Patience – Waiting for what we do not see.......

Yesterday, I got home at 3:30pm and climbed into bed, fighting my nausea and trying not to lose the small meal I’d eaten just an hour before.  Multiple infusion therapies since January has left me with all the expected side effects that at times pulls and pushes me into dark corners.  My hair and beard loss has transformed me into someone friends don’t recognize till they see my eyes, or hear my voice.  “Bill is that you?”  Many tell me I look younger without my beard, and I have slowly gotten used to seeing the beardless, white-haired man in the mirror each morning.  My fingernails and toenails have become brittle and sore; they have developed ridges and are an unhealthy brown color.  The nail brittleness combined with my neuropathy makes my toenails hard to keep trimmed because of the pain.  My biggest battle is with fatigue, and I’ve started carrying a walking stick which significantly decreases my energy expenditure and has increased my stability.

As I laid in bed yesterday, my meditation and conscious connected breathing exercises steadied my nausea and calmed my stomach.  Soon I had returned to our Vermont vacation and was sitting on the banks of Lake Champlain watching a glorious sunset paint the sky in shades of gold with streaks of orange and red.  In that moment of reflection, I realized it was my patience that blessed me with a golden sky to be framed in my soul forever.  If we had left the banks of Lake Champlain too quick, we would have missed the layering of colors, silhouetted clouds, fishing boats and gently rolling mountains.  Patience billy, this too shall pass, chemo is only a temporary phase that you are passing through.  It is not your life.  I am reminded of Paul’s words in Romans, “But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.  Be patient with me. 

Monday MRI Flashback

Monday afternoon, my chemo started late, so by the time I was done I had only 45 minutes to eat and sign-in for my 7:15pm MRI.  The MRI was scheduled for the Radiology Outpatient Center (ROC) that use mobile MRI scanners that reside in huge trucks.  In my multiple MRIs the past nine years, I never had an MRI from the ROC.  The waiting room was beautiful, the staff was very professional and caring, and the best part was I had no wait.  After getting my scrubs on the technician walked me through an outdoor hallway and up six steps into the mobile unit.  Everything looked the same, except the room was just a little smaller, and then the technician told me the test would take 90 minutes, not my usual 45.  When I was comfortable on the MRI bed, he put earplugs in my ears and wrapped my head with a soft material.  The same weird spinning and knocking noises started, but as they got much louder, I was glad for the earplugs. 

Twenty or so minutes into the test, I had my first flashback.  We were riding low in a Huey copter and I could hear the enemy fire at 4 o’clock.  I raised up my M16 and started to yell, “Enemy fire 4 o’clock”, but my arm hit the inside of the MRI tube and the technician ask me if I was okay and I said yes.  Realizing where I was I laid back down and for the next 60+ minutes, I again rode in the Huey, or sometimes I was back in Europe in a huge Chinook helicopter with my feet resting on the biggest nuclear weapons in our arsenal.  Toward the end of the test, I was doing night jumps out of the thin-skinned C-141 where the engine noise was deafening with the jump door open as I watched for the green light and then fell through darkness wondering if I’d ever get time to pray. 

I rode my scooter home with tears streaming down my face; I had gone back to memory moments I had worked hard to push away.  We came back to a country that didn’t want us back.  The first time I wore one of my fatigue shirts, so proud of my Captain Bars and Ranger Tab, someone spit on me.  Forty plus years ago I wrote the poem that follows as I sat on my bed and listened to two friends make a decision that would cost them their lives.  Many of you may never understand the patriotic pride that drove boys like me or like my dad who fought in WWII and Korea to ensure we have the freedom so many take for granted today, but I hope this poem gets you to an edge of understanding. 

Second Tour – Got to Go Back

you what?
“it’s all I know”

you have an electrical engineering degree
“it’s all I can remember”

you worked every summer since you were 15
“it’s all I’m good at”

your crazy
“I can’t leave them alone”

we left too many to count
“I have to go back”

I can’t let you go back
“It’s all WE know”

It’s all we know
“yea, it’s all we know”

shi! – let’s go…….

Chemo Courage and Determination

Maybe it’s the memories of my mother resting her arm on mine as we walked through our backyard garden to enjoy the colors and smells from the camellia, and gardenia bushes fighting to live each day to its fullest as her cancer slowly spread.  Then again, maybe it was my dad’s determination to stay awake in the golf cart we had strapped him and his oxygen bottle into as his prostate cancer took his energy, but not his courage to be with family, giving all of us golf tips as we played on his home course. 

Two Friday’s ago, I was all prepped for chemo and just needed my oncologist approval.  As he entered the treatment room he said, “You look good”, and I felt a pride inside as I thought I was finally getting down the three-week chemo leash.  He looked, listened, and prodded those parts of my body that might be showing signs of chemo distress, and then we moved to my blood work.  I am always concerned about my kidney and liver functions, but those numbers looked good, and then we moved to blood cells and he stopped and shook his head and said, “Your blood is too weak, you can’t have chemo today!”  I was stunned, and asked him “What can I do?”  His answer was rest. 

MaryBeth and I took off the next day for Vermont and cooler weather where we stayed with our good friend Judd Allen, who pampered us with lots of TLC.  For seven days, I didn’t work, open any emails, or write.  Each morning I spent time meditating in a backyard that felt more like a forest, with flowers, and a short walking path to Lake Champlain.  In the afternoons, I napped and at the end of each day, we’d picked a different place around Burlington to watch the sunset.  On Top of Mt. Philo State Park one afternoon looking out at the slowly fading scenic Adirondack and Green Mountain Peaks, an old bare fir tree took center stage.  Feeling the bare trees courage and determination to stand strong as her life force was ending; I felt tears as I drifted back to memory moments with my mom and dad as they passed to me the gift of mindful whole person living and resilience.  What life gifts are you passing on?

Sorry Me Tears

In three hours, MD Anderson’s Interventional Radiology department will start the biopsy of my liver and intrahepatic bile duct.  Yesterday evening I drifted off to sleep with a bright internal smile created by the emails from my healing circle friends sending me lots of love.  Waking early, I thought about this past Saturday and the “sorry me” tears I had felt as I left Walmart with the chair I had bought for my shower.  Months ago, I started drying off, brushing my teeth and putting my suntan lotion on sitting down, for I didn’t have the morning strength to stand that long.  I am now in a place I know it would be safer for me to sit in the shower. 

Sunday, I sat on our lake house pier to watch the sunrise.  It was a perfect morning with the trees silhouetted on the glass-covered lake reflecting the pale blush of morning.  In a blink, it was over as the soft pink blush was swallowed up by the ocean blue sky, and the silhouetted trees slowly turned green.  For a few minutes, I once again fought back the “sorry me” tears thinking about how fast life had been.  As I watched the bold greens of the trees return, I realized how grateful I was to my mom who had taught me early in life to be present for those brief moments that never will be again.  A gift from my mom painted on my soul forever given to all of you today.  What will you do with my gift tomorrow?

Be Well bill – Retirement

Be Well bill – Retirement

It was Christmas eve when I realized I did not have a present for my mom.  She’d been sick, and my denial as a 10-year-old kid that I was so scared every time my dad tried to explain my mom’s cancer that I’d do my best to live in my own little make-believe world.  A world where I’d forgotten about Christmas.  My mother and I enjoyed doing flower arrangement with candles, so that night before my dad put me to bed I worked on decorating a candle for my mother’s Christmas present.  Sleep didn’t come easy, for even at ten-years-old I realized my make-believe world had kept me from giving and receiving my families love, and I so missed the specialness of my mom.  This experience slowly woke within me the need to fully feel life, and over the next eight years I practiced channeling and sharing my feelings with my mom and special people in my life through my poetry and writing.  A practice I continue today. 

Friday, I met with my oncologist to review bone and body scans completed last week.  Looking at the scans it was clear that much of my cancer has remained somewhat stable with tumors shrinking and others growing, but two new lesions appeared in my liver.   Living a metastatic cancer journey, I knew there was always the opportunity that someday my cancer would reach a major organ, but that little ten-year-old scared kid and his safe make-believe world is long gone.  Those of you, who know me well, know my life has always been about possibilities.  Possibilities that explode from the Airborne Ranger deep within me driven by life’s challenges, and the poet that fully feels fear, anger, frustration, happiness, and the love that accompanies life. 

Sunday, as MaryBeth drove us home from the lake house, I looked back and watched the sunset through the side mirror, and was in awe of life’s possibilities.  We decided this weekend I would retire from MD Anderson in January 2017 and begin a new life chapter of possibilities with all of you.        

Spirit Coach

When he walked in, I was sitting by Aurora’s desk talking to Ann.  We hadn’t seen each other for weeks, but I instantly felt the spirit of our comradery return, and I rose for a hug.  He was dressed impeccably, with a blue houndstooth dress shirt and bold tie.  After our hug I sat back down, he asked me “How are you doing?” and I said, “I’m doing okay.”  His reaction was immediate, he raised his finger and pointed it directly at my heart, “You are doing better than just okay, you are doing GREAT!” 

All of us in our life journeys have had spirit coaches who with a few words or a look transform us into who we are to become.  My dad and I didn’t really get close until the end of his life, but throughout our life together he’d give me strength in weak moments, by just placing his hands on my shoulders.  I worked my way through undergraduate school as the head manager of the LSU football team, working for Coach Charlie McClendon.  Coach Mac had a way of bringing the best out of all of us as individuals and as a team.  In the Army, I had a First Sergeant that held me steady through several violent deaths, engaging me to remain a courageous, confident commander

As Craig put his finger down, I stood and said, “Thanks, Craig I needed that!”  Every day each of us has multiple opportunities to be a spirit coach and transform someone by a few words or a look into who they are to become.  Become a spirit coach today. 

Learning to Hang Out

Last week on several days, I put in too many hours at MD Anderson, which meant on those days and the day after; I didn’t have the energy for a real life after work.  This week, I’ve paced myself better and my life after work has brought more shared time for MaryBeth, me and Auggie to just hang out.  Dealing with the fatigue of cancer is a slow learn and very frustrating.  I have strong memories of my mom’s long struggle with cancer and her return from multiple surgeries where she would tell my dad, “Boyd, I just want my life back”.  Toward the end of her life, she gave me some great years and memories I cherish.  Lately, in my dreams, I have watched little Billy Baun as he sits with his mom in the backyard, by the fireplace or space heater, and I begin to feel once again the power of love shared while just hanging out.  Those of you who know me well, know that just hanging out goes against who’ve I’ve been, but I’m learning how to enjoy who I am as I hang out.  How are your hanging out skills?  Maybe you also need some practice – smile.