Counting My Blessings
I love the musical “White Christmas”! There is a song in the show called, “Counting Your Blessings” which Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby sing that makes more sense to me as I get older, than the first time I heard it many years ago. One year ago, today I was sitting in a Baylor Scott and White surgical waiting room addressing my Christmas cards and waiting for updates from Dave’s OR nurse. We didn’t add the usual letter last year to the cards, because we didn’t know what that day’s outcome would be and how do you send that news in a holiday greeting? We decided that we’d share the news in the 2020 card, when the treatments and recovery were behind us and we had definite news to report. How little did we know about 2020!
This past year has been both the longest and shortest of my life. In many ways, the waiting both during surgery and in the week that followed at the hospital seem like yesterday and also a lifetime ago. I replay that week often and each time I do, the smells, sounds and anxiety are still very real. I discovered recently though, that Dave’s memory of the week is a little sketchier (guess the post-anesthesia fog and the pain meds were at work). I was looking for a photo on my phone and some pics of the hospital week popped up – most of which Dave did not recall asking me to take. It’s the first time he had really looked at them and the first time we talked about some of the details of that week.
I also replay the weeks that followed and while we haven’t talked about all of them – I’m sure our perspectives are different on that as well. Throughout the process, I have told David that I would rather be the patient than the caregiver. Not because I don’t want to take care of him, but because I have a more difficult time watching him in pain than I do enduring it myself. Watching him struggle with the nasal feeding tube, learning to swallow again, the anxiety the radiation mask caused, the pain that radiation caused both initially and even months later have been gut-wrenching at times. Walking the floor with him because the pain is intolerable was often the best I could do and it didn’t seem enough in the moment. I continue to hold my breath with every scan, follow-up appointment and doctor’s visit until we reach all the milestone dates. Throw in a pandemic for extra fun and it just adds to the weird year that has been the post-surgery recovery!
But, as I reflect back on those weeks, I have to remember to count the blessings that were there among the hardships. We were blessed with an incredible surgeon who cleared the margins and removed all the cancer. We were blessed with a caring OR staff that updated us every 90 minutes during the 7+ hour surgery and who let us sit with David in recovery for the hours that followed. We were blessed with wonderful nurses and a second surgeon who made the week and the unplanned PEG surgery less scary. We were blessed with an incredible speech therapist who taught Dave a new way to swallow so that he was eating again in only 3 weeks. We were blessed with incredible radiation staff members who made the whole experience less scary and easier to endure. We were blessed with a great fitness staff who helped keep up our physical and emotional stamina during radiation. We were blessed with a physical therapist who helped us get through the nerve/muscle pain and damage that threw us for a loop weeks after radiation ended. We were blessed with a new GP who listens and worries about Dave’s overall health and not just the cancer. We were blessed with friends who prayed, fed and continued to check on us all year. We were blessed with family who checked in regularly even if they couldn’t be here in person. We were blessed with three amazing children and their significant others who listened when we needed to vent, who hugged us a little closer, checked in a lot more often and who held up throughout it all. We were blessed with each other, a stronger marriage and a greater appreciation for our partner.
A year ago I had plans for a fun weekend getaway to commemorate the one year mark and then a very festive Christmas week to make up for the hospital one last year. Again, 2020 had other ideas. So instead, we will order in a fun dinner for two, reminisce a little about the year and then maybe watch a holiday movie. I’m thinking it will be “White Christmas”!!