When we were kids, my older-by-one-year-and-two-days brother Tucker and I occasionally collaborated on Really Fantastic Ideas (trademark). One of our RFI involved ridiculous brilliant ideas for opening a restaurant when we got older.

We figured that we would expand on the idea of restaurants focusing one one general cuisine, and have them instead focus on only one type of food.  Hey, it works for ice cream, right?

Here were the names of the restaurants we came up with, and the food focus concept should be (painfully) obvious:

Are You For Cereal?

The Roastaurant

And, my absolute favorite:

The Loafeteria

My brother and I don’t, in fact, own or operate a restaurant now that we are adults,
so to the food-enjoying public: you’re welcome for that.

it’s sideways for some inexplicable reason because apple can’t always get all of its crap together at once,  and i’m a bit too lazy to rotate it at this point.

however, just close your eyes and listen, or tilt left —

and trust me, your day will get much better.

you’re welcome.

about six weeks ago, my mother-in-law was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma, which is a highly malignant brain cancer, with tumors about the size of a golf ball in the left frontal lobe of her brain.

have you ever seen a weather radar tracking a hurricane?

it looks like that, but on someone’s brain.

and my vibrant, active mother-in-law? she’s far too young to have a hurricane in her brain.

there’s a lot that is interesting about being close (and getting close) to someone who finds such a dark weather system in their head.  what i found most interesting was the process by which you discover that a loved one does, indeed, have cancer.

it was harder than i thought, more unsettling and less straight-forward than i ever imagined.

in this (and most, i believe) situations of diagnosing brain tumors, the process is similar: one has reason to get an MRI of their brain — usually because they are experiencing weird neurological symptoms or, in many cases, seizures — which shows the dreaded hurricane.  the scan is sent to a specialist; the specialist recommends a craniotomy to remove the tumor (or debulk it, if a complete resection isn’t possible) and biopsy it, and then once the pathology report comes back, begin treatment.

so, what happens as you embark down this road is that for weeks, from diagnosis to getting the pathology report, you only have one word to describe this terrible thing that’s happening: a tumor.  an evil, unwanted visitor.  a hurricane on a ghostly outline of the brain you’ve never actually seen before, only self-consciously been cognizant of. and you desperately avoid resurrecting your kindergarten-cop-movie-circa-1990 impression of arnold schwarzeneggar saying “it’s not a toomah!“, because, unfortunately, it actually is.

but this is immediately what your brain jumps to, because you are emotionally 12 years old, apparently.

the more people you talk to, the more people want to know exactly what kind of tumor it is.  benign? malignant? and you search for answers, desperate for some finite facts you can lean on, good or bad, because whatever the new reality is, at least it’s real.  you can trick yourself into preparing for the absolute unprepareable.

the not knowing keeps your proverbial one-shoed-self squinting up at the sky, looking for signs of the other one to come tumbling down at any moment.

you speculate, conjecture, discuss, google, and dance around the word that you’re wondering about, but fearful to verbalize out loud.  you make a list of all the other things this tumor could be besides…no, you’re not going to say it.  why think the worst, right?

at this point, about 2.5 weeks post-hurricane-tumor spotting, my mother-in-law had surgery.  the surgery debulked the tumor by half (note: this is not the most positive scenario) and also found that the hurricane was building energy, growing in size since the last radar picked it up.  the surgeon shares this with her husband, her mother, my husband and i in a tiny room that seemed to be losing oxygen by the second.  he also shares that he is hopeful for the best, and we should have pathology in a week.

we were hoping for news; we got hedging.  i suspect that our very wonderful, gracious neurosurgeon knew what he was most likely dealing with, but being the prudent and professional doctor he is (and exceptionally nice to all of us), he followed protocol.

she recovered for a few days in the hospital, and then about a week at her family’s home in grand junction, where many of us were staying with her.

it was a tough week.  brain surgery, of any kind, is no picnic.

and with all the discussion of care, talks with medical professionals, little by little progress in recovery, questions coming from concerned friends, we still have…no answers.  no ground on which to plant our feet and determine our course.

i think: this is not how it happens in movies.

in movies–and books for that matter–the diagnosis is wrapped up nicely.  in fact, sometimes the process of diagnosis is not mentioned at all, instead all focus centers around the emotions and trials of recovery from and life with cancer.

i realize: this is not how it happens in real life.

1 week post-surgery, we have a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor.

now, i have to say this: in retrospect, it seems so obvious what she has.  i mean, think about it — a growing brain tumor that’s not an infection, a concerned neurosurgeon, a meeting with a chemotherapy doctor–this obviously equals cancer, right?

but, a) what if we’re wrong about that, and now we’ve fixated on cancer as being her disease, and b) if it is cancer, what kind?  doesn’t cancer go in stages?  what stage is this?  is it fixable? maybe chemotherapy is used in non-cancerous tumors.  what do i know?

so, we go to meet the chemotherapy doctor, and only when we walk in the entrance do i get my first answer.

it’s definitely cancer.

we meet with the chemotherapy doctor, who, it needs to be said, is remarkably abrupt and cold.  my mother-in-law and stepfather-in-law sit on one side of the room, with the boy and i sitting at a small table.  we fill out forms, and glance around the room: brochures about head & neck cancer, booklets about how cancer stages work, various charts and graphs about leukemia, lymphoma.

for as much cancer awareness as there is these days, i realize how little i know.

the doctor (who incidentally only has one arm and thus plagued me once again with stifling my knee-jerk middle-schooler-obsessed-with-pop-culture response of movie-quoting, this time from the fugitive — “it wasn’t me; it was the one-armed man!”) proceeds to ask questions and examine his fragile patient, while we sit there watching anxiously.  he drives on, not stopping to take a breath, talking about the specific kind of drug she’ll be taking, for how long, and side-effects.

side note: as it turns out, her brain cancer is (chemo-wise) rather simple.  she takes three pills, once a day.  that’s it.  side-effects are usually minimal, but definitely depends on the patient.  we don’t know it then, but her side-effects from the chemo will be zero.

he finally, after about 800 days ten minutes, pauses, looks us in the eye and says: “so, that’s it, unless you have any questions.”

um, yeah, we do have a few minor questions like OH MY GOD, WHAT DOES SHE FREAKING HAVE, PLEASE TELL US SOMETHING FINALLY.

so, then he rattles off her cancer: grade 4 glioblastoma, like he’s telling her she has a common cold and to not worry about it.  he starts throwing around months, numbers, figures, and suddenly his voice suddenly sounds like charlie brown’s teacher.

i mean, you’d be surprised the lack of emotion and reaction involved in hearing what could be, without the miracle we’re believing for, a possible death sentence handed down to someone.  we recently saw the movie 50/50, in which the main character finds out he has cancer at the age of 27.  there is a scene with his doctor–a very cold, aloof doctor–who barely looks up the entire time while telling him his diagnosis.

before my experience with my mother-in-law’s disorienting, confusing diagnosis process, i would have dismissed that scene as pure hollywood dramatics, written only for the screen.

i now know that the scene is entirely, surreally, weirdly, true.

it’s jarring, really.  as the doctor’s talking you look around at the other people in the room, expecting something, anything, that conveys shock.

a sympathetic look? a reaction from his mom/stepdad indicating sorrow?  that tinny, tense strings music in movies that tells the audience in sharp tones THERE IS DANGER AFOOT!?!

nothing.  so, you determine that you surely didn’t hear what you heard.

because if you had, people would certainly react.  right?  or, or…or, the ground would open up.  and locusts and frogs would start biblically pouring down.  something. anything. because you need confirmation that your feelings of worry and life-altering sadness are appropriate.

you hardly hear what comes next, a litany of statistics rattled off with an almost monotone affect.

i interrupt the monologue, asking a follow-up question along the lines of “can you explain to me in plain english what we’re dealing with here?”

not getting an answer.

but i had the answer, in my heart.

i knew it.

i knew i heard correctly.

this hurricane in her brain is an epic storm, of the worst proportions, with the worst (earthly) prognosis.

and in that doctor’s office, before your heart fills with hope again, before prayers are lifted and hands are held, before finding reassurance from survivors, before spending six weeks in close proximity with your newly-minted mother-in-law and someone you now can count among those you really know, before travelling 10 hours a week from our home to stay with her monday through friday while she goes through treatment in a city away from her home, before seeing the strength of someone so radiantly shine through as she turns her face towards the light, before loving and understanding all the cliches about life and hope and survival that you’ve hated hearing before, before the tears and laughs, before the ups (and downs), before the resolute decisions to continue to have faith in God among this uncertain path, to stand strong with the ones who love you, before you end up redefining what this family is really made of…

before all of the hopeful and good things that come out of this journey that you literally see every single day…in that moment, in that doctor’s office–you’ve never wished you were more wrong about what you’ve just heard in your whole, entire life.

the boy was liking this guy’s work, so i poked around to see what i thought.  love it.  love it so much i would say that i luuuurve it.  i pretty much want this color palette for my entire house.  you know, the one in my imagination since i live in a cavement (cave-like basement) ala chez parent’s house.

and, i would like this painting too.

and a paddle game.

that’s all i need.

that’s not too much to ask, right?

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

-Will Rogers

oh, i like my dad.

“I ran across this photoblog today — no text, just photos of girls on bicycles everywhere. Women on wheels — salute!

Dad”

*  *  *  *  *

grin.  so cute!  one point, dad.

today is my brother’s 29^th birthday.

My brother is one of my all-time favorite people; one of my favorite friends.

I could list so many reasons why, but instead I will just tell this story.  The boy and I were talking the other week, somewhat jokingly, about how, in dating relationships, the people in your life are part of the “package deal” in being with another person.  Having a good family, good friends, good connections are like extra points on the board.  One of the boy’s best friends, for instance, was awarded about 5 points because I could honestly have him around most of the time and be happy, and am sad we can’t convince him to move here.

My brother?

10 points, hands down.  He adds that much to my life, and everyone I introduce in my life are happy to know him.

And so am i.

“The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard  that food came out his nose.”   –Garrison Keillor

My brother’s laughter, by the way, is never undervalued currency in my world.  Any time I can get in the same room as him, and laugh, my world feels much lighter.  My sister-in-law wonderfully adds to this, as she will lament and relate to me, and my world is again lighter, thus.

Happy birthday, my favorite brother.  You have adorable children, a wonderful wife, a tenacious spirit and a thankful sister.

“Sibling relationships – and 80 percent of Americans have at least one –    outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship.  They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.” — Erica E. Goode

*    *    *    *   *

14 days ago was my sister’s 33^rd birthday.

My sister is one of my all-time irreplaceable relationships; my forever friend.

Our friendship has been fought for; over many years, many trials, airplane rides, spilling stories over cocktails, not seeing eye to eye, seeing each other for the reality of who each other was, harbor holidays, downs and most certainly ups.

My sister and I are a venn diagram of friendship, and it frustrates and elates me.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I wish for her so much, and I am always glad to be her sister.

“A sibling may be the keeper of one’s identity, the only person with the keys to one’s unfettered, more fundamental self.”  — Marian Sandmaier

My words fail me, but what I can say is this:  my sister holds one of those keys, most assuredly.

Happy birthday, my favorite sister.

You have a warm heart, gorgeous children, and a world of opportunities; I am so glad you are in my boat with me.

*    *    *    *   *

but you can tell he is already incredibly handsome, intelligent and fantastic. right?

thomas heber wannamaker VI

he, lucky boy, gets the family name, passed down to him from my brother, and dad, and grandfather. the funniest thing about it is that my dad’s name is Thomas the 4th, who we call Tom. He married my mother, whose given name is Tommie, who my grandmother called Tommie Lynn because when my grandfather was still alive, they called him Tom and my dad Tommy. When my brother was born, they ran out of things Tom-related to call him, so he was called Tommy-Tucker (a kids book or cartoon character or something of tha time), which was shortened to Tucker.

Are you keeping this straight?

So now, we have:

Tom – my dad
Tommie – my mom
Tucker – my brother
Thomas – my nephew

although, julie and tucker think this name might be a little formal for him, and were auditioning nicknames prior to his birth. nothing really sounded good (thor? toben? i think not).

anyway, he’s the sixth thomas, but the first boy, and we are all so happy.

mazel tov.