Thanksgiving introspection

While so many Fall and Winter holidays are festive, to me they also seem to invite introspection and soul-searching. I was already feeling this way when I saw Mel's post, Lost Stars of the Blogsphere about blogs that once inspired and are now gone, leaving us wondering whatever happened to their authors. And then I read Aurelia's post, A Little Inspiration, about one of those lost bloggers, someone named Jessica (the same name as mine) and who died of ovarian cancer this summer.

This made me think about my sister-in-law, Heidi, who died of ovarian cancer in February at 44. I read much of Jessica's blog today, looking for some insight into what Heidi was feeling and thinking as she went through her journey as a cancer patient. A lot of the anger I sensed in Heidi was also in Jessica's blog. I wonder how much of the other feelings were the same. Heidi never married. She was getting close to the last stage of her illness when Jack was born, and I know one of the things that made her the most sad was that she couldn't play with him. She didn't have the strength to hold him in a standing position (he preferred to be active even then...). She was always glad to see him when we came to visit, and always cried when we left the room because of all she knew she would miss.  She took her other niece and nephew and cousin down to Disneyland as a special Auntie event.  She didn't know who would take Jack there.

But Heidi's cancer was diagnosed long before Jack was born.  One day she was having severe abdominal pain. She was rushed to the hospital and had emergency surgery for what they thought was appendicitis.  It wasn't.  They removed her appendix and also an ovarian cyst which at its center had a small amount of malignant cancer.  Not long after she went back to have the rest of her reproductive organs removed. The amount of cancer was so small and they believed they had caught it so early.  Her doctors were ambivalent about whether she should even do chemotherapy.  One told her that if it were him, he wouldn't bother. 

Heidi didn't do the chemotherapy.  But her cancer recurred some months later.  She did the chemo at that point.  She went through several rounds of different drugs, all with debilitating side effects.  She went on disability from her job.  Although she kept her apartment, she pretty much moved in with her mother during this convalescence.  In spite of trying every chemo drug available, the cancer kept growing.  She had several surgeries to remove what grew back, and then surgeries to repair things inside that had gotten broken.  The surgeries also took a toll on her system and the former star softball player and all around athlete grew weaker and weaker

Heidi's illness overlapped with David and my infertility adventures, and I was struck by the time at what seemed to be our different approaches towards health care.   For example, when she was diagnosed I told her about an article I saw that showed higher survivor rates for people who joined cancer patient support groups. She said that wasn't for her.  But if it had been me and I would have seen that article, I couldn't have signed up fast enough.  Later she looked to joining an online support group, but she was so weak then.  I wanted so much to help her. And I wonder if in my trying to help I annoyed her and said the wrong things.  I loved her. I loved being with her. She had a slightly dark, slightly politically incorrect sense of humor. She always bought the obnoxious funny birthday cards for everyone. But she and I were very different in our approaches to challenges -- career, health care, etc.  I was more of a risk taker and to me she seemed more likely to think about making big changes but ultimately not making them. She had lots of money saved, but she didn't buy a house because it was a scary thing to do.

This was our first Thanksgiving without her. Last year she was in the hospital for either the preparation or the aftermath of one of her last surgeries and hospital stays before they sent her home to die.  She was angry, she was very drugged.  This year she is gone.  She did not live to see Jack walk, or smile at her or say her name.  I don't have anything profound to say about that.  It's just tremendously sad.

Comments

[Aurelia]

Oh Jess, I'm so so sorry. Sometimes there isn't anything profound I guess. Just know I am thinking about you today and sending you big hugs.

[Mel]

Jessica--I'm so sorry. Please pass on my good thoughts to your entire family.

[maggie]

I just found your site (via Parent Hacks). You hit a lot of my buttons - I did the pumping thing for a year (though not completely exclusively) and my babe is as a result of IVF#3. But this post really got me. A friend from college died of ovarian cancer over the summer...and her name was Heidi. She too had infertility issues - it's one of the reasons we'd connected long after graduation. I also had been following that other Jessica's blog as she too died of ovarian cancer. And a friend of my mother's just died, and my step-sister is sick too. Oof. Takes it all out of me.

Good luck with your impending little one, and your "old" little one.