Thinking. And Reminding.

So, a few weeks ago, there was a thing floating around the blog world called the Thinking Blogger Awards. Basically, one blogger tagging another, then linking back, and then tagging five more, etc. It’s a way to introduce people to other blogs that you read, and in this particular instance, blogs that make you think. I had three people mention me on their blogs, LollyChester, Amy, and SimplyJenn. I’m supposed to link back to them, and encourage you to check out their sites, then list the five blogs that make *me* think the most. But you know what? I don’t read blogs to think. I read them to be entertained. Pretty much every single blog I read regularly, I do so because I find the writer to be funny, or interesting, or engaging. I guess I’m probably thinking, whether I realize it or not, but for the most part, I just read for fun. You can check them all out in my sidebar.

And while I certainly appreciate the mention on their sites, it also amuses me to imagine that this scrap of blog writing I do could be credited with making anyone else think. About anything more serious than chocolate muffins. Or Kyle Chandler. Or best of all, Kyle Chandler feeding me chocolate muffins. In bed. Which is what *I* think about most of the time. Most days I’m just writing whatever pops in my head, or whatever funny thing has happened; many days I sit in my chair and wonder what the heck I’m going to write; I have the occasional day or two when I can’t think of ANYTHING and wonder why I even bother when I’m so boring and uninspired. But overall, not so much with the deep, profound thinking.

I did have a moment, last week, a really big moment, where I was reminded. And sometimes, being reminded of something you already know is a bigger deal than thinking about something new. Or maybe it *is* thinking, just in a different way. So I’ll share that with you now, and thank the three bloggers who reminded me to look at things in a new light. It’s going to be a long entry, and probably very disjointed, but I promise if you’ll just hang in there until I’m finished, I’ll do my best to tie everything up with a shiny big bow at the end. You might not have done much deep thinking by then, but if you come away with the same reminder that I got, it will be a successful journal entry, at least in my humble opinion.

The background story: Blaine and I, as you might know, are gearing up for retirement from the military. Next spring he will have served his 20 years, and we’ve had just that long to think about what we’re going to do when we retire. A lot of people in the military retire wherever their last duty station is; they just stay there, if it’s someplace they really like. Or they’ll move back to whatever place they liked best, or whatever place they can get the job that will make them happiest. It’s great to think there is a whole wide world of options out there.

Then, there are people like Blaine and me, who have known from day one that we would return to our home state when we retire. Not only our home state, but specifically back to the area where we grew up. We like Georgia and could be perfectly happy staying here … I wouldn’t mind returning to Ohio, or even North Dakota. Those have been some of my favorite places to live. But all along, we have both felt strongly, and agreed, that once his twenty-odd years in the Air Force is up, we want to go back home. {Imagine me, clicking my ruby red slippers together … there’s no place like home; there’s no place like home.} We want to live near our family again; we want our kids to have a close relationship with their cousins; we want them to go to the same school that I attended, and have the same life experiences that we had. When it came to planning, we had the future of our family calculated down to the most minute detail, and it lay somewhere over that Oklahoma rainbow. {See? See how I figured out a way to tie it in to this great song, just for the excuse of playing it??? I'm clever like that.}

About a year ago, Blaine and I were faced with a difficult decision regarding our retirement plans. It’s not a decision I’m happy about, and unfortunately, it’s sort of a lose-lose situation for us. I won’t bore you with details (unless you really, really want them) but the bottom line is that we have been forced to sacrifice part of our retirement dream, in order to keep the part that is most important to us. The whole state of affairs can be summed up with words like “Unfair” and “Bogus” and “Sucks to be Us”. And for almost a year, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself about it.

I remind myself that material things don’t matter, and how can I gripe and complain about something so shallow when people are starving in this world, and the rain forest is being eradicated, and children are dying of cancer? And I remind myself to be grateful for the things I *do* have, and that this circumstance, while unfortunate, is NOT a REAL problem, and to just kwitch-yer-bellyaching-already. And it would work. For about five minutes. Then I would start feeling sorry for myself again.

You know what else? Feeling sorry for yourself, for an extended period of time, is exhausting. And boring for the people around you, who are sick and damn tired of hearing you complain. But if you’re really, truly unhappy about a situation, and you really, truly can’t figure a way out of it, it’s hard to see the bright side. Instead, you feel frustrated and annoyed and exhausted.

So, fast forward to last week.

Some of you remembered I had mentioned Blaine was going to Seattle for his follow-up scans. They do MRI’s and cat scans of his head and neck, checking to make sure the radiation killed off all the cancer cells, that the tumors look unchanged, and that there aren’t any new growths. It’s stressful under the best of times, but add that “unidentified” shoulder mass into the picture, and my stress was ratcheted up to the next level. Although we honestly didn’t think it was cancer, once that doctor said, “Well, the bottom of your shoulder is technically the top of your lungs, so we need to check for a tumor and lung cancer”, your mind can’t help but go there in the dark of the night.

Blaine had both the MRI ordered by his oncologist, and the cat scan ordered from the surgeon. He got them both the same day, and had separate consultations with each doctor afterwards. I hated that I couldn’t be there with him, but we had to choose between two big events this month, and elected for me to go with him later, for his next prosthodontic surgery. So, we agreed that when he met with the doctor, he would call me and put me on speaker phone so we could hear the news together, good or bad. It was as close as I could get to being there in person to support him.

I knew what time the consultation was, and so I called him. I was waiting to go into Wal-Mart, but apparently the doctor was running late and Blaine didn’t know how much longer it would be. We decided that I would turn my phone to vibrate and put it in my pocket so there would be no chance of me missing his call, and I went into Wal-Mart (otherwise known as Hell on Earth) to shop for life’s essentials like milk and eggs and fudge grahams. I knew I was nervous, but I didn’t realize how much. I was so distracted while shopping, and couldn’t think of anything else. There was a lot riding on the outcome of these tests, and it’s a sick, sick feeling in the pit of your stomach to wait for the results.

I kept waiting for Blaine to call … and waiting …. And when it was time for me to check out, I flipped my phone open because I couldn’t believe he hadn’t called yet and so I was going to call him. Only, there was a message on my phone. Apparently, I hadn’t felt it vibrate.

The phone number wasn’t Blaine’s …. But it was from the state of Washington.

So while the cashier was ringing me up, I listened to the message:

“Hi, Kristie, this is Dr. F. I’ve got Blaine here in my office and I’d like to discuss the results of the scans with both of you together. Call me at this number as soon as you can.”

And I seriously considered vomiting on the check out girl, so great was my nausea.

I finished paying, and pushed my cart out to the van, and unloaded my crap, with my mind and imagination whirling at a million miles an hour. Then, with shaking fingers, listened to the message again and copied down the number. Knowing all the while, that it would be bad news. Why else would the doctor call me personally, if not to deliver bad news? Why would he ask me to call HIM back, and not Blaine? I steeled myself for terrible news, and had already let the “It’s OK, he will get through this, we can handle this” coping part of my personality begin to take over.

By the time I wrote down his number, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely dial. My voice was quivering when I asked to speak with him, and I was practically in tears, anticipating this awful conversation. I assumed we would immediately begin discussing treatment for lung cancer. Blaine has already had his lifetime maximum dosage of radiation, and they say chemotherapy is ineffective for this type of cancer, so fine, we’ll just operate. He can lose a lobe or two of his lungs, right? So he’ll never get into freediving, that’s ok. But would they send him home, or do it in Seattle? Would they want to start right away? How quickly could my mom get out here to Georgia to watch the kids? Would they try chemo anyway? What are the survival rates for lung cancer? These were the things going through my head as I waited for the doctor to get on the line.

When he did, he simply said, “Hi, Kristie, this is Dr. F. Blaine and I are here, talking about the scans.” And because I was on speaker phone, there was an awkward little pause while he waited to see if I would say anything, so I simply said, “OK” because I didn’t trust myself or my voice to say anything else. Then I heard Blaine say in the background, “My Blackberry crashed, so I had the doctor call you on his phone”. And for the briefest of moments, I thought, “His Blackberry? It died? That’s why we’re using the doctor’s phone?” Then the doctor said, “Like I was just telling Blaine, I can’t give you a definitive answer until the tumor board meets later this week, but from what I’m looking at, things look good. The head and neck scans don’t show any new growth or problems.”

{awkward speaker phone pause}

And I said, “Um, ok. What about the shoulder?” and steeled myself for the blow.

And he replied, “Again, I’ll want to meet with the oncologist to be sure, and review those scans as well, but for now it looks good.”

And I was all sort of confused, like … what? Looks good? What does that mean?

So I said, “You mean it’s not cancer?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think its cancer.”

And because I am seriously an idiot, I literally asked him, like Forrest Gump, “So, that’s good, right?”

The rest of the conversation was a complete blur, and Blaine said I sounded very, very thick and addled and stupid on their end of the phone. That’s because the rational, thinking part of my brain had completely shut down and simply couldn’t move past “It’s not cancer”. So I just mumbled “OK”, “I see”, and “Thank you” a whole lot.

Then we ended the call, and I hung up my cell phone. And put my hands and my head on the steering wheel, and burst into tears.

With my head bowed, I said a prayer and thanked God that it wasn’t lung cancer, and asked for continued resilience for the challenges he *is* facing. Then I raised my head, wiped my eyes, and took a deep breath. Only instead of looking at the Rhino Games across the strip mall, what flashed before my eyes was a vision of the retirement problem we’ve been facing.

{I know, I say “vision” and you think I’m going all psychic-turban-crystal-ball on you, but I swear that’s not it.}

It was like God suddenly put that problem right in my face, and the thought that went through my mind was, “None of that matters, as long as we are together and healthy.”

To be clearer, the exact thought that went through my head was, “How could you be such a shallow, selfish, greedy bitch? Can’t you see that none of that matters, as long as you are together and healthy? Pull your head out of your ass, you ignoramous, and quit feeling sorry for yourself. You have a family that loves you, three beautiful children, and for today, a husband who has been given a {relatively} clean bill of health. Get. Over. Yourself.”

And, so. I’m trying really, really hard to get over myself. I just needed that reminder, about what is important, and what is not. And how sometimes what we think is important? Really isn’t.

We didn’t get the “official” results from the tumor board until late Friday afternoon, but the oncologist felt the same; no lung cancer. They think it’s a benign hematoma, nothing more, from the surgery in November, and are prescribing physical therapy to help with the range of motion issues. We are moving forward with the next surgery on his mouth, which will take place at the end of this month. We are still working hard to get his sleep and pain issues under control, but hopefully will be seeing progress soon.

Most of all, it was a serious kick in the pants, that reminded me about what is important, and what is not.

All of the time, you should not sweat the small stuff. Sometimes, you should not even sweat the big stuff. And sometimes, the stuff you think is big, is really small.

Ever since Kendrie was diagnosed with cancer, I have had very little patience or empathy for people who whine about their problems, which aren’t really problems, but instead are nuisances or annoyances. And without realizing it, I had turned into one of those people. To be fair, this retirement issue is more than a petty annoyance. It’s the re-routing of a plan, twenty years in the making. It’s letting go of a dream that we’ve held dear for a very long time. But you know what? That’s all it is. It’s not my husband, or my child, being diagnosed with cancer. It’s not someone I love dying in a car accident, or being injured in Iraq, or contracting a fatal illness, or being shot and killed by a disgruntled co-worker. THOSE things are problems.

So if I could make you think, or remind you of just one thing today, it’s to hold dear the people that you love, and say a prayer of thankfulness for their good health, and your good fortune. It’s amazing how much better you will feel, if you can let go of any unnecessary baggage you might be carrying around. I’m still not sure how we’re going to resolve our retirement issue, at least not to our total happiness, but as long as Blaine and the kids are with me, and we can do it together, I’ll quit feeling sorry for myself about the small stuff. Our happily ever after still exists over the rainbow, and we’ll get there, just maybe in a different way. What matters is we get there together.

{Yes, I know, totally schmaltzy, but sometimes it takes a little schmaltz to get it through my thick head that I’ve been a jackass for far too long.}

PS. I pick Clyde.