always have been, can’t seem to help myself. Its one of my more endearing qualities. But this is just not the time. My trip is OK, but I feel a bit like a deer caught in the headlights and wonder if I look how I feel and if anyone is looking at me, “Oh, dear, look, cancer has struck that one! Yeah, you know – the LOOK.”