I try to live every day of my life journey in gratitude and
love. I am especially grateful for special people in my life who are wise
beyond their years and have sometimes unexpectedly taught me valuable life
lessons. I am grateful for those who have made my life worth living, and those
who make my life easier and more joyful. I like to think of these special
people as the angels in my life.
One of my angels is Tiffany. She is the cousin of my
daughter-in-law Elizabeth. This wise and witty young woman had a liver
transplant when she was 18 and then less than a decade later her liver started
failing her. She underwent numerous bouts of unsuccessful chemotherapy and
medical treatments for several years.
At our family Thanksgiving holiday in Corpus Christy, Texas,
she announced that she “had enough of being picked at and prodded and infused
with chemicals.” She said she had done all that she could do and had resigned
herself to THE reality. In her witty manner Tiffany explained that she had
directed her doctor to give her plenty of morphine when the time was right to
take her to “Marguarita-Land.” She also announced that she was in the middle of
planning a “bad-ass” celebration party of life and all things good that was
taking place at the beginning of January. We were all going to eat and dance
ourselves silly. We all started chanting, “Party! Party! Party!” Tiffany burst
out laughing! To most families this might sound inappropriate, but we loved her
dearly and we knew that each of us surrounding her at the table would also not
be leaving this earth alive. We also knew that being inappropriate was
sometimes appropriate.
I had just been diagnosed with leukemia three months before
and was given a poor prognosis…
About 3 a.m., hours after everyone had gone to sleep,
Tiffany and I tiptoed into the kitchen to sneak a piece of pie and surprised
each other. We talked well into the morning. I was 57 when I was diagnosed. I
had lived a great life. I was married to a man who was not only my husband since
I was 19, but also my best friend and someone I was still crazy about. I had
children, grandchildren, and several careers. I was working my way through the
reality of accepting was is and accepting what is not.
Tiffany was only 28. My heart ached for her.
She said that she had lost some friends along her journey with
cancer and some friends unexpectedly surfaced. She said that she now understands
that when her friends stress about petty nonsense, it wasn’t petty nonsense to
them. It was their life and it was okay. Tiffany came to a place where she
realized the rest of the world did not revolve around her illness. She was not
afraid, but she was thankful for modern medicine and morphine to eliminate the
suffering. She helped me immensely that night – my wise and courageous little
angel.
Tiffany passed before Christmas that year. She was
surrounded by most of her family. Everyone was crying at her bedside, when she
suddenly woke up. Apparently, she had not been given enough morphine. She saw
everyone crying and proclaimed, “Why are you crying? I ain’t dead yet!” The
room filled with laughter. And then quietly she passed smiling. Having the last
word was always her thing.
We had the party in January, as she instructed, and ate,
danced, hugged each other and laughed. We celebrated Tiffany. It was good.
She has been with me my entire journey. I carry her in my
heart. Thank you MaMa BeBe for your daughter. She gives me great comfort.
Dr LV - I just sort of stumbled onto your Face Book CLL site, and having lived in Corpus and loving Corpus, and having CLL myself, so I decided to read your note here. 1st, you are in great hands if you are on Ibrutinib. I'm 64 and have had CLL since 2006. I taught my Dr about Imbruvica last Spring and started it 4/1/2014 after my spleen ballooned up to 24cm and my WBC's were at 240K. My Dr was totally uncomfortable about me not starting IV chemo when my WBC's hit 100k, but i convinced him you do not treat CLL just due to high WBC's etc. He's a great doctor and a great human as well, and had solid reasons to want to treat me at 100k. Anyway, I have much much bigger fish to fry than the CLL, thus have always put it in perspective. I have a bad spine that has been operated on many times starting in 1982, and even though CLL will kill you, this spine will make you want to die. If my spine was not like it is, I would not have a medical care in the world, not even with the CLL. It is all relative. Reading about your Tiffany was nice and had me smiling. I know a lot about pain medications etc, and I am so glad that Tiffany had a Dr that would allow her to exit this world in a humane way. I've had enough poking and hacking on me due to my spine, and opiate distention, etc etc (thus I have some slight idea of how your dear Tiffany was looking at things).
ReplyDeleteOK, just hoping you are doing fine, as you should be since you are on Ibrutinib. I have a lot of information regarding your CLL drug, and again you are in good hands with it, and if it doesn't work later, there are several new CLL drugs that work like Ibrutinib that can be used on you. The folks using trial Ibrutinib with Dr Keating at M D Anderson where the drug was not working for whatever reason have been put on other drugs that work like Ibrutinib (targeted drugs that interrupt CLL instead of IV chemo's shot-gun approach). OK, I'm so glad you are on the Imbruvica. Regards to you, and I hope you are doing well. Daniel.
Wow ..imcredible story..obviously sad, but very inspiringtoo sisimultaneously..I just found your page, you seem very upbeat with a great attitude with right perspective..hope you're well..god bless you :)
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