Dowboy

June 12, 2015 / edebock / 11 Comments

This is one of my favourite photographs, taken of my older brother, Donald, and I when I was about four months old. Isn’t he cute? He looks like a perfect child and in many ways he was, but what you can’t see is the damage that had already been done to his brain when he suffered from encephalitis as the result of having measles about 10 months before this photo was taken. No, this isn’t a rant about vaccination, but it definitely could be!

Encephalitis is acute inflammation of the brain caused by either a viral infection or the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacking brain tissue. The most common cause is a viral infection and it occurs in approximately 1 in every 1000 cases of measles. It develops rapidly and requires immediate care; care that was not available in the small, isolated town where we lived in 1952. In fact, it was not until a few months had passed and Donald began to lose his words and exhibit other signs of brain damage that our parents realized that something was seriously wrong.

As I grew up, I came to realize that my big brother was different from other children and I loved him with a fierce and protective love that endures to this day. Though his brain injury robbed him of the ability to speak, I knew he loved me too. In fact, I remember Mom telling me how difficult it had been to discipline me when I was little because if she spanked me, Donald cried too! She also told me that before I could say his name, I called him Dowboy.

Donald has always been a gentle soul and very easy to love, but I remember one occasion when some neighbourhood boys teased me about my brother, the “retard”, a word that I have always hated with a passion. Perhaps, it was then that I learned the power of using my words. I was a timid child, known amongst my peers as a goody two-shoes, but in that moment I must have become a wild and vicious creature! I don’t remember what I said, but I dressed those boys down to such an extent that word got back to my parents about how I’d stood up for my brother, and my father speaks of it admirably to this very day!

Though I do remember my grandmother telling me more than once that I would always have to watch out for Donald, I don’t recall my parents ever making me feel that I would have to carry the burden of caring for him. Regardless, I grew up with a tremendous sense of responsibility for Donald that has remained with me through the years even though he lives a long distance from me.

With two other handicapped men, Donald lives in a fully staffed house in North Vancouver that is operated by the Community Living Society. CLS provides residential and personalized community-based support to individuals throughout the Lower Mainland of Vancouver and the Upper Fraser Valley. As a family, we are so blessed to know that Donald receives excellent, compassionate care and lives a productive and meaningful life.

In his earlier retirement years, my father was actively involved as a CLS board member and served as president of that board for several years. Until recently, he has been the primary family contact for everything to do with Donald’s care, but Dad celebrated his 92nd birthday last week and over the past couple of years, I have been gradually taking over that role. CLS is committed to working with the families of supported individuals so meetings have been scheduled when I’m in Vancouver to visit, phone calls have been made, and when necessary, paperwork shuffled by email or snail mail.

Then came this week! On Wednesday morning, I was approaching the second last green on the local golf course when my cell phone rang. It was Trudy calling; manager of Donald’s house, and a dedicated caregiver who has been involved in his life and therefore, mine, for over 30 years. She was phoning from the emergency ward to let me know that he had fallen and they were waiting for x-rays to be taken. To make a long story short, Donald had a fractured hip and underwent surgery yesterday. It has been killing me not to be there. In my head, I know there’s nothing I could do that isn’t already being done, but my heart wants to be with my Dowboy! Fortunately, one of his caregivers has been with him throughout each day since he arrived at the hospital and they have been texting me regularly with updates. The orthopaedic surgeon and the anesthetist were both in touch with my sister (a medical doctor) by phone to discuss the medical details. Today, the physiotherapists began working with Donald and they already had him standing up. A lady from his church even visited and brought him cookies! Yes, he is in good hands and, though my heart wants to be there now, I will wait until early August when I’ll be in Vancouver to help him celebrate his 65th birthday!

The best thing about pain

May 11, 2015October 7, 2015 / edebock / 8 Comments

I’ve often said that the best thing about pain is how good it feels when it stops! Yesterday was my first completely pain free day in the last three weeks and so far, today is going just as well.

Though I didn’t realize it at first, I was suffering a nasty reaction to the cancer treatment that I received on April 14th. The first few days after the treatment were fine; just the normal tiredness that I’d experienced after each of the previous ones. Then, I woke at about 3:30 one morning with excruciating stomach pain. I had no idea what was going on and neither did my family doctor. He ordered an x-ray and when that came back looking normal, he suggested an enema to ensure that there was no blockage anywhere. For a little while, I felt a bit better, but soon the fire in my belly was back. Pain filled days and sleepless nights followed, eventually prompting me to phone the cancer clinic and describe my symptoms to Brent, the nurse who coordinates the team that provides my care.

“I hate to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure we did that to you,” he told me!

Gee, thanks Brent!

Discovering that what I was experiencing was actually a fairly common reaction, especially in patients with dead and dying tumour cells in their system (that’s definitely the good part!) didn’t lessen the pain at all, but it did give me peace of mind. Brent also assured me that I should soon begin to feel better. Apparently, this kind of reaction usually occurs within a two week window following treatment and I was nearing the end of that. We discussed the fact that the lining of my stomach and intestines was likely badly inflamed and I made the decision to eat a very bland diet of apple juice, applesauce, toast, crackers, tea and broth for a few days to give my insides a chance to rest and heal. That seemed to help and sure enough, right at the two week point, things improved significantly. I was even well enough to spend a few days in Calgary celebrating two very special birthdays. Our granddaughter, Jami-Lee, had her fifth birthday on April 28 and her brother, Drew, turned seven on May 1.

I continued to experience intermittent pain until two days ago, but that too seems to have finally passed. Obviously, all of this has made it impossible for me to begin following the dietary and exercise recommendations related to my recent pre diabetes diagnosis. I had no choice but to put that on hold until I got this under control, but I’m eating well again and I’ve just returned from a brisk 20 minute walk. That’s a far cry from the recommended 30 minutes five times a week, but it’s a start. I also felt well enough to play my first round of golf of the season yesterday!

My real hope in all of this is that the treatment has been as hard on my tumours as it has been on the rest of me! We’ll know more about that when I go for CT and PET scans on July 24. These will provide the baseline for my next phase of therapy which won’t involve another treatment until sometime in the fall. I’m very thankful for that too! If I was facing another one in just a few weeks, as I have done until now, I think I’d be tempted to slink away and hide in a deep, dark cave!

Instead, I’m going to enjoy the summer… sunshine, camping, golfing, geocaching, time with family… !

Mother’s Day memories

May 9, 2015May 9, 2015 / edebock / 8 Comments

My earliest memories of Mother’s Day involve stopping in the flower garden before we left for church. Mom would cut a blossom, most often a carnation, for each of us and pin it to our lapel. We all wore red flowers except my father. His was always white. Red, if your mother is alive, Mom would explain, and white if she is not. Her mother, my Nana, was very much alive living just up the hill from us and down the block from our church. My Gran, Dad’s mother, passed away around the time I turned five. I barely remember her and I don’t remember when my father’s blossom was red.

We lived on BC’s Sunshine Coast where flowers bloom profusely in early May. I don’t remember when we stopped keeping this very old Mother’s Day tradition, but it was likely when we moved to Vancouver where our new yard hadn’t been landscaped yet and there were no flowers growing.

Had we kept up the tradition, I would be wearing a white blossom for the first time tomorrow and the impact of that has hit me hard this past week or so. When I went into the card shops in search of birthday cards for two grandchildren who celebrated their big days recently, I was confronted with huge displays of Mother’s Day cards. Sending a card was a tradition that I continued even after Mom lost her sight and after she had difficulty remembering who I was. She could still finger the card and Dad could read its message to her. He could also gently remind her who it was from. She knew that she was loved.

This year she is gone and I have no one to send a Mother’s Day card to. Tomorrow will be a bittersweet day of remembrance. For a few moments tomorrow, in my mind at least, I’ll still be a little girl standing in a flower garden with her mother pinning a red carnation to her lapel.

Farewell dear friend

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 / edebock / 22 Comments

There’s a party going on in heaven today. I’m absolutely certain of it! Our dear friend, Mary, went to be with her Lord in the wee hours of this morning and our loss is definitely heaven’s gain.

Mary Cameron
1917 – 2015

Photo: Deborah Proctor

Life was not always kind to Mary, but she took it in stride and never lost her fiery spirit. She came to Canada from her beloved Ireland as a war bride, leaving behind a home equipped with all the conveniences of the day and finding herself on the lonely Canadian prairie without electricity or running water. She knew the heartbreak of losing a child and endured the break-up of her marriage, but oh how fiercely she loved and how vibrantly she laughed! At 98 years old, Mary still lived alone in her own house and took part in activities at the local seniors’ centre where she was an avid bridge player. She stopped coming to church regularly only when we all stopped speaking loud enough for her to hear us. Of course, it couldn’t possibly have been that her hearing was going!

Mary was tiny in body, but huge in character. For the past twenty years or more, she was known as my husband’s “other wife.” At the reception following the funeral of an elderly gentleman from our church, a lady from out of town met Mary and the two of them struck up a conversation. Later in the afternoon, before she left, the lady returned to Mary’s table to bid her good bye. At that point, Richard was sitting beside Mary and the woman, obviously without looking too closely, said “Oh, this must be your husband.” Mary immediately went off into peals of laughter and from that moment on, always referred to Richard, who was 33 years her junior, as her husband. She loved nothing better than to raise eyebrows by referring to him as such in public settings where she would then have to tell the story of how she became his “other wife.”

Richard was MC at Mary’s 98th birthday celebration just three weeks ago where she was as bright and vibrant as ever. Sadly, I wasn’t able to be there as I’d had a treatment earlier that week and was radioactive. I was looking forward to popping over and having tea with her as soon as I felt well enough (that’s a story for another day) but now I’ll have to wait until we meet again on the streets of gold.

Mary was especially close to our youngest son, Nate. During his teenage years, she hired him to do her yard work. When he finished, she’d always have a cold pop waiting for him and they would sit and visit. Since he’s been grown and gone from home, whenever Mary saw me, she’d ask how “her boy” was doing and when he was coming home again. When he did, even if if it was only for the day, he’d almost always drop in to see her.

Three years ago, when Richard and I were performing in a community theatre production, Nate came home to attend one of our dinner theatre performances and took Mary as his date! Like any good date would, he took flowers when he went to pick her up and when I stopped by their table after the performance, she was glowing!

Mary was always one to speak her mind and you never knew for sure what she might say! The first time Nate brought Colleen home, he took her over to meet Mary who, after spending a few minutes getting to know his girl, expressed her approval by telling him that she was very happy that he hadn’t brought home a trollop! That’s a Maryism that won’t soon be forgotten! I’m sure it will long be part of our family lore.

While chatting with my daughter this afternoon, I asked her how I could possibly put our Mary into words and she gave me a great illustration. I’m not a Dr. Who fan like she is, but according to Melaina, Mary was like the TARDIS, Dr. Who’s time machine/spaceship, “small on the outside, but endless on the inside.” Yes, our lives will definitely be a little less colourful without Mary in them, but oh how blessed we are to have known her!

No ordinary weekend

April 6, 2015April 6, 2015 / edebock / 10 Comments

This weekend Christians around the world celebrated the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10) It was definitely no ordinary weekend, but for our family, it was also no ordinary Easter.

Thirty years ago, a heartbroken young grandmother placed her first grandchild in my arms and walked away not knowing if she’d ever see him again. On Saturday evening, she sat across the table from me at his wedding reception. Her daughter, Nate’s birth mom, was at the next table. This was definitely no ordinary weekend!

Nathan was just three days old when he joined our family but there was already an unmistakable twinkle of mischief in his eyes and he has found his soulmate in Colleen, a beautiful and godly young lady with a mischievous twinkle to match his own! The wedding ceremony and the reception, complete with an inflatable bouncy castle in the corner of the hall to keep the youngest guests entertained, were a perfect reflection of the fun-loving and quirky but also very classy personalities of the bride and groom.

My weekend began with a moment of panic on Friday morning when I woke to discover that the five pound block of ground beef in our hotel room’s mini fridge was still frozen solid! I had a rehearsal dinner to prepare for approximately two dozen people and only a couple of hours until I needed to begin putting it together. Where there’s a will, there’s a way they say, so tying the meat into a plastic hotel laundry bag and dropping it into a bathtub of warm water, off I went to breakfast! The novel defrosting method worked wonders and by early afternoon I had three slow cookers filled with lasagna. (No, I didn’t prepare the meal in the hotel room! We transported the meat, along with all the other ingredients, to one of the bridesmaid’s homes.) Though I never want to be a caterer, the meal was ready right on time and received rave reviews. Once that was over with, I could relax and enjoy the rest of the weekend!

From the bride and groom’s self-written vows that reflected both the sanctity of the moment and the humour that permeates their relationship to their impromptu dance on the platform during the ceremony, the wedding was, in the words of one of our dear friends, “a wonderful, classy, down to earth celebration.”

For me, one of the highlights of the weekend was having all my children and grandchildren together in one place, something that doesn’t happen often. On Sunday morning, with the bride and groom off on their honeymoon, the rest of us gathered at their home to be for a relaxing brunch before having to go our separate ways. The Easter bunny somehow knew exactly where our five young grandchildren would be and ensured that there were chocolate eggs to be found!

After cleaning up and making sure that everything was ready for Nate and Colleen’s return, we headed for home stopping on the way for Easter dinner at my sister’s place. It was also a celebration of my nephew’s 22nd birthday and in his words, “a perfect end to a perfectly incredible weekend!”

Our beautiful children: Matt and his wife Robin, Nate and his lovely bride Colleen, Melaina and her husband Aaron

Uncle Nate and Auntie Colleen with our five grandchildren

She said yes!

January 22, 2015 / edebock / 12 Comments

During our ten days in Mexico, we intentionally cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. It was a time to unwind and forget about the pressures of life. We left our laptops at home and the cell phone was turned off. I wasn’t sure how well I’d handle being completely out of touch but it was great! I didn’t worry about anything. We’d left the phone number of our resort with our three grown children and with my sister so we knew that they could get in touch with us if they really needed to.

On Monday afternoon when we got back to our room after a long day of relaxing on the beach and doing a bit of snorkelling, we discovered that someone had slipped a tiny note under our door. My heart skipped a beat when I realized that we had a phone message!

Was it my father? At 91 years old and following a stroke in September, he’s quite frail. He’d been doing exceptionally well but had he taken a turn for the worse?

It only took me a moment to unfold the message and learn that something else had happened, something very exciting, something that couldn’t wait for us to get home to be shared!

The note needs a bit of interpretation but I knew in an instant that our youngest son, Nathan, had proposed to his girlfriend, Colleen, and she’d said yes!

We are absolutely delighted!

Welcome to the family, Colleen!

Letting it go… with thanksgiving and hope

December 31, 2014 / edebock / 6 Comments

In just a few hours, 2014 will be forever behind us. For me, it was a year filled with challenges and loss. At the beginning of the year, my smile looked like this

but now, it looks like this.

Like the rest of me, it’s a little worse for wear, but thankfully I still have much to smile about. As I reflect on the struggles of the past year, I’m ready to sing the refrain from Frozen that I, like most parents and grandparents, have heard a bazillion times this year.

Let it go, let it go!

Yes, I’m ready to let go of the negatives of 2014. Instead of dwelling on those things, I choose to hang on to the things that I have to be thankful for.

First and foremost, I’m thankful for a personal relationship with a God who never lets go of me! At the beginning of my cancer journey, He promised to take care of me and he has done just that. I’m thankful for the amazing team of medical people that He’s placed in my life and for the expertise He’s given each one of them.

I’m thankful beyond measure for the love and support of my amazing husband who has walked every step of the journey with me and who helps me hang on when I reach the end of my rope.

I’m thankful for my children, now young adults who make me very proud, and for my darling grandchildren. Being present for Simon’s birth in mid March was definitely one of the highlights of 2014!

Drew and Simon Jami-Lee

Nate Sam

I’m thankful that my father didn’t give up on life when Mom died in June and for the fact that he’s made a remarkable recovery from the stroke that he suffered in September. I’m thankful that we’ve been able to spend time with him this Christmas season.

I’m thankful for the fact that 2014 was the year that I finally reconnected with a cousin who lived with us for awhile when she was a toddler and I was a teen. Though she lives about 4000 km away, it’s been great having ‘little sis’ back in my life!

I’m thankful for amazing friends both near and far including those of you I’ve only met through blogging. I’m especially thankful for the other three-quarters of the Rav 4 and the fact that they convinced me to go to Vegas with them in November!

photo credit: Sheryl Culbert

Yes, even in a year like 2014, I’ve had much to be thankful for. Now’s a good time to let go of all the rest and to look forward to a brand new year. I choose to step into 2015 with hope.

I hope that my treatments continue to be successful and that they become less frequent. That alone would make 2015 a less crazy year! I hope that we can get through an entire year without a family crisis of any kind. I hope that I can enjoy each moment not worrying about the things over which I have no control and I hope that a year from now, I can once more look back with thanksgiving.

What do you have to be thankful for this year? What do you need to let go of? What are some of your hopes for the New Year?

The gift of relaxation

December 26, 2014December 27, 2014 / edebock / 10 Comments

We received our first Christmas gift a bit early this year and what a wonderful one it was! After a two day drive through the mountains, we arrived at our son Matt’s home in Vancouver in time for supper on Dec. 20th. After a quick meal, the three of us headed for Whistler where his in-laws have a ‘cabin’. Not the rustic sort of shelter that I grew up calling a cabin, but a lovely 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom fully equipped house. Robin, her parents and our two young grandson’s were already there. That evening, Matt and Robin presented us with our present… gift cards to Whistler’s Scandinave Spa to enjoy while they hit the ski hills the following day.

photo credit

Nestled into a snowy forested hillside, Scandinave Spa is a haven of peace and tranquility, definitely a little piece of heaven on earth! After walking through the spruce and cedar forest, we entered the reception area where we were issued towels, bathrobes and locker keys. There, the relaxation sequence was also explained: warm your body for 10 to 15 minutes, rinse in cold water for 20 to 30 seconds, then relax for 15 minutes. Repeat the sequence 3 or 4 times.

Our first stop was the eucalyptus steam bath where I could feel tension melting away as my body temperature rose. Ahh… what a wonderful sensation! I felt as though I could stay there forever but soon it was time to move on. Moving outdoors, we strolled down the heated walkway in the crisp mountain air and plunged into the 18ºC cold pool! Wow! That was definitely invigorating!

After relaxing in one of the comfortable solariums, we moved on to one of the outdoor hot pools where we enjoyed sitting under the thermal waterfall and letting the water pummel our shoulders, neck and back. Continuing the hot, cold, relax sequence, we visited both hot pools and the wood burning sauna, plunging into the cold pool or standing under the nordic shower after each hot session and relaxing in the solariums in between. We tried sitting by the outdoor fireplace but it was beginning to drizzle and we found it a bit too chilly. The spa is open year round though so a summer visit would likely include relaxing on the outdoor terraces.

I enjoyed every part of the experience but I knew almost from the beginning that my visit wouldn’t be complete without another session in the steam bath so our last sequence was identical to our first.

In addition to the therapeutic value of hydrotherapy, silence is also an essential component of the Scandinavian bath experience. Though there were a few people who didn’t seem to think that rules applied to them, most of the patrons honoured the no speaking rule making our three hours a soothing, serene experience, one I’d love to repeat someday!

Thank you, Matt and Robin!

Writer’s block

December 17, 2014 / edebock / 10 Comments

Yikes! It’s been almost a month since I posted anything here. I’m pretty sure this has been the longest dry spell since I started blogging seven years ago. Yes, my blog had a birthday earlier this month and I didn’t even acknowledge it with a post.

Lest any of my faithful readers begin to worry that something is seriously wrong, let me assure you that I’m fine. I did come down with a nasty cold immediately following my last treatment and I was under the weather for a little while but I blame the blog’s silence on a combination of the busyness of the season and writer’s block. It seems I simply ran out of things to say!

As I’ve mentioned before, I think the secret to Following Augustine’s longevity is its eclectic nature. Though I’ve loved sharing our experiences in faraway places, it’s been more than a travel blog. Family often shows up but it isn’t a mommy blog and while I occasionally focus on clothing, shoes or accessories, it definitely isn’t a fashion blog. Over the past fifteen and a half months, I’ve used the blog to share my cancer journey but it’s always been about more than that. My faith permeates every part of my life, including what I write, but this isn’t a religion blog either. Occasionally, I climb up on my soapbox and write about a cause that I feel strongly about but it’s definitely not a political or an activist blog. It really is a bit of many things and as a result, I can usually think of something to write about!

Lately, however, my writing brain has been blank! I have a feeling that that isn’t going to last though and I’m certainly not ready to call it quits! I’m in the middle of packing suitcases again and we’ll soon be off to Vancouver to spend Christmas with family there. If that doesn’t provide me with inspiration, I’m pretty sure our trip to Mexico in January will!

In the meantime, let me leave you with a cute conversation that our six-year-old grandson had with his parents lately.

Drew: I wonder how old Mickey Mouse is.
Mommy: Mickey Mouse is very old.
Daddy: Like older than Grammas and Grandpas.
Drew: Wow! Like 21?

Here’s my slightly older than 21 hubby with Drew and his two younger siblings on our recent pre-Christmas visit to Calgary.

School dreams and stress

October 28, 2014October 28, 2014 / edebock / 12 Comments

For many years, in spite of the fact that I enjoyed my teaching career, I had what I called my “school dreams” in the days leading up to each new school year. These were dreams in which everything went wrong. All a teacher’s worst nightmares would visit me as the end of August approached! One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about retirement has been the absence of these dreams; until recently that is.

Why in the world would I be having school dreams again more than seven years after retiring from the classroom? It happened again last night. This time, I was trying to teach a high school English lesson to a large class of students in a crowded area at the back of a busy hairdressing salon! Yes, my school dreams are like that; a curious mixture of realistic and just plain weird. Midway through the lesson, all but two of the students got up and went upstairs to some sort of student lounge. In spite of my pleading and threatening (definitely not effective teaching strategies), they refused to come down again. Over the years students leaving class and refusing to come back has been a fairly common theme in these dreams.

Teaching is a stressful occupation and during my career, though I anticipated the beginning of each new school year with excitement, I recognized that my strange dreams were a symptom of that stress.

Over the past 14 months, my life has been a series of one stressful event after another. I thought I was coping well but little by little, with each ensuing event, the stress built up until now it’s beginning to bubble over. According to the Holmes and Rahe Life Events Stress Test, which is supposed to give a rough estimate of how stress affects health, events including death of a close family member (Mom), major personal illness (cancer) and major change in health of a family member (Dad) have given me a 50-50 chance of succumbing to stress-related illness. I’m doing my best to combat that by continuing to eat well, exercise regularly and by ensuring that I get enough sleep but it’s absolutely amazing what’s stored away in the deep recesses of our brains. Apparently, mine still connects stress to teaching and is reacting to my current stress level with school dreams! How weird is that!

Now the challenge is to find ways to reduce the build up of stress and manage it better in the future.

Any suggestions?

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Photo: Deborah Proctor

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Let it go, let it go!

photo credit: Sheryl Culbert

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