The Original Musings

From Science Daily

Okay, this is encouraging:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2009) — The master gene that causes blood stem cells to turn into disease-fighting ‘Natural Killer’ (NK) immune cells has been identified by scientists, in a study published in Nature Immunology Setember 13. The discovery could one day help scientists boost the body’s production of these frontline tumour-killing cells, creating new ways to treat cancer.

The article goes on to say (in part):

Natural Killer cells – a type of white blood cell – are a major component of the human body’s innate, quick-response immune system. They provide a fast frontline defence against tumours, viruses and bacterial infections, by scanning the human body for cells that are cancerous or infected with a virus or a bacterial pathogen, and killing them.

NK cells – along with all other types of blood cell, both white and red – are continuously generated from blood stem cells in the bone marrow over the course of a person’s lifetime. The gene E4bp4 identified in today’s study is the ‘master gene’ for NK cell production, which means it is the primary driver that causes blood stem cells to differentiate into NK cells.

Read it all on Science Daily.

Patricia Irene (Sweitzer) Rodgers

I never did bother rewriting the entry about our visit to see Pat last week on the 9th and 10th. During our visit, we talked about everything and nothing, we laughed, we cried, and we tried to cram as much as we could into a little over five hours — a half hour on Wednesday and almost five hours on Thursday. She spent more time trying to comfort me than I did her — but I had her laughing so hard she said she was glad she had a catheter, so I guess it probably evened out.

She said she had always wanted to see Missy dance, so Missy — who had worn her Capezio practice shoes instead of her beloved leather cowboy boots — moved a chair and danced for her right there in the room. Pat told her when she gets to Ireland, she’ll be watching and cheering her on from Heaven. She promised that when she got there, she’d give Mom and Sammy hugs from us and tell them we love them. When the time came that we simply had to leave, she gave me the biggest hug and then she wouldn’t say goodbye, she just said she’d see us again someday. It was raining pretty hard at that point and she told me I’d better drive safely because if I beat her there she’d kill me again when she got there. Heh. Knowing Pat, she probably would have, too.

They told us when Mom was dying that the cancer wouldn’t kill her and it didn’t, it was her heart. In Pat’s case, the cancer didn’t kill her either, it was her liver. She was terribly jaundiced and knew it was only a matter of time. The doctors had just revised their expectations from two weeks to one week when we went to see her — and turns out they were right on the money.

Sometime late on the 16th or very early on the 17th, Pat passed away. No one is quite sure when it happened, she just slipped away quietly in her sleep. They’re calling it the 17th in the obituary — but I think it was probably a little before midnight on the 16th, because just before midnight, at 11:59, Missy called me into the kitchen and holding up a quarter said “I was putting this back in the pantry and I heard a clink sound, and when I looked down, there it was.” The quarter was a 2000 series Virginia quarter. Missy is convinced that Pat had just died at that point and because she knew about the pennies (Sam) and dimes (Mom), she figured she’d send a quarter so we’d know it was her. If there’s one irrefutable thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that coincidence isn’t, so who’s to say?

A very short online obituary is up at the Richmond Times website.

I’ve posted photos of Pat — including three from our visit to see her — in the gallery. They’re in the 2008 album. (You’ll also find the Mothman pictures in that gallery too!) In a couple of the shots of Pat from past SimuCons, Liz appears with her — Liz also died way too young, on October 4, 2005.)

She was a good lady, and a good friend. She had found peace within herself despite her impending death, and she faced it with grace and dignity. The world’s a little darker place now, but Heaven’s got a brand new light. God’s gonna have to keep an eye on her if she hooks up with Mom — there’s no telling what they’ll cook up between them. Between Mom, Liz, Pat and Aunt Barb, things are going to be hopping up there!

I waver between adding “already?” or “only”

One year ago today, Mom passed away.

Mom passed away Wednesday, December 6th about 6:25 p.m. She was two days shy of her 69th birthday, four months shy of her 50th wedding anniversary. With her when she died was my Dad, myself, Maggie and Joel. Amanda and Missy were there, but had stepped out of the room to go get a soda. It’s as if Mom waited till Missy was out of the room to leave. When she went, she went quietly, with no fanfare. If it hadn’t been for the monitors suddenly reading 0′s and straight lines, you wouldn’t have even known anything happened.

Sometimes I still find myself reaching for the phone or thinking “just wait till I tell Mom [insert something]” … other times the dull feeling hits immediately and I think “I sure wish I could tell Mom [insert something].”

I love her as much now as I did the day she died. More, maybe. I’ve been saving memories and thoughts that I want to share with her when I get to see her again in Heaven. I figure she’ll have probably seen all of them, but she’ll listen anyhow. She always did, no matter how many times you’d told a story, she’d sit and listen like it was the first time she’d ever heard it. She never made us feel like we were an imposition, even when we frankly were.

She was a good woman, the best wife and mother anyone ever saw. She enjoyed being a wife and a Mom, and it showed. She wasn’t perfect, but she was close enough. She was more than just my Mom, she was my best friend. No matter what happened, I could count on her. If I’d screwed up, she was the first one to tell me so, and then she’d put it all in perspective with some smartass comment and she’d set about helping me fix it — even if all she could do was be there with me to remind me that she was there, life would go on, and she still loved me.

She was grace under pressure, with a reminder to never take yourself too seriously. And always with the commentary, the life’s lessons summed up in a sentence or two. “Wear clean underwear!” • “Stand up straight, you’ll get a hump back.” • “Salt’ll dry up your blood.” • “Don’t go out of the house without powdering your nose and putting on a little lipstick.” • “Did you take a bath in that perfume? Didn’t anybody ever tell you less is more? Get a wash cloth and scrub some of that shit off. You smell like a French whore.” • “Your family comes first. End of the day, all you have left is God and your family.” • “Family sticks together. That’s what you do. You don’t have to love each other, but by God you don’t let anybody mess with your family.” • “Pick your battles.” • “Crying isn’t going to fix anything. Don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, do something about it.” • “It’s only a mistake once, and there’s no shame in making a mistake as long as you learn your lesson. Now, the second time, it’s a lesson you didn’t learn. There’s no excuse for that.” • “If you give someone your word, you keep it, no matter what. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” • “If you do something wrong, admit it. Own up to it and then do what you can to make it right.” • “Always take responsibility for what you do.” • “Is this really something you need to worry about?” • “Will worrying change it? Can you do anything to alter the outcome?” If the answer was yes, she’d say “then get off your ass and do it! Come on, I’ll help you.” If no, “then stop this crap. Get about fixing it so it can’t happen again. Come on, I’ll help you.”

We weren’t supposed to worry, because that was Mom’s job. She was the family worrier, and the family fixer. Sure, Dad could fix any physical object that broke — electrical, plumbing, car, it didn’t matter, Dad could fix it. But Mom! Well, Mom could fix the unfixable things, like a skinned knee, a bad dream, a rotten day, a broken heart. Up until December 6, 2006 anyhow.

Feisty. Up till the very end, she was feisty. She’s probably still feisty up in Heaven, giving God the ol’ what-for. My Dad and Darin used to joke that one of these days they were going to get a phone call and they’d have to come bail us (and whichever of my daughters happened to have been with us that day) out of jail because someone had pissed us off and we’d let ‘em have it.

She could make you laugh no matter how mad you were — or how miserable. She didn’t really crack jokes, she just made wry observations and smartass comments with absolutely impeccable timing.

And oh, how she laughed. She had the most amazing laugh. She loved comedy shows (Carol Burnett was a favorite, even in reruns) and she’d sit in the living room and just laugh till you couldn’t stand it anymore and you had to come see what was cracking her up so much.

This photo was taken of her with my cell phone last year, on November 14, just twelve days after she’d died the first time. Her “Trial Run” as she called it. Even 12 days after dying (and 22 days before she would die the second, final time) she was able to smile that 1000-megawatt smile of hers and make a few pithy comments.

She taught us all that nothing was so horrible you couldn’t find something to laugh about. And up until December 6, 2006, she was right. On December 6, 2006, there wasn’t one damned thing to laugh about. And if you’d asked me on that day, I’d have probably told you I’d never laugh again. Of course I would have been wrong, but on that day, I would have believed it.

The day my son died, July 10, 1999, Mom was the person I called. Even on that horrible day, she gave me things to laugh at — some of them without even trying. I don’t know how I would have made it through all that if it hadn’t been for her.

I tried to tell her several times last summer when she was dying (I didn’t know it yet, I still thought “she’ll get better,” I had no idea they’d already given her a death sentence because she wouldn’t tell any of us kids) just how much she meant to me. I tried to explain that up until she’d gotten sick, I thought Sam’s death was the worst thing I’d ever have to face. You don’t expect your children to die before you, you do expect your parents probably will, so you think you’ll be able to handle that a little better, at least. But the thought of losing her was a hundred — a thousand — times worse.

We both cried so many times the summer of 2006, times when it all built up inside me and I tried again to express my love for her, and everything she meant to me. Times when she’d finally stop me and say “it’s okay, I know. You know how much I love you, you were my child and you mean everything to me.” We cried the time she said to me, “listen, just in case anything happens, keep an eye on your Dad for me. Just … take care of him. Give him somebody to talk to. Don’t let him sit around and mope.”

Did I ever tell her “well enough” … does she know, now, from Heaven? Can she look down and see — feel? — what I couldn’t ever say just right?

The whole thing was, it hit me at the time that I knew Sam for a whole 76 days. But I knew Mom every day of my life. Every single minute of my life. At the end, I knew Mom for 47 years and … wow. So, I just sat here and counted up how long I’d known Mom when she died. I was going to say “At the end, I knew Mom for 47 years and x days” …. and it turns out that the span between September 21, when I turned 47, and December 6, when she went home to God, is exactly 76 days.

I don’t think I have anything else to say right now.

The Original Musings: The post I didn’t want to make

11 September 1953 – 3 September 2007

Dennis passed away about 12:30 a.m. Arizona time (3:30 a.m. eastern). With him when he died was his wife, and both of his adult sons.

He leaves behind a wife, three children, one step-child, a brother, sister and his parents in addition to nieces, nephews, cousins and various in-laws.

Heroic Measures Stopped

Cindy was called to the hospital very early this morning, and advised that Dennis has “begun the dying process.” On the doctor’s recommendation, she has issued an order for all life extending measures to be stopped, they are now keeping him hydrated and giving him pain medication to keep him as comfortable as possible.

Over the course of the last four days, he’s been out of touch with reality far more than he’s been in. The things Cindy’s described to me are harrowing, he’s being mentally and emotionally tormented on top of the physical agony he’s enduring.

Cindy hasn’t taken Crystal to see him since the decline really started on Wednesday. These are memories a 9-year old kid doesn’t need. The cancer has spread throughout his body to the point that when asked where it is, it’s easier to say where it’s not. They’ve had to keep him restrained pretty much around the clock — he’s pulled the catheter out so many times he’s damaged himself, he’s pulled out IVs, and become violent. He’s been railing against the nurses all along, two days ago he was calling them names and telling them what he thought of them in vile, despicable language. On Friday, Cindy said he was screaming about changing the television channel — what he insisted that they change was not the television, however, it was a poster on the wall.

Some people believe that there isn’t a physical place called “hell,” that what hell actually is, is the suffering we endure during our last hours on earth. Sort of a cleansing before you get to go on, you have to pay for all you’ve done. If that’s the case, then Dennis has spent the last four days paying back a lot.

Cindy said he spent much of the weekend screaming about things he’d done in his life, as if he’s reliving it all and knows that he can’t change any of it. He was talking to people in the room that no one else could see, and begging them to stop tormenting him with these memories. Before they doped him up this morning, Cindy held his hand and told him that everything was okay between them, that everything he did or didn’t do during their marriage was in the past, that there was nothing left to forgive him for, and that he shouldn’t feel bad for any of it, it doesn’t matter and she loves him. She told him how his Grandparents will be waiting for him on the other side, and how he shouldn’t be afraid. She doesn’t know if he heard any of it — and if he did, whether or not he actually understood any of it.

Is there any small piece of Dennis still down inside all this, where he’s actually cognizant? Is he aware? Does he know that this is it? By the time his parents left on Tuesday, he was too far gone to get through to him that he was terminal. Cindy’s still beating herself up over that one — she really disagreed with not telling him, she still feels that by not telling him when he was still “there” enough to understand, they’ve robbed him of his right to say things he would have wanted to say. She wanted to respect his parents’ wishes, but in doing so she feels she let Dennis down.

The doctors tell her it’s a matter of hours, now. Imagine your remaining life being measured in hours — or minutes … seconds — rather than years. Imagine being so far gone that you no longer even have a chance to live like you were dying … you only have time left to die.

I can’t help but think back to December 6th.