The holiday season is here and with it family traditions that Alisha and I started 20 years ago. We typically celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends Tom and Lauren, whom I have known more years than not. I bring the dressing (stuffing for you folks from the north) made from mom’s old recipe.
We get our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving from the same place each year. Saturday night I start acting like Clark Griswold from “A Christmas Vacation” dangling from all parts of the roof and trees in our front yard hanging more lights each year. In the next weekend or so we will do a horse and buggy ride through Poulsbo with the same ladies who offer free rides on Saturdays during the holidays since Hannah was little.
Alisha’s birthday is the 15th and our 20th anniversary is the 19th. Can it really have been 20 years since we stood freezing in that tiny chapel on Orcas Island? The temps were in the mid-teens and the winds 40-50, conditions we had hoped would be reversed when we picked that date out of my Franklin Planner at a little bed and breakfast in Western France.
The power went out during our reception at the Turtleback Farms Inn. Fortunately, there was a warm fireplace and Lisha is crazy about candles. It was an awesome, cozy way to start our life and continued on our sailboat GRACE where we lived our first 4 years and now to our little house on Lofall Road.
I started the second round of my “maintenance” dose of the chemo pills the day after Thanksgiving. The strength is almost 3 times that of my original dosage.
I was worried about side-effects with the stronger dose even though my doctor was reassuring since I hadn’t had any problems so far. The first night I woke up and my mind started wandering. I wonder why it is that crazy thoughts come into your head late at night, at least they do for me and most people I know. Fears take on huge proportions; shadows in the room; noises downstairs, monsters under the bed. It’s hard to quiet your mind.
As I lay there at 2:19 in the morning I started worrying about getting nauseous like I had the one other time. The longer I lay there thinking about it, the more convinced I was that it was coming over me. I knew I was going to wake Alisha, so I grabbed my pillow and our journal of Bible verses we’ve been writing down the past four months. I lay on the couch and started reading and praying. I didn’t fall asleep immediately and in fact, lay there for a couple more hours before dozing off.
The season is stirring a lot of emotions in me, but I can’t seem to put my finger on them. Even today at work we had our annual review of our insurance plan for the coming year. Thinking about insurance and medical bills was a sharp reminder of all that had occurred since July 18 when my neurologist said, “I think while you are here you should schedule a consultation with a surgeon” and the shock and reality that our lives were forever changed set in.
When I was in my 20s I was rock climbing by myself at Enchanted Rock in Central Texas. It was mid-summer and the temps were over 100°. I was trying to move from one small ledge to another and in doing so, got myself into a place where there was no escape. I hung there by my fingers for several moments, knowing that I would fall. I eventually lost my grip and fell 10-12 feet into what amounted to a pit. It is a long story for another day, but the impact on me was that any time I stood on the edge of something, a rock, a curb, etc. a paralyzing emotion of fear would come over me. This continued for several years.
My sense is that there will be times when something will trigger those same feelings I had in July, just like they did when I had my fall that day in Central Texas.