Day 66, Year 7: Triskaidekaphobia on Friday the 13th
Date: Friday, January 13, 2012
Weather: Partly Sunny and VERY Windy
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA
It is most definitely Friday the 13th and I have learned that
triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13. From Greek, tris means ‘3’, kai
means ‘and’, deka means ’10’, and you know what phobia means. Well, I have
never liked the number 13 and have always been a bit superstitious. I don’t
walk under ladders and I turn and go another way if a black cat crosses my
path. And I really don’t like leaving on a passage on a Friday. So getting
the biopsy report from Mark’s surgeon on Friday the 13th was probably not a
good idea. But we did get the report and it was not what we had hoped to
hear. We were so hopeful that the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes,
but it has. Four of the sixteen nodes removed were cancerous and this means
that Mark will have to have chemotherapy. I think both of us were just a
little too optimistic as the news hit us both pretty hard. We’ll rebound
and fight the fight, but I have definitely moved from being
triskaidekaphobic to being friggatriskaidekaphobic, the specific fear of
Friday the 13th. I think the ancient Persians had it right. They believed
the twelve constellations in the Zodiac controlled the months of the year
and that each ruled the earth for a thousand years. At the end of rule of
the twelve constellations they believed the sky and earth collapsed in
chaos. So Persians leave their houses on the thirteenth day of the Persian
Calendar to avoid bad luck. Good idea.
Mark is still feeling great and all systems are working. He is no longer on
any kind of pain medication and we are still mystified by the fact that he
had absolutely no pain post-surgery. He can now slowly resume a normal diet
and I think none too soon as he has lost a few pounds this week. We need to
fatten him up before he starts the chemotherapy. He might have to return to
Boston next week to have some additional testing done, and will then meet
with Dr. Sylla and the oncologist the following week. Until then we really
won’t know exactly how to categorize the stage of his cancer. We read on
the internet that there is a difference between having cancer in 1-3 lymph
nodes and 4-6 nodes in terms of staging. But we also know that the tumor
had not broken through the outer colon wall and that the cancer is not in
other organs. So we will remain hopeful. We are so grateful and thankful
for so many things that it is hard not to be hopeful. Friends and family
have been so very supportive and that has meant so much to us. I don’t dare
try to list the names of everyone who has emailed or called us this week as
I am afraid I would inadvertently leave someone out. But you know who you
are and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Dr. Sylla and her team
at MGH were absolutely fantastic, as were all the nurses and the entire
facility. John and Sue Reed were so gracious to take us into their home for
a couple of days after Mark was released from the hospital and we really
enjoyed our time with them. It was so reassuring to know we were only 10
minutes away from the hospital in case anything went wrong. The
cardiologist here on the Cape that was relentless in his search for the
cause of Mark’s shortness of breath will certainly get a Valentine’s gift
from us this year. If Dr. Christman had released Mark once he determined
that his problem was not his heart, we might not have identified the problem
as cancer for months. And to our friend Dick Wicklund, we will be eternally
grateful for his referrals to Mass General. He knows all the right people
in all the right places and has graciously called on his friends to help us
out. So you see that we really can’t focus on the bit of ‘not so good’ news
that we received today. We have too much else to be grateful for with such
a huge net of friends and family to support us. Thanks to all.
I can’t end this log without talking a bit about the weather. We woke up
this morning to spring-like weather in Boston. The temp was near 50 degrees
F, there was a gentle warm breeze blowing, the sun was shining, and the
birds were singing as if it were springtime. Even the forsythia bush in
John and Sue’s yard is thinking that it is springtime as it’s buds look like
they are ready to burst into bloom. As we drove south from Boston, however,
clouds moved in and the wind was blowing so hard that the car blew sideways
a couple of times during strong gusts. When we got home to Windbird it was
VERY windy. The gusts today have ranged from 35 to 55 knots with 25 to 30
knots of wind blowing steadily. The outside temperature is dropping and
will get down to about 10 degrees F tomorrow night. But so far, we are snug
and cozy inside Windbird. Heather and Jed invited us over for dinner
tonight and we were so excited to see Sam and Jonah. Sam really wanted us
to spend the night, but we told him we needed to come home and make sure
Windbird was okay. But if it gets too cold on the boat, we’ll just call Sam
and get an invitation to spend the night at his house!
