5th grader and Surgery
"One thing that I find interesting with cancer – or at least with me – is that – ok we have that first shock of ‘you’ve got cancer’. About a couple of weeks into it I came to the realization that I’m still here. I’m pretty sure I’ve got today, I’m pretty sure I’ve got tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got next week. You know something? I have something to live for and I have things to do. You know when I was diagnosed I decided that I would need to stop teaching piano lessons because that was afternoon time – I wasn’t sure what kind of energy I was going to have, how I was going to be feeling and that was something I could give up. I couldn’t give up my children, I couldn’t give up my husband, I couldn’t give up being a mom and I didn’t want to. But being a piano teacher was a choice that I could make. The kids weren’t happy with that, especially Eric.
"He was in 5thgrade he was 10 years old and he liked it when the kids came over to play. He enjoyed that and I really enjoyed that for him but I also knew that I needed to focus on my children. And that actually was the best thing I could have done as far as Eric scholastically because we figured out really quickly that Eric didn’t like to do homework – well I knew that he didn’t like to but he was not good at writing down the assignments from Mr. Westover. Mr. Westover was trying to prepare the students for middle school. He would say, “Ok here’s what you need to write down in your planner”. Eric wasn’t writing things down. I found out very quickly in the school year that I needed to sit down at the table so that Eric would do his homework. If I would sit at the table then he would stay at the table too. But when I left to do other things he would then start wandering around or start playing around, or start reading a book – which he was known for, he really took off reading in 3rdgrade – he’s a voracious reader and he enjoys reading.
"It was important that I spend that time sitting at the table. I would help Kylie with her little bits of homework and then she would go off and play. I found out very quickly that I needed to have things for me to do at the table so that Eric would stay at the table because it drove me nuts just to sit there. I would do crossword puzzles, I would do Sudoku puzzles, I would also do cross-stitch, I would work on dinner stuff still in the same room. It also became apparent that Eric was extremely – like the absent minded professor. He was extremely smart but was forgetful and absent minded. It was not unusual – at least once a week that I would have to take Eric back over to the school to get his textbooks that he needed to do his homework. It also became quickly apparent that it worked better if I walked to the school with him.
"I would pick up Kylie earlier and then we’d go sit at the back of the school waiting for Eric and then Eric would come out. But he would forget things all the time. It worked better and saved me trips back to the school if I would actually walk in and say, “Eric where’s your planner – open it up, where’s the homework you wrote down?” “Oh, I didn’t write it down.” “Write it down”, and Mr. Westover would kind of shake his head, “I told him to do it, but oh well he’ll do it now.” That’s how we got through 5thgrade. At the beginning of the year, he wasn’t getting a lot of things turned in and at the end of the year he made it to the reward trip. The reward for the field trip for the 5thgraders – they have 3 of them – one for each trimester and if you got certain percentage of your homework turned in (it didn’t have to be right it just had to be done and turned in) got a certain percentage turned in you got to go on the reward trip. Well the first two trimesters Eric didn’t make those trips because he wasn’t turning stuff in.
"But by this time I had my act together and I knew as far as Eric was concerned I needed to walk in with him, have him write it down and that saved me trips later on and he was actually able to go on the reward trip. Mr. Westover called me and said, “You know Lisa, if he turned one or two more things in he will get it.” So we went back and looked at what he needed to turn in and got those turned in. Eric is - of all my children Eric is probably the brightest, smartest, gifted – academic wise. He is a very bright child he picks up on things very quickly, he’s a very good test taker, but he’s basically too interested in his own ideas and thoughts and doesn’t want to do the homework and do the work, it has taken a lot of encouragement over the years. Fortunately the next year they had – we could go online and check and see what the homework was, that helped but oh my goodness."
"So we got through chemo okay, I finished up December 28thand we knew January was going to bring a mastectomy. My breast responded quite well to the chemo, the tumor was shrinking, I was excited for my hair to come back in though I knew it wouldn’t be for awhile because my body was in shock from going through chemo. I was very thankful that I had gone through chemo in the cool months of the year so it was no problem wearing the wig because its kind of warm, so it was okay. It was in the middle of January. January 17thcomes to mind but its somewhere in there I had the mastectomy.
"People have asked my how was it losing a breast? Did you feel so horrible? No, it was like get it off! It is diseased, it is cancerous, I need it off my body. So they did a modified mastectomy in that they also took out all the lymph nodes in my right arm. And they did the biopsy and we got the biopsy results and they showed that yes my breast was cancerous but then also in the lymph nodes 27 out of 32 lymph nodes and surrounding tissue were positive for cancer.
"Which meant the cancer has been starting to go into the lymph system and move throughout my body. We had no idea how far afield it was or what the situation was and so it meant we needed to get started on radiation immediately to kill any cancer cells that might be left. And especially that armpit area which had surrounding tissue positive for cancer. I called over to the oncology - radiation oncology department at Mount Diablo Hospital – it’s now called John Muir Concord Campus but then it was Mount Diablo. Kaiser contracts out the radiation treatments (at least mine) to this hospital here, which was great. It was closer, it was right here in Concord so it was much faster to get to. Which is good because when you do radiation you are going there 5 days a week and I had 6 weeks worth of radiation prescribed.
"So I went through the surgery and I came through it very well. I remember having these drains in and – 2 of them in my side and I had to take care of emptying the drains. When it came time for surgery, my sister-in-law Sue Ann flew in came down from Fresno to be here when I was actually in the hospital. She took care of things at home things were in great shape and then on that Sunday, I had the Surgery on Thursday and I was going to be coming home on Sunday.
"On Sunday Ralph’s cousin Donna Ruth, our angel from heaven, came to be with me. Donna Ruth is wonderful, she is one of Ralph’s cousins she’s a retired nurse, she is happy and cheerful, and positive and exactly what we needed. She is also an amazing cook. And so she was there to take care of us. She laughed and smiled and told stories and helped me empty my drains and measure them and she was just wonderful. The kids would come home from school and she would talk to them and laugh with them and tell them stories and she would leave gifts for them under their pillows and she was also – when we were just visiting – I was just – I was still able to get up and move around and do things and I was a bit limited in my right arm because they had taken those lymph nodes out, but I could still do things with my left hand and I wanted to do things.
"She would let me do what I could and then she would fill in the rest. She was very gracious about understanding that I had this need to do things I couldn’t just sit there. But when we were just sitting there visiting she was crocheting she was making these little doilies and she was just what the doctor ordered! Just fabulous. She was there for a week. It was just wonderful, just a great experience."
"He was in 5thgrade he was 10 years old and he liked it when the kids came over to play. He enjoyed that and I really enjoyed that for him but I also knew that I needed to focus on my children. And that actually was the best thing I could have done as far as Eric scholastically because we figured out really quickly that Eric didn’t like to do homework – well I knew that he didn’t like to but he was not good at writing down the assignments from Mr. Westover. Mr. Westover was trying to prepare the students for middle school. He would say, “Ok here’s what you need to write down in your planner”. Eric wasn’t writing things down. I found out very quickly in the school year that I needed to sit down at the table so that Eric would do his homework. If I would sit at the table then he would stay at the table too. But when I left to do other things he would then start wandering around or start playing around, or start reading a book – which he was known for, he really took off reading in 3rdgrade – he’s a voracious reader and he enjoys reading.
"It was important that I spend that time sitting at the table. I would help Kylie with her little bits of homework and then she would go off and play. I found out very quickly that I needed to have things for me to do at the table so that Eric would stay at the table because it drove me nuts just to sit there. I would do crossword puzzles, I would do Sudoku puzzles, I would also do cross-stitch, I would work on dinner stuff still in the same room. It also became apparent that Eric was extremely – like the absent minded professor. He was extremely smart but was forgetful and absent minded. It was not unusual – at least once a week that I would have to take Eric back over to the school to get his textbooks that he needed to do his homework. It also became quickly apparent that it worked better if I walked to the school with him.
"I would pick up Kylie earlier and then we’d go sit at the back of the school waiting for Eric and then Eric would come out. But he would forget things all the time. It worked better and saved me trips back to the school if I would actually walk in and say, “Eric where’s your planner – open it up, where’s the homework you wrote down?” “Oh, I didn’t write it down.” “Write it down”, and Mr. Westover would kind of shake his head, “I told him to do it, but oh well he’ll do it now.” That’s how we got through 5thgrade. At the beginning of the year, he wasn’t getting a lot of things turned in and at the end of the year he made it to the reward trip. The reward for the field trip for the 5thgraders – they have 3 of them – one for each trimester and if you got certain percentage of your homework turned in (it didn’t have to be right it just had to be done and turned in) got a certain percentage turned in you got to go on the reward trip. Well the first two trimesters Eric didn’t make those trips because he wasn’t turning stuff in.
"But by this time I had my act together and I knew as far as Eric was concerned I needed to walk in with him, have him write it down and that saved me trips later on and he was actually able to go on the reward trip. Mr. Westover called me and said, “You know Lisa, if he turned one or two more things in he will get it.” So we went back and looked at what he needed to turn in and got those turned in. Eric is - of all my children Eric is probably the brightest, smartest, gifted – academic wise. He is a very bright child he picks up on things very quickly, he’s a very good test taker, but he’s basically too interested in his own ideas and thoughts and doesn’t want to do the homework and do the work, it has taken a lot of encouragement over the years. Fortunately the next year they had – we could go online and check and see what the homework was, that helped but oh my goodness."
"So we got through chemo okay, I finished up December 28thand we knew January was going to bring a mastectomy. My breast responded quite well to the chemo, the tumor was shrinking, I was excited for my hair to come back in though I knew it wouldn’t be for awhile because my body was in shock from going through chemo. I was very thankful that I had gone through chemo in the cool months of the year so it was no problem wearing the wig because its kind of warm, so it was okay. It was in the middle of January. January 17thcomes to mind but its somewhere in there I had the mastectomy.
"People have asked my how was it losing a breast? Did you feel so horrible? No, it was like get it off! It is diseased, it is cancerous, I need it off my body. So they did a modified mastectomy in that they also took out all the lymph nodes in my right arm. And they did the biopsy and we got the biopsy results and they showed that yes my breast was cancerous but then also in the lymph nodes 27 out of 32 lymph nodes and surrounding tissue were positive for cancer.
"Which meant the cancer has been starting to go into the lymph system and move throughout my body. We had no idea how far afield it was or what the situation was and so it meant we needed to get started on radiation immediately to kill any cancer cells that might be left. And especially that armpit area which had surrounding tissue positive for cancer. I called over to the oncology - radiation oncology department at Mount Diablo Hospital – it’s now called John Muir Concord Campus but then it was Mount Diablo. Kaiser contracts out the radiation treatments (at least mine) to this hospital here, which was great. It was closer, it was right here in Concord so it was much faster to get to. Which is good because when you do radiation you are going there 5 days a week and I had 6 weeks worth of radiation prescribed.
"So I went through the surgery and I came through it very well. I remember having these drains in and – 2 of them in my side and I had to take care of emptying the drains. When it came time for surgery, my sister-in-law Sue Ann flew in came down from Fresno to be here when I was actually in the hospital. She took care of things at home things were in great shape and then on that Sunday, I had the Surgery on Thursday and I was going to be coming home on Sunday.
"On Sunday Ralph’s cousin Donna Ruth, our angel from heaven, came to be with me. Donna Ruth is wonderful, she is one of Ralph’s cousins she’s a retired nurse, she is happy and cheerful, and positive and exactly what we needed. She is also an amazing cook. And so she was there to take care of us. She laughed and smiled and told stories and helped me empty my drains and measure them and she was just wonderful. The kids would come home from school and she would talk to them and laugh with them and tell them stories and she would leave gifts for them under their pillows and she was also – when we were just visiting – I was just – I was still able to get up and move around and do things and I was a bit limited in my right arm because they had taken those lymph nodes out, but I could still do things with my left hand and I wanted to do things.
"She would let me do what I could and then she would fill in the rest. She was very gracious about understanding that I had this need to do things I couldn’t just sit there. But when we were just sitting there visiting she was crocheting she was making these little doilies and she was just what the doctor ordered! Just fabulous. She was there for a week. It was just wonderful, just a great experience."
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