Monday, November 30, 2009
Dear Friends,
Charlie and I made it to Durham a short while ago. It is a place I do not mind so much as it is has brought me help, mostly.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with our families. It was so great to be able to eat and move about and be with family.
Thursday night I had a few hours of upset tummy followed by the chills/shakes for a few hours. I would have thought it a mild bug except I had the same type episode last month. I remembered the last one was also on a Thursday and when I looked at the calendar I realized that both were exactly 16 days after fowlpox injections. I emailed the clinical trial doctor and he found it interesting and said we’d discuss it tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be a long day, I expect. We have to get to the Duke Cancer Center at 7 a.m. for my initial lab work (they will access my port-a-cath and leave that needle in for CT injection later); around 9 a.m. I’ll see my oncologist and presumably get my last clinical trial injection; at 10 a.m. I’m scheduled for the CT scan. After that I can finally have breakfast and something to drink! Then, we will wait for my 1:30 appointment with my surgeon when we will hopefully hear results from the CT scan.
Despite my efforts to be positive, I’m uneasy about what the results will be. I’ve been really strong the last 2 or 3 weeks, yet I occasionally have small pains or unusual sensations internally that always make me wonder. Hopefully it is just scar tissue from past surgeries. Please pray that I will have an accurate scan with no sign of cancer.
Saturday I was able to attend the service at the high school for Mr. Keith. It is still hard for me to call him D.J. When I think of high school, it is the image of him at the chalkboard in 314 that comes first to mind. He liked the temperature cold and even then he wore short sleeves! While he taught us a lot of math, he taught us a lot more. I remember one analogy he used. I can’t remember the mathematical point, but I remember the life lesson. It was about the wedding ring and how it binds husband and wife by a symbolic never ending circle. I remember how you don’t give up–laryngitis didn’t stop him from teaching trig. I remember how he wouldn’t stop teaching even 5 minutes before the bell, because 5 minutes times 25 kids was over 2 hours wasted. What a tremendous gift to have him as a teacher. And having Janet, too, was double the blessing. They perhaps helped mold more citizens of Floyd County personally than any other two people I know.
The acapella music at his service was so beautiful. The parents of a couple of singers used to play music with my dad and it transported me back to another place and time, revealing a connective knowing in my soul that needed no words. Similarly, grieving with Mr. Keith’s daughter, Jennifer, took me back nearly 30 years when we played in the softball infield together at Willis
Elementary. And Sharon Wood’s reflections on Mr. Keith were so insightful and reminiscent of him.
Usually the closing of the casket is the hardest part of any memorial service for me. But this time, it was the rolling of the casket from the high school auditorium and out the front door; an extraordinary epoch ended when Mr. Keith exited the doors of Floyd County High School for the last time.
With Love,
Lydeana
