Howard is up to his next to last chemo for the treatment of his diagnosed lymphoma.
Cancer is an odd animal.
It often stays in the shadows for years waiting to pounce out of a CAT scan , a lurking feline of full on revenge , a careless sentinel until it breaks free of it cage - the hapless body.
The word itself used to terrify.
Sure -just the word - Cancer .
In my childhood barely spoken of , above a whisper.
You know she’s riddled with cancer a neighbor would say about another neighbor.
They took her into the hospital the doctor opened her and closed her up right away.
Said another , at Josie Brannigans , shop of all trades.
She’ll be gone before Christmas , another self invented medical prophet offered , as Josie sliced some ham for her order.
It’s the lungs isn’t it?
Said another.
She smoked Sweet Afton all her life didn’t she?
Josie did a swift trade in Sweet Afton , the preferred brand of cigarettes smoked by our neighbor Ardonians.
No , said , Josie I don’t think it was the Sweet Aftons.
She always had a weak chest.
She used to come in here hacking and coughing and asking for cough drops.
That’s the fags, said another diagnostician.
We better give them up or we’ll be riddled too.
I haven’t a notion of giving them up said another dragging a last suck on a butt, she had just extracted from her pocket , after flicking off the escaping tobacco and striking a match.
She broke one Woodbine in two , one for now and one for later.
Sure an aul ‘drag on a fag does you the world of good. Great for the nerves. A lot of them suffered from their nerves.
Like Angela, Frank McCourt‘s mother.
Can I have one too Josie , I said always wanting to be in on the neighborhood gossip and any hint of brewing craic. I don’t sell them in ones except for the Woodbines , cheapest of all cigarettes. Ok she said here’s one you can try. Did you hear the one Josie says , I heard that happened at a dance the other night, would you take your hand off me knee and here’s your Woodbine back.
Yeah I heard , that was my daughter’s knee , that Tommy Dalton is a terrible fecker
But he’s a good lookin’ fecker.
Josie handed me a woodbine , someone struck a match and lit me up. I sucked in smoke , coughed and ….
She doesn’t know how to inhale.
I’ll show her said Dolores O’Brien‘s mother.
So began my 16 year relationship with cigarette smoking and addiction that I finally broke at age 32 after several tries. I was successful with Hypnosis. I was than 112 then - the Irish 8 stone and gained the smokers 20 creating a new set that point. Weight I have wrestled with ever since. Now back to 129 , after the numbers rose to 142. Pandemic pablum and comfort baking. Don’t be standing on the scales every day Mom. That’s a terrible start to the day.
I’m not going to have my self-esteem dictated by a different number every morning.
I wish I could take her advice.
Howard stands on the same scale every morning too , on the other hand has never put a cigarette in his hand or mouth. Just donuts and hotdogs. Neither have many sufferers in today’s world of lung cancer and other respiratory ailments .
I said to him the other day do you think the Round Up that we have used in the past to keep that garden green as the emerald isle -has anything to do with your lymphoma ?
He said it’s more likely to be the radiation that I was exposed to as a young radiologist. I have been in that world for 40 years.
Who knows , cancer is an epidemic but fortunately Howard’s odds are decent.
Still lurking in the shodow, the demon of odds - depending on how you look at them a 70 to 80% chance of a complete cure is on the optimistic side of hope.
My mind periodically goes to the shadows and I have to pull myself into the light of day and optimism immediately.
Howard on the other hand continues to inspire us all with his generous and cheerful approach to his current experience of life with cancer. With chemo treatments every three weeks , lymphoma is a health crisis which he has managed, turned around into some kind of blessing for himself. His attitude is a complete gift to us , his family.
Now that I have lymphoma do I still have to pick up after myself , empty the dishwasher or do I have a sabbatical ? Consider yourself free to be the slob you have enjoyed being all your life without as much as a backward glance to the trail you leave in your wake. Just relax … for now at least.
Neither am I putting you up for canonization just yet.
Don’t be doing that, I don’t think they canonize Jews in Rome and besides you have to be dead.
He has had such an outpouring of support more love and appreciation than he could ever have dreamed of. I have to admit this Lymphoma is giving me a lot of great times. He said the other day.
Some days I have an absolute blast when I’m having chemo , the nurses are so great. so full of good cheer how could I stay down in the dumps.
He is still doing his daily rounds of deliveries.
It’s not really the time to tell him that some of us who are trying to lose weight groan when we see him arriving with his donuts.
But now as Christmas is coming , his rounds include the mittens he buys from the mitten lady at work. She started making them a few years out of recycled sweaters.
Ugly Christmas sweaters are ugly Christmas sweaters . The Salvation Army is full of them waiting for the up cycling mitten lady before party people snag them all ,to glug their egg nog.
Seriously, when a jeweled embroidered Red Cardinal lands on the back of a pair of mittens upcycled into a new and beautiful mission of mitten mercy for many cold hands and the warm heart of the man who is now saving the world , himself and us one mitten at a time.
Life ain’t so bad after all.
Happy Thanksgiving 旅 to the statesiders.
Rxox