State of Confusion

I have waited my entire life for one thing. And last night it finally happened! Leading up to last evening, I knew that there would be ugly crying. I am beyond grateful that they were tears of joy. Now you might be asking yourself, what could possibly be so important that I would hope and pray for one thing for several decades, without it coming to fruition? What one goal could be so meaningful as to inspire me to continue to remain optimistic year after year after year?

The Super Bowl of course! And last night, after decades of waiting, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl! Just typing those words nearly invokes more ugly crying, but I will keep it in check long enough to address a very important issue…the existence of the apparently little known state of Missouri. Thanks to a rather infamous tweet immediately following last night’s game, I feel compelled to share a little excerpt from my manuscript that highlights the geographical conundrum that haunts me even now, twenty years after my departure from Kansas City.

I was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in a year that I do not wish to disclose as it forces me to remember my current age and somewhat recent(ish) milestone birthday. Now let us quickly dispense with the important burning questions. It is pronounced Missouri (miz-ur-ee) with an emphasis on the “ur” and with an “i” (long e sound). It is not “miz-er-uh.” You will note the lack of an “a” in its spelling. It is also not “misery” as the tired joke would suggest. But most importantly, Missouri and Kansas are not the same state. Yes there is also a Kansas City, Kansas. In fact, it shares a border with Kansas City, Missouri. But Missouri is still a separate state. Why, you ask, would I state something so seemingly obvious? Well that is because ninety-eight percent of the time, the immediate response to the sentence “I am originally from Kansas City, Missouri” is one of the following questions or declarative statements:

“Oh…what is it like growing up in Kansas?” I wouldn’t know. I just said I am from Missouri.
“Wow. Kansas. So it’s really flat there, right?” Yeah, I have also heard that little rumor about Kansas. But I cannot speak from experience, as I grew up in Missouri.
“Kansas? Well, I guess you’re not in Kansas anymore!” That is right. Because I wasn’t there to begin with…hence why I said I am from Kansas City, Missouri.

Now I could see how people might make assumptions had I merely stated “I am originally from Kansas City.” That would have left things open to interpretation and might invite the aforementioned questioning/commentary. However, knowing this reflexive dismissal of an entire midwestern state is so pervasive, I am always careful to include the “Missouri” after “Kansas City.” Even then, the questions are surprisingly the same. The even more surprising part is the varying degrees of incredulousness when confronted with the fact that there exists a Kansas City, within the state of Missouri. Some people seem convinced that I have fabricated its existence. When you find yourself defending your city’s existence to a flat-earther/alien conspiracy-theorist, you know that your city has an image problem. Then there are those that think perhaps I am really just from St. Louis, MO. Nope… that is yet another city within the state of Missouri, and it is on the other side of the state, no less.

Of course for people who grew up in either KCMO or KCK as the vernacular goes, there are stereotypes about people who live in each of those cities and a very subtle rivalry on behalf of a few. Though I suspect that any real rivalry is likely born from the frustration that comes with having to explain, ad nauseum, the difference between Missouri and Kansas. Alright, I suppose that should suffice for the geography portion of our discussion. However, geographical rivalries aside, it is important to point out that given the proximity of Kansas, and the fact that it does not have a separate NFL team, a great many people in Kansas are Chiefs fans.

And as long as we are challenging assumptions here, I should add that I did not grow up on a farm, nor did I have cows. We did have dogs…many dogs…including two white and black ones. But no cows. And no, I have never milked a cow or any other farm animal, despite what you might ascertain given my deep love of all things dairy. I have been to farms (mostly my grandfather’s chicken farm in Arkansas as a child), so maybe that gives me a tiny bit of street cred….or pasture cred, as it were. But I just needed to dispel the myth that all of us from the Midwest grew up on farms, know how to birth a calf, and/or actually know the difference between hay and straw. Yes, there is a difference. No, I do not know what it is.

But what I do know is that Kansas City, is a city full of people so passionate about their Chiefs that even if they, say, move to California for many years, they still dress themselves, three kids, and one dog in Chiefs gear on Sundays…they still pace back and forth during important games, keeping hope alive year after year…and they still ugly cry when their beloved Chiefs win the Super Bowl! Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs, Super Bowl winners at long last!

Holy Waterbed

Ninety-six years ago today, my grandmother was born. I had envisioned this day would involve a visit, a meal, and undoubtedly some dessert, as I have always, to the dismay of my inner, self-anointed nutritionist, shared her fondness for sweets. However, God and the universe had other plans, and she passed away on December 17th, a mere week before Christmas and twelve days shy of that birthday dessert.

As you might imagine given her age, she had amassed quite the impressive repertoire of life experiences. She had five children, four grand-children, and five great-grand-children. My grandmother attended college, spoke several languages, worked outside the home, traveled to more countries than I can count, cooked and baked prolifically, volunteered, attended mass every day, and drove until we could no longer, in good conscience, allow her to do so. She was truly the matriarch of our family, in every sense, and I spent a month each summer living with her, yielding some of my fondest childhood memories.

But there was another, unspoken yet more important, way in which she left an indelible impact on me. And it is only now, as I write these words, that I realize I never shared this with her. Yes…I know…there should have been plenty of time to share somewhere in those ninety-five plus years. Yet somehow, despite the fact that I wrote about it in my manuscript over a year ago, it just did not occur to me to tell her. As it is twelve days too late to remedy that, I will just have to hope that, as a woman of incredible strength, wisdom, and intuition, she simply knew. Ironically, her greatest impact on me likewise came without much overt verbalization. Having survived endometrial (uterine) cancer, a mere year prior to my own cancer diagnosis, my grandmother was the ultimate example of faith and strength.

Shortly after I was diagnosed at age eleven, I lay on my waterbed thinking about my reality. Yes, I had a waterbed. In 1989, it was still cool. And for any readers born in the late nineties or beyond, I will be sincerely flattered if google sees a significant uptick in the search term “waterbed,” as a result of this post! Alright, back to my contemplative waterbed scene. I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, and wondered whether or not I would be OK…whether or not I might die from this disease. Quite oddly, I never allowed that thought to really take hold in my mind. I remember telling myself that since my own grandmother had recently survived cancer, that surely I would do the same. That was it. It was decided.

It was not a formal prayer. I do not think I even asked God to heal me in that moment. Instead, it was as if I acknowledged that God and I had some type of arrangement or understanding that I would simply be ok. “Hey God. We’re good, right? Yes? Ok, good.” It felt as simple as that. I can only wish my current adult practices of prayer and faith were that simple. While I would not wish to relive that experience, I would happily take back some of that simple, blissful faith, without the side of the adolescent awkwardness, of course.

It is that simple example of spirituality for which I would thank my grandmother, if had a few more moments with her. And perhaps, given the symbolism of water throughout many different religions, it was appropriate that the impression of my grandmother’s faith was appreciated while lying on a waterbed. Happy birthday to my grandmother, and may she rest in eternal peace.

The First Cut

Shortly after reaching the awkward, angsty age of eleven, I noticed a change in my body. No, not that kind of change. This was not the ominous harbinger of womanhood. Instead it was the signpost of something more sinister than even adolescence. For months I had what was thought to be a superficial wound in my right leg that simply would not heal. There had been no trauma, though a spider bite had been posited as a possible cause. Needless to say, I still hate spiders. Yet despite the lack of a probable mechanism, there remained this unexplained, non-healing ulcer. What was not readily apparent was that, beneath that lesion, lurked a softball-sized tumor.

On what was to be the auspicious occasion known as the first day of sixth grade, I awoke with fever and ear pain. My mother took me to my pediatrician to confirm my presumed ear infection. While I was there, he looked at the lesion and, seeing it still had not healed, sent us immediately to a dermatologist’s office upstairs in the same building. It is only now that I realize there is no way my pediatrician knew exactly what was going on, given how rare this tumor is in the pediatric population. But he definitely knew something was not right. I also now know how extremely unlikely it is to get a same day dermatology appointment. But due to a highly unlikely appointment scheduling miracle (or perhaps a phone call from a concerned pediatrician), there I was. The dermatologist took one look at it, and the next thing I knew, he was wielding a scalpel and cutting off a sample for biopsy. Sixteen biopsies and eleven surgeries later, I still remember crying when he cut into me. I suppose you always do remember your first time.

They told my mom they would call her in a week to discuss the results. Instead they called her four days later, on a Friday, to inform her I had a type of cancer known as dermatofibrosarcoma, for which I needed surgery. Thirty years later, I still remember many details of that day, Friday, September 15th, 1989. I recall the drive to the hospital, being angry that mom dared drink a diet Dr. Pepper in front of me while I was NPO (nil per os, which is Latin for the torture of fasting prior to anesthesia), what I was wearing (a black cotton jumper with pale peach shirt–yes I am judging my own fashion choices as I write this), and my fear of pain and needles, which is laughable now. As the nurse and anesthesiologist wheeled me back to the operating room, I remember my grandmother crying. The distinctive, noxious smell of inhaled anesthetic (gas) is a scent that I could place anywhere. As I counted backwards from 100, I thought about how the gas smelled like white out, a smell that transports me back to that cold OR. Although I had no way of predicting the number of subsequent encounters I would have in the operating room in the years following my cancer diagnosis, it almost feels apropos that my diagnosis and first surgery came in September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As September draws to a close, I want to recognize and honor all the survivors of childhood cancer, those who are still fighting, and those who are no longer with us physically but who have touched our lives in immeasurable ways.

Choking Hazards

As a pediatrician who discusses a myriad of safety concerns with parents throughout each day, I consider myself a self-appointed pseudo-expert on choking hazards. Honestly, I discuss it so many times during the day that even I want to roll my eyes at the monotony. However, the fear of a missed opportunity ending in a childhood death, motivates me to push through my talk over and over and over. Apparently when you discuss the same topics ad nauseum at work, there is some spillover at home. Once while at a restaurant, my youngest child wanted the grapes that came with his meal. I told him he needed to wait until I cut them into small pieces, because they are a choking hazard. Upping his game 40 decibels, he protested loudly “I want choking hazards.” His sister responded “It’s all fun and games, until mommy is doing the Heimlich on you.” We got some interesting looks from surrounding diners. We are used to it.

But the one thing I had not given much thought to was choking hazards in adults. That is until recently. A little over a year ago, we were having a particularly frantic morning. You know the type I am talking about. The type of morning that makes you feel as if you are herding psychotic, oppositional cats while blind-folded in a car wash? Anyway, after asking one child or another to put his shoes on for the fifth time, I turned to my oldest child, my daughter, who was complaining about not feeling well. She said she did not want to go to school. Having already determined that she was going to school no matter what, with obvious exception made for significant bleeding or other medical trauma, I turned to her and said “you need to get in the car, you’re going to school.” The “missy” was implied.

While that may have been what I said, what I was thinking was “When I was your age, I had cancer. So you’re not that sick. Now get in the car.”

Although I did not say it out loud, I managed to say some other regrettable things between the time it took us to get to the car and to drive to school, which is mercifully only seven minutes from home. I won’t digress too much here, but rest assured I will share it in its full, embarrassing glory in my book.

Despite the fact that I had stopped just short of saying those words, I could not help but feel that I had put that energy out there. It almost did not matter that I never said them, because I put that thought out into the universe in that way that invites the universe to punch you, full force, in the face. It would be several more months before I would understand why she did not feel well that day. And it would be more than a year before I would fully understand all of the reasons that made her feel sick that day….and many days thereafter. Sadly, I am embarrassed to admit that it would take a non-medical person to highlight the severity for me. Although I am no stranger to humility, I have spent the last year choking on those words that never quite escaped my mouth.

This past year has been quite the learning experience, in that euphemistic way in which a particularly brutal, painful experience accelerates personal growth that you didn’t really feel warranted the degree of turmoil associated with the lesson. Then again, I can be a slow learner. One of the most important lessons was really more of a “reminder” than it was a de novo lesson. My much needed memory-jog pertained to comparison and judgment. The reason I deem it a “reminder,” is the fact that on paper I think most of us grasp this concept. ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged.’ ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’ Feel free to insert additional, illustrative cliches.

But in the moment, we may forget. And by “we,” I mean “I.” The thing that I failed to recognize, as I was hurriedly rushing my kids out the door, was that everybody’s journey is different. Yes, the irony of the fact that I’m editing a book about my own journey is not lost on me. But it took witnessing my daughter’s journey to remind me that we all fight battles, whether they are obvious or hidden, abrupt or insidious. No one can assume that their journey is any more difficult than that of another, nor can anybody tell a person how to traverse his or her individual path. Truthfully, it brings tears to my eyes to think that I was so quick to assume that just because my daughter did not have cancer, that she would sail so easily through the choppy waters of middle school. Let’s be honest. Does anyone really sail through middle school anyway? Did I mention I was an overweight nerd with permed bangs?

I felt emotional as I drove her to her first day of sixth grade, mostly because I hate that she is growing up so fast. In the recent words of my 4 year old, “Mommy is hate a bad word?” Yes. Yes it is. It is also a completely accurate description, as I would definitely opt to keep my baby girl small for at least a few more years. But as I neared school, I became aware of another emotion….a twinge of envy. I thought back to my first day of sixth grade, which I missed entirely. I had my first biopsy that day, and although I returned to school that week, I would be out for much of the next month having two surgeries. So I felt simultaneously grateful and jealous that my daughter was attending her first day of sixth grade. She looked beautiful….happy….and had the notable absence of permed bangs. What could possibly go wrong? PSA-This is nearly always a terrible question to pose to the universe. Sadly her absences over the year would partially eclipse the joy of seeing her attend her first day.

For likely obvious reasons, I will not elaborate on my daughter’s health or path. It is her own personal story, to be held close to her heart or shared, should she ever choose to, in a manner she sees appropriate. But I will share that she is doing so much better and is back to school full time. My heart aches to think of her pain but melts when I see her smile, hear her laugh, or see the most recent funny meme she has texted me. And while the days of secretly regarding her as my mini-me are gone, they are replaced with endless opportunities in which to be proud of the truly amazing person…gulp…woman she is becoming. The words, upon which I choked these last months, have been replaced with a different type of lump in my throat.