Holly's Notes and Condition

Maria and Jeff

Monday Sept 29th - Watching the thunderstorm move across the sky this morning, reminded me of being in the midwest, and I thought of the young couple we met while on vacation: Maria and Jeff , who are from the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin. I had sent an email last Tuesday to Maria and hadn't heard from her yet, so I picked up the phone and called her boyfriend Jeff. Maria ended up back at the hospital emergency last Sunday night after being released on Saturday after her first 5 days of chemo, given in the hospital. She is a beautiful, otherwise healthy 28 year old divorced Mom of (2) little girls, Carly age 4 and Mallory age 3 who was recently diagnosed with a cancerous tumor on her right hip. Maria and Jeff are a fairly new couple - still getting to know one another. Dave and I met Maria and Jeff in Napa and talked at breakfast - talk about a convergence: we had just returned from Milwaukee, where they live; they also ride motorcycles, although smaller and a different brand than ours and they are preparing to begin cancer treatment and we know a thing or two about going through treatment for cancer. And here we were celebrating being on the successful other side of cancer treatment - the cancer free side, the living fully with gratitude and generosity side of life.

They had planned this romantic getaway before she was diagnosed and here they were enjoying some CA sunshine after she had her portacatheter surgery and before she started on chemo on Tuesday Sept 23rd. Dave gave some tips to Jeff, on helping and protecting Maria and taking care of himself. I listened to what questions Maria asked and answered them - I told her that "I could tell her a lot or a little, you tell me what you want to know right now." I told her to focus on dealing with this in 'bite sized pieces' whether that meant 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, a day, a week, etc. and whatever percentage they give her on her chances of survival - focus on THAT percentage, focus on living and being 'in that mindset'.
Her mom is coming to help take care of her (2) little girls, but her mom is understandably overwhelmed with Maria's diagnosis. Maria's ex-husband shares 50/50 custody of their daughters - so that's another challenge. And their divorce remains unresolved because he is supposed to buy her out of her portion of their former home, but the housing market has tanked - so there are money issues. Her insurance coverage is cobra'd through her ex-husband's coverage and now with this diagnosis she will have to continue with that, as she is not eligible for other coverage at an affordable rate and her employer doesn't offer health insurance at her level of employment. So she has challenges, but looking into her beautiful face and dark intelligent eyes, I see a strength that I know she will tap into.
I'm holding all good thoughts for her.

We were getting ready to take our Harley from Napa to the CA Gold Country Hwy 49 to link up with our FullHOG friends for a riding weekend - so we were all 'bikered up'. They were laughing with us and we took pictures of the two of them on our bike - a goal picture.
They were off to drive down the CA Pacific Coast Hwy, across the Golden Gate Bridge and spend a couple of days in San Francisco before flying home to Milwaukee.

When we visited our good friend Peggy, on our way home from Napa - I told her about meeting Maria and asked Peggy if she was OK with me sending Maria the beautiful soft variegated light green and white scarf and hat that Peggy had knitted for me when I lost my hair due to chemo, as Maria who now has beautiful dark shoulder blade length curly black hair, will lose all her hair in the next 2 weeks and it gets cold in Milwaukee in the fall and winter. Peggy completely agreed. So I'll send a care package to Maria and I'll hold good healing thoughts for her.

posted by Holly @ 8:28 AM