Happy Birthday Mom! I'm listening ;)

Today happens to be my mother’s birthday. It’s been on my mind since the beginning of March which is pretty typical, but as I mentioned earlier, I find myself really missing her more and more lately. I think I’m just at a time in my life where I really need her. Her absence in my life is deeply felt and as I find myself coping with the breakup of my marriage, my own child coming of age, and coming to terms with my own mortality, I often just ache with wanting to be able to have just one more conversation with her. My son really misses her too. We had a conversation about her the other day and for the first time, I asked him if he really remembered her. I was so glad to hear him say that he did and then go on to talk about all the special memories he has of her. That was one of the things she worried about most; that he would eventually forget the special relationship they had.

I remember when Tanner was just a little guy, mom used to talk about how she couldn’t wait until he was older so that they could start going on special little “dates” together. I don’t know where she got the idea from, probably one of her friends did it with their grandchild, but she really looked forward to being able to go to a movie or dinner with Tanner but giving him the money so that he could “pay for it himself.” She thought he would enjoy “treating” his Big Mimaw and I’m sure he would have.

I know one reason I find myself thinking about her so much lately is because, as I’ve mentioned before, Tanner is 13 and he is constantly finding ways to catapult me back in time to when I was 13 and knew it all and had a mother who grew exponentially less intelligent with each passing day. I like to picture my mother and grandmother sitting somewhere in heaven warming their coffee mugs with fresh coffee while they take stock of how we all are doing without them. All I can say is they must laugh their asses off at me trying to parent a teenager.

When I was growing up, our family was split into two camps: one camp included my mother and grandmother and they were the mathematicians. My Papa and I were the lovers of language and literature so you can imagine how our two camps got along. My Papa and I always had fun trying to talk over their heads when it came to literature, and I’m sure they got their fair share of enjoyment watching us struggle to keep score on a simple card game or balancing a check book. Some of my grandmother’s favorite stories were of me correcting her pronunciation at 5-years-old or giggling at my mom for saying something wrong (saying someone had a “cornea” instead of a “coronary”; going to get a Mamm EE oh gram instead of mammogram...drove me bonkers).

I remember wondering what things sort of things Tanner would find “wrong” with me. I mean, it couldn’t be my language right? I had the degree in communication disorders to that just wasn’t in my parenting forecast as far as I was concerned. Of course, making a declaration like that is just the sort of temptation fate needs to blow a big fat raspberry on your belly.

In my case, I was blessed with a kidlet who “spoke” another language entirely; namely American Sign Language. Tanner actually uses both his hearing and his sight when it comes to communication, but we frequently supplement our speech with signed communication as well. Just as I used to roll my eyes and correct my mother/grandmother’s speech, I now have a 13-year-old who rolls his eyes and in a voice dripping with impatience or even worse…amusement, corrects my signing: “Mom, that isn’t how you sign ‘ready’ you just asked me where the ‘toilet’ was” more eyerolling. It’s moments like that (and they happen just as frequently as they did with my mom) that I can just imagine her and my grandmother busting a gut somewhere. It’s also moments like that when I miss her the most because I would secretly love for her to be able to snicker at my expense in that special way that annoyed me to no end when she was living.

This morning, she was the first thing on my mind as I sat down at the computer and prepared to start my work day. I was struggling with whether or not to tell Tanner the significance of the day or just let it pass. Part of me knew it would be special to him and I decided that it was important to keep her memory alive for both of us by recognizing this day in some way. As I sat down to look over some blogs before starting my shift, I found myself in a rather convoluted way discovering this blog.

It was just one of those moments when I really felt my mom here with me because as I read about this project, I thought about how my mother had done this very thing for many people in her life who had battled cancer, some other chronic illness, or had just hit a rough patch in their life. During these times, mom always knew the perfect thing to do or say to let an individual know that she was there for them and cared for them. We often conspired together on some of the projects and had a blast surprising a friend or family member with something special. When she became ill, she received this back 10-fold as her friends and family brightened her spirits with little gifts, phone calls, special books or funny e-mails. I had seen first hand what they did for her when she was so ill during her battle with lung cancer.

Unfortunately, there are lots of patients out there who may not have the sort of support my mother was lucky enough to have. It is truly heartbreaking to think that somewhere out there, someone might have to "go it alone" during what can often be one of the darkest times of a person's life. As I read about Spirit Jump, I knew this would have been something my mother would have loved to have gotten involved in. Every time I did a spirit jump, I would remember my mother and her giving spirit as well as those who picked up her spirits during her time of need. I also know that it probably wasn’t coincidence that I landed on this blog this morning. Wherever she is, I’m sure she knew I was missing her and needed some way to feel close to her again. As usual mom, you were right on the money…thank you for guiding me to Spirit Jump this morning and wherever you are… Tannie and I wish you a Happy Birthday! Xxoo


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Weigh in, confession, and clarification about Lung Cancer

First I want to chime in and let you guys know that today I weighed in at 448.4, so that was a loss of 1.6 lbs. At my size it really should have been more, but I'm used to losing weight slowly. I'm going to be adding in more activity and fiddling around with my meal plan to see what might get my metabolism going a bit faster. We'll sort it out eventually.

I do have a confession. I took Tanner out to eat at an Italian place right up the street from us and ordered their smoked chicken lasagna with spinach. I have no idea how many calories were in it, but I'm wagering it wasn't diet friendly. The good news is I only ate half of the lunch portion and brought the rest home for my ex to eat ;) This wasn't a spur of the moment decision. It wasn't a "binge." It was a very calculated and planned "cheat." I'm looking at a total of 300 lbs I have to lose and I think if I start out expecting that I will NEVER indulge in moderation (like any normal person who doesn't have a weight problem), I will just be setting myself up for failure. I knew going to lunch that I would allow myself to choose anything off the menu that I wanted, but I told myself I would only eat half. I ordered the smaller lunch portion, ate half and had the waiter box up the rest. The result? I came home without any of the typical guilt I feel when I have a spur of the moment cheat or worse, binge. You know, the sort of guilt that typically makes you beat yourself up, then binge again, only to beat yourself up some more and so on, and so on. I ate it. I'm over it. I'll be back on plan for the rest of the week. It's kind of an experiment I'm trying, we'll see if it helps me stay on plan over the long haul.

Now on to answering some of the comments from my post late last night. First I want to thank those of you that were touched by it. It started out being about RFL and before I knew it... All of this stuff was coming out about my mom and what I went through when she was sick. It was a very real and very heartfelt admission about a very difficult time in my life. It was cathartic in a way and I think, for the first time, I really came to terms with something that had been bothering me for the last 7 years.

Val commented and pointed out that she had also lost her mother to lung cancer, but chose not to focus on the fact that she had smoked because of the stigma so many lung cancer patients have to deal with when diagnosed. I completely understand where she's coming from. I not only came face to face with this when my mother was diagnosed in the form of doctors who treated her like a pariah; in fact, the doctor that gave her the diagnosis treated her horribly. I wasn't there, but she recorded it for me and immediately after telling her that she had lung cancer, my mother asked for information to help her quit smoking. The doctor, in a voice void of any kind of compassion, said "It's a bit late for that, but I can write you a prescription for wellbutrin if you want." He continued to talk down to her and treat her like a second class citizen for the remainder of her visit. We had other problems along the way. Some doctors treated her with the compassion they might have for any cancer patient, but every once in a while, regardless of the fact that my mother no longer smoked, we would run into some jerk who would feel the need to rub a very sick woman's nose in the fact that her smoking may have had something to do with her cancer. God, for a while, I suppose I was doing the very same thing as I struggled with my own anger over her diagnosis.

As I've said and as Val also pointed out, we ALL make lifestyle choices that could impact our health negatively. I read an article just yesterday that said that people who have had a lifetime struggle with obesity and have spent most of their life obese have a life expectancy equivalent to those who have smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. The difference is...when people who have made other lifestyle choices, whether its eating themselves into obesity, drinking, worshiping the sun, or a million other things we know is bad for us; when these people get a breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, melanoma or any of the hundreds of other cancer diagnoses caused by lifestyle, they are often met with the compassionate concern we are familiar with when someone receives a life-threatening diagnosis. People reach out to them. An overweight woman diagnosed with breast cancer isn't likely to have people asking her if she ate at McDonalds regularly; insinuating that her diet gave her breast cancer. An ex-alcoholic won't tell someone about his past battle with the bottle as an apology for his disease. If a lung cancer patient tells someone they have lung cancer, I can tell you that 9 times out of 10, the next question out of somebody's mouth is "Oh no, did you smoke?" With that question, depending on the patient's answer, people decide whether the patient is worthy of true concern or compassion. I think you know what happens if the patient answers in the affirmative.

Aside from the way this stigma affects how patients are treated by doctors, other professionals, and the general public, the stigma of lung cancer has a very real and deadly impact on research. According to the Lung Cancer Alliance's Report Card on Lung Cancer (please take a look at this to see just how bad the disparity is between lung cancer and other cancers), despite being the number one cancer killer, it remains one of the most underfunded, under-researched cancers and is largely ignored by the powers that be in Washington. Many people aren't even aware that more people will die this year from lung cancer than from breast, prostate, colon, leukemia, ovarian, and cervical cancers COMBINED. This, despite the fact that 50% of people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked or are former smokers. It's unfair and it's just flat out WRONG. Nobody deserves cancer...period.

So, to Val, I apologize and thank you for pointing out the impact this stigma had on our own mother's diagnosis, treatment and mortality. I knew all about this well before your comments, but last night, I was just caught up in relaying a particular experience and working through my own feelings "in the moment." Unfortunately, I probably crafted a post that somewhat perpetuates this very stigma. I hope this post makes up for it to some degree.

Thanks to anyone who actually made it to the end of this post :)

Why I Relay: Remembering my Mom

Create Your Own
I was thinking about a way I could motivate myself to stick with my new commitment to exercise regularly. I have to confess, that I haven't done my walks today... I need to get my ex to haul the vacuum up here so that I can clean up the last bits of dust and debris off the treadmill and then I'll be good to go. I promise to walk laps around my living room later, if I have to, but I will get the walking in. As I was trying to think about a goal to work towards, It struck me that it was Relay for Life season. I have participated in Relay for Life in the past, but the last time I participated was with my mom several years ago. As I thought about participating in a RFL team this year, I couldn't help but remember my mom.

For those of you who may not be familiar with Relay for Life, it is a 24 hr walk that raises money for the fight against the big "C" and is the American Cancer Society's signature fund-raising event. The last time I participated was in 2001, the Spring before my mother was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. My grandmother already been touched twice by cancer (breast and kidney...both primary cancers) and we had recently learned that her cancer had returned. My grandmother had also lost a brother just months before to bladder cancer. My mom and I were walking around the track and talking about the fact that we were walking in memory of Uncle Fred and in honor of my grandmother. I remember wondering silently if next Spring would find us walking in memory of my grandmother too. I never in my wildest nightmares thought the next year would be my last with both of them.

My mother had a bigger than life personality and she was loved by many people, but just as quickly as you could fall in love with her, she could piss you right the heck off. She always had lots of advice and she doled it out generously. God help you if you didn't take it...she'd have a few choice words for you then. Mom also loved a good argument and she wasn't always quick to admit when she was wrong. In spite of all that, She was an amazingly loyal and generous friend and family member who would give the shirt off her back to help those she cared about. Many people came to mom for help and advice because they knew that if Linda had your back, you were set. She was the type of person to secretly pay a friend's bills while they were going through a rough patch or anonymously send a care package to brighten their day.

We had our share of arguments as I struggled for my independence as an adult and I begged her for years to stop smoking. When she was diagnosed, I remember being so angry at her. I was angry because I thought she had been selfish continuing to smoke and now I was going to have to find a way to prepare myself and my son for her death. She didn't know it at the time, but the type of cancer she had never has a good outcome. I had been working for the American Cancer Society for some time and knew all too well what the survival statistics were like. She would be lucky to make it a year. She lasted 11 months.

At one point on the way home after one of her treatments, we stopped at a gas station and I went in to pay. I was behind this guy buying cigarettes and all I wanted to do was drag him out by his collar to look at my mother sitting in my car. I wanted to scream at him about how I'd spent the night before with her in the bathroom as she vomited from her treatment and ask him if he thought the cigarettes were worth it. I truly was raging silently inside just barely keeping a lid on all the pent up rage I had at losing my mother. Somewhere in the middle of this inner self righteous tirade, I looked from his hands holding the cigarettes to mine holding a package of twinkies and it hit me how much of a hypocrite I'd been. I was doing the same thing only with different ammunition. I wish I could say that I walked out to the car and asked for my mother's forgiveness, but I didn't. I was too ashamed. It's probably one of my deepest regrets.

I not only didn't ask for her forgiveness, but I didn't change my ways either. I'm fatter now than I was then. I've selfishly been feeding my addiction and robbing my son of years with his mother. I am dooming him to the same fate...losing his mom at much too early an age.

Today I signed up as a team captain to head my own Relay for Life team. I doubt I'm going to make it 24 hrs; I'll be lucky to make it once around the track at one time. I don't have much time to prepare for it either, but even if I'm the only one on my team, I'm going. This year I walk as an unspoken apology to my mother and as a pledge to my son that he hopefully will not have to learn what it is like to bury his mother for a very long time.

So thats why I Relay. I would encourage you to check out your local area for a Relay you might participate in. If you can't participate, consider a donation to the American Cancer Society. For more information, check out the video on Relay for Life below.



I'll keep you guys updated on my progress and thanks for reading :)

Yesterday's Food Log