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Pastimes : NNBM - SI Branch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clappy who wrote (27807)	7/26/2003 12:21:16 AM
From: elpolvo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 104197

chevy w. griswald- you ask some pretty personal questions on a public space and to tell you the truth i'd like to drop the subject in denial just for personal relief for awhile... but... i won't... because you ask... i will answer. toni is a cancer specialist RN and has worked at NM's most advanced cancer center for years. she doesn't "accept" anything just because it comes from the mouth of a doctor. she's been fully in charge of her treatment from day one. (as fully as a patient can be anyway) if she hadn't been, she'd already be dead. this woman is so incredible and unselfish that not only was she directing her own healing, she was subtly comforting and supporting the rest of us in our fears of losing her. maybe it's the nurse training in her? she didn't know about the recurrence on the belize trip. it was a celebratory atmosphere for all of us - we could hardly believe how wonderful it was that she'd beat it and that we were on the trip together - it was lovely. she and tom had put off committing for the trip last year so the rest of us put up their deposit in advance and they paid their share in the last month when they saw that she was cancer-free. the trip would have been a somber one without her and tom. Is it something she's still going to fight with chemo etc? yes... but i have mixed feelings about that... with the advanced metastasis i don't think there's a medical solution left. maybe it will buy her time or maybe it will just make her feel sicker (she handled the chemo with minimal nausea before though). whatever she does is the right decision and i'll support it. i certainly don't try to influence her decision - she's in control - she's accepting of her fate and her decisions. she is NOT religious and she is further NOT into any alternative treatment. she's been in the medical field for years and that's what makes sense to her. my insights about life and death and oneness and spiritual concepts are not something she can use right now so i don't talk about them. more important are honest talks of love and appreciation of the moment and friendship and assurances that we will take care of tom. she doesn't think he can handle the loss. the truth is... he's going to be devastated, but on the life scale of maturity, tom is even more advanced than toni. he's even more of a giving, healing soul than toni is (if that is possible). he will be so busy supporting family and friends with strength and courage that he won't have time to feel his own grief. that's where polvo comes in. i have to overcome his strength and let him "let go" into it... to let him feel and deal with the loss and the grief and cry, cry, cry. the only way i can do that (and i've only done it about two or three times in my life) is to let myself cry in my own grief in front of him. i hope i can find that much courage. some of us big strong men have such a high, false wall to climb over... walls we've built between our culturally molded manly egos and nature's honest reactions to permanent goodbyes. intellectually, i know it. but emotionally, there's still a blockage. so much to learn... so little time. yer fren, polvo ps- have a wonderful time in the woods. i can't meet you in albany... my dress is at the cleaners. <g>