One year check-up for Anne today, and she is still cancer free! Immensely grateful. 

Celebrating! 

In 1982, Norfolk Medical created the first human port, a little device implanted under the skin which connects to a catheter inserted into a vein. A breakthrough for patients who need to receive regular infusions of drugs and nutrients. I got one of these little suckers implanted in my chest in May of last year. Today, I’m holding it in my hand.

I’m so grateful for this buddy. Medically speaking, there weren’t many things that made life easier while battling cancer. But this was one of them.

Last night, I told the kids I was finally having my port removed. Ever the cheerleader, Sarah said, “That’s great! Your what?” (Oh the mercies of a young one’s faded memory!) Jack, with a quizzical expression, chimed in, “That’s a good thing, right?” Yes, it’s a good thing.  

After thirty-plus infusions, I’m glad to see you go, little friend. Your removal feels like an official page-turning in my cancer story. A “milestone” said my surgeon as we talked about Christmas plans and how different Christmas 2016 will be compared to last year’s. Tears of gratitude surprised me as I climbed into my car to head home. A little piece of normal was given back to me today.  

These days, the treatment landscape and my new normal involves tests and screenings twice a year, daily hormone blocking drugs, and a shot every three months to keep me locked in menopause (my cancer loved estrogen, so to keep it from coming back, we have to cut off the supply.). Stewarding my slowly-improving energy reserves is an art I haven’t quite figured out. Van is often tucking me in before he tucks the kids into bed. Physical therapy is helping with left arm range of motion as well as mitigating lymphedema, an uncomfortable side effect from lymph node removal. Truth is, I’ll never quite be the same on my left side. My radiation oncologist gently reminded me of this reality last week. It’s in those moments that I miss my pre-cancer body. A small cost, though a real one, for being able to enjoy this and many more Christmases.

Being the season of Advent, Christ’s incarnation (fancy word to describe how Jesus became fully human without losing His deity) has been on the forefront of my mind. I’ve been thinking about how Jesus left Heavenly perfection with God the Father and the Spirit to become just like us, but without sin. Hard to fathom why God would want to do such a thing. The best analogy I can conjure would be the world’s most powerful and benevolent King leaving his glorious castle to live among the peasants and outcast. But Jesus, the Son of God, delighted to do it. He knows what it is to be weak, scarred, and even face death. He is well-acquainted with our sufferings because he too was born of a woman into the brambles and brokenness of this world. What love and mercy and grace! So, while my heart is heavy with sadness for all the broken things, as I consider God’s rescue plan for us, hope rises in my soul.

One of my favorite hymns, O Holy Night, describes it beautifully….

Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 

‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.

A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices.

Yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

So tonight I lay my port-less body and hopeful heart down to rest. Farewell little medical marvel.
With joy,

Anne

I was catching up with our dear friend Alice Spickard after church service today, and it struck me how wonderful it was to linger and catch up with friends.

“You know what just hit me?” I smilingly said to Alice. “We are here, hanging out after worship. No ducking out quickly to get Anne home and into bed.  How fun is it that I’m having to wait on her?” as I glance over at Anne chatting it up with a few friends.

“It’s those little things that remind you how far you’ve come since last year,” Alice rejoined. “You put a hard year behind you, and now you’re savoring moments that we so easily take for granted,” a look of compassion and joy on her face.

“Ooooo! Maybe that should be a blog post. I’ve been meaning to write…”  Alice nodded.

Hardly a day passes that something doesn’t remind me of what we lost, but are now regaining.  Little sign posts of restoration. Sometimes you don’t remember what you’ve lost until it’s given back to you…

Lingering after church service.

Anne running down the beach with our Goldendoodle.

Catching up with Anne after a busy day.

Going to the movies together as a family.

Anne belly-laughing.

Coming home to a family dinner.

Hearing about Anne’s great haircut.

Making up the bed, tag-team style.

Anne’s enthusiasm to serve as a room mom for Sarah’s first grade class this year.

New picture frames on several chests of drawers.

The sparkle in Anne’s eyes.

And Lord, thank you for the sparkle. May it continue to shine brightly from those big brown eyes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting beside Anne at our children’s end-of-year music concerts tonight, I leaned over and whispered to her, “This is a better day than this day a year ago.”

Sure, I should have probably waited until the song was finished, but I simply couldn’t hold back.

Her eyes fixated on our sweet kiddos, Anne stole a quick glance my way, just long enough for me to see that my words registered with her in the way I had hoped.

One year ago today, we learned that she had been officially diagnosed with breast cancer.

Today?

Boy are we in a better spot. We’re not staring down the barrel of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. We’re seeing the sun begin to rise.  Day by day, Anne’s walking the path of recovery.

Today was a better day.

With great gratitude,

Van

I thought I’d share a fun little story because it reminded me how life is slowly returning to normal as each day passes. 

But before I tell you, an update on our Anne: As you might guess, she’s still beat. I’ve heard her describe herself to others as an electric car. Runs for a while, then she’s got to plug in (with a nap). When she’s discouraged, I say things like, “babe, you just punished the living day lights out of your body for the past year. Of course you feel whupped.” 

Actually, all of us feel whupped to one degree or another. It’s been on my mind as I ready for the coming weekend’s event.

This very weekend I will be competing in the U.S. Masters National Swiming Championships at North Carolina’s very own, state of the art Greensboro Aquatic Center. Through all of our cancer battle, I’ve managed to keep my training up (thank you, Anne and Suzanne), even if sometimes I’ve felt like a dead weight in the water. I love to compete, so why not right? 

Needing every advantage I can get now that I’ve graduated into the “midlife” age groups as I’ve dubbed them (40-44), I bought myself a fancy new racing tech suit designed to make you sleeker and faster through targeted muscle compression. 

It arrived today, so I pulled it out of the box to show to Anne. Laying it on the bed (pictured here with a razor for scale), I glanced at her eyes to see her reaction (thinking she’d say something about the bangin’ color or style).

Nope. She sat there with big eyes, a perplexed grin, and an evident look of astonishment. 

I read her mind. 

“Yeah, it’s a little tight. Takes about 20-30 minutes to put it on,” as I began miming the act of shimmying the suit on millimeter by millimeter. 

Still no words from Anne. 

“Okay I know it sounds crazy but doesn’t it look cool?”

Anne: “it’s a great color…but husband, how on earth are you going to get that on?”

“Little bit by little bit? You know. You hold your breath, tug a little, rest and repeat.”

“And where do you do this?” asked Anne with a sly, amused look, still not sure she’s believing what she’s hearing. 

“In the locker room. With all the other dudes. Doing the same thing,” I nonchalantly explain.

<Anne chuckling>

“Yep! I call it the first warm-up!”

<both laughing hard>

We swimmers really are a rare breed.  

Wish me luck!  I’ve got the hometown advantage, which is especially neat because Mom and Dad will be there to watch, just as they did over two decades ago. If any of you want to stop in and cheer, I’d love it.  Here’s the meet info: http://www.usms.org/comp/scnats16/

Remember the theme song for that wonderful TV show “Life Goes On”?

 “Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra…La-la how the life goes on.”

I’m humming that in my head today. One day at a time, life goes on. 

Thankful. 

To my precious Anne,

Last radiation treatment tomorrow. Is there a word to express the relief?!

I’ve been thinking about tomorrow this whole week. Seemed unimaginable only a few months ago. But here we are!

My eyes are wet as I type these words. If I could single out each tear, I think you’d probably see the whole cast of characters from Inside Out…

I thought I would feel a tsunami of joy watching you run across the finish line tomorrow.  But I feel really sad.  I’ve been sitting here at my desk, sobbing, wondering “what’s wrong with me?!  I should be doing high-kicks and cartwheels!”

But it all came crashing through the walls of heart. I hate what you’ve had to go through. It makes me so, so sad Annie. You’ve endured so many losses, small and large.  You lost your hair. You lost quality time with our sweet kiddos. You lost your taste buds. Your energy. You lost opportunities to do things you love like serving at school, art, working with me (okay maybe that’s a stretch :-)). You lost your breasts. The chance to play in the snow with the kids. You lost blood. And physical strength. And the sense of well-being that we all take for granted.

But as everyone can attest, you did not lose your spirit, your spark.

Nor did you ever lose sight of your Redeemer Jesus, who has held your life in His tender care.

I wanted to run this last leg of the race with you in high spirits, overjoyed and charged to carry you piggyback across the line, your arm raised with a defiant clinched fist as you shake it at the Thief.  Maybe tomorrow that’s how I’ll feel.

Tonight, well, I’m grieving. You’ve endured tremendous losses this past year, the weight of which feels heavy on me.

This brought to mind sweet, inspired words penned in a letter by a man who suffered severe hardship throughout his life.  Here’s what the beleaguered, battered, exhausted apostle Paul wrote to his beloved church in Philippi…

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Annie, despite all the losses, you’ve gained so much this year.

I’m with you to tomorrow’s finish line, and beyond…

K.C.A.!

With love,

Your husband

 

 

At 9:00 a.m. every weekday for the past five weeks, my faithful sidekick and chauffeur – my mom – and I hop in her car for a 15 minute commute to Duke Cancer Center. By 9:20, I’m sporting a fashionable hospital gown and sitting beside Mom in a small waiting room, where we bide time trying to guess the answer to the daily trivia question scribbled on a white board by a thoughtful staff person who knows that little things like fun trivia make a difficult start to a day a bit brighter.  Did you know that in the entire state of Wyoming there are only two escalators?

At 9:30, I’m stretched out on a platform surrounded by an imposing radiation machine and worker-bee radiation therapists who tape cameras to my tummy and focus lasers on tattooed dots on my chest, indelible markers needed to demarcate the boundaries for radiation. Yep, I boast not one, not two, but four of the world’s tiniest tattoos.

By 10:00,  I have checked off yet another of my 30 radiation treatments. After slathering a handful of goopy cream on my burned skin, I go about my day. As you can guess, my skin is starting to yell, “UNCLE!”  Thankfully, the finish line is in sight.  25 down, 5 to go.

This past Tuesday I had the privilege of being the first person to embrace a sister-warrior as she walked out of her last radiation treatment and crossed her hardcore-treatment finish line.  I handed her a bouquet of celebratory pink and yellow flowers.  We hugged on our non-burned sides as tears flowed. Gratitude. Relief. She had finally arrived at a day she had long awaited. That day that feels so far away at the moment of diagnosis.

I’ve had my head down, placing one foot in front of another, living out the daily portion of sufficient grace for nearly a year now.  Sharing tears of joy with my cancer fighting friend lifted my eyes to see ahead and taste of the relief that awaits me this coming Friday.  I wonder what I will do.  I’m sure tears will flow once again.  And other new friends in the waiting room will celebrate with me.

Five more days.  I won’t miss that cold radiation room.  I will look back on those daily 20 bizarre and vulnerable minutes of radiation with wonder, however.  The love of Christ and the presence of his Spirit have gone with me into the strangest, most chaotic, far away, lonely, foreign places of life…the far side of the sea.  Like my tiny tattoos, God’s relentless love has been forever etched on my heart a little deeper each and every morning in that big, cold room with the warning sign “VERY HIGH LEVEL OF RADIATION” hanging on the door.

Where can I flee from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?…If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  Psalm 139:7, 9-10

“Even there,” the Psalm promises.  Yes, even THERE.

My tattoos will be a lifelong reminder of this incredible grace.  At least until the day when Christ comes and makes all things new, my marred, scarred and tattooed body included.  So, I’ll lift my eyes to look for that blessed day.  The finish line of all finish line days.  This Friday will simply be a taste. A really, really good taste.

 

 

Today Anne had her first radiation treatment.

I just caught up with her…and where oh where do I start.

Over the course of the last week, she and I have talked about the startling paradox of radiation treatment.  We grow up being told – and thus endeavoring – to avoid radiation at all costs. It’s scary and harmful and makes us think of third appendages, brain tumors, and Godzilla.

Yet, to kill cancerous cells, the medical profession still champions radiation treatment. In big whopping doses. Which Anne got today. It’s the weirdest feeling, she relayed.

Here are the first two things Anne said to me in describing what it was like:

“It’s the closest thing to an alien abduction.”

“It’ll screw with your head.”

Admittedly, I had formed this mental picture of Anne walking into an X-Ray lab, putting on a fancy lead apron, and sitting idly as a technician pulsed a few bursts of radiation onto her left chest area.

Yeah, good Van.

Nope, not even close. A group of medical physicists painted her entire chest with runes and constellations in various colors, literally strapped her into a large radiation machine made for one, and (through a microphone from another room) instructed her to hold her breath as a huge menacing eyeball roved her body, shooting long 20-second bursts of lethal radiation at her left chest cavity.

Sounds more like a spa treatment for a convicted terrorist if you ask me.

As Anne has learned from talking with a few cancer-fighting friends she’s made during her journey, many say the experience of receiving radiation is the more difficult of the two treatments (chemotherapy being the other).

This surprised me.

“Why do you think that is?” I asked my insightful, ninja-warrior wife.

“The sense of solitude is overwhelming. You feel utterly alone. The doctors are in another room, talking to you over a microphone. Nobody wants to be where you are, in that room. With chemotherapy, you are surrounded by caregivers. With radiation, it’s you and a machine. You lie there exposed and helpless as medical physicists watch from far away. It really does feel like an alien abduction.”

As I sat here, mouth agape, transfixed on Anne’s every word, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that each of her words was wrapped with a smile. I wouldn’t be smiling.  Nope, definitely not.

But Anne was.

Not a fake smile. Not a “this-is-fun” smile. It was a smile that certainly seemed to emanate from a genuine love and appreciation for the advances in medical technology that are giving her hope for a long, fruitful life ahead.  But more importantly – and at a deeper level – I sensed in her smile that she knows she’s not alone.

I think I’m right about that smile. But I’ll let her tell you.

(No pressure sweetheart.)

With hope in this journey,

Van

 

 

We Fletchers enjoyed a beeeeyooootiful day outside playing in the warm Sunday afternoon air. 

As I was shooting baskets with the kids, Anne called timeout and asked them to come sit with her for just a second. She summoned me as the iPhone photographer. For a very particular reason.

Snap. There are my beauties. Sitting on the hot and cold coolers that have received over 180 meals from all of you. 

She asked me to post this picture, with the encouragement to tap into my “creative writing skillz” to express our profuse gratitude for feeding us over the past nine months.

Thing is, I got nuthin’. This picture says it. 

  

Thank you Raleigh. 

Thank you St David’s School. 

Thank you Christ the King Presbyterian Church. 

Thank you friends, here and across the country (literally!). 

We are loved…and we see it, feel it, know it, and are humbled by it. 

With inexpressible gratitude,

Van, Anne, Jack, Luke and Sarah. 

PS – Next week (7th) Anne begins radiation. Pray for endurance, comfort, and effectiveness. Love to you all. 

last. chemo. treatment.

I don’t quite have the energy to capitalize those letters. Though I have a significant portion of treatment remaining, I am happy to say the toughest days will soon be behind me. I’m making it! With lots of help, that is…

…which I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Samuel Rutherford wrote, “Whenever I find myself in the cellar of life’s affliction, I always look about for wine.” If anyone is wondering what God’s love–the choicest of wine–looks like, there are three stand-outs for me. (When I share these with folks, I get teary every time.)

FIRST stand-out: our kids. We knew from the get-go that shielding them from the woes of cancer would be impossible. We also knew God would use this trial in some good way…some uniquely fashioned way for each of them. Jack, Luke, and Sarah have seen mommy puny, pokey, pukey and bald. Well, Sarah never saw me bald.  She didn’t want to whatsoever. I don’t blame her. Each time I saw my own hairless head in the mirror I was a bit freaked out.  Even still, our kids have grown, have known love, have gotten to know Jesus in new ways, and have had a good year. It took a village. His love endures forever.

A vignette for you…

Sarah’s angst over mommy having cancer showed up in two main ways: Repeated inquiries about when my hair would return. And wakeful nights. Night lights and stuffed animals didn’t offer much consolation.  She needed presence.  Loving, reach-out-and-hold-you presence. Grandma to the rescue!  (Yes, Virginia, there is a Wonder Woman.)  Then, sure enough, as soon as my hair started its comeback, so did Sarah’s sleep.  His love endures forever.

The SECOND way I’ve known God’s love? 180 meals. Count ’em: ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY.  The bounteous gift of meals, meals, meals has been a salient reminder of God’s care for me. In a couple of weeks I’ll be moving from our side porch to the basement two coolers which held specially-delivered meals for the last nine months.  It’s going to be a poignant moment.  A sense of arrival.  But I’m going to miss walking by them each day as they seem to call out, “God loves you.”  Now I’m rethinking my plan…I wonder how much it would cost to bronze them?  His love endures forever.

The THIRD stand-out experience has been the comforting presence of my faithful God.  For me, fighting cancer is an experience of abundance and desolation. The journey is rich and brimming with surprising grace, love, and provision.  And it’s bleak with loneliness, fears, physical pain and long nights of sleeplessness.  An anxious heart is sometimes to blame for the sleeplessness.  Often, my inside-out, upside-down, rip-torn, drugged-up body is the culprit.  It’s a bit out of sync with the cadence of normal life.  However, each morning mercies are new.  Time after time the grace-thread by which I’m “hanging in there” proves enough.  Day by day my soul is being renewed.  Through it all, I can tell you, God is faithful and he is present.  His love endures forever.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  His love endures forever.” Psalm 136:1

Gets me every time.