Work and Play = Contentment

As has become a part of my pattern, since we're within the first few days of the new month I'll offer a couple thoughts and links about the past month's postings that were "highlights.”

March was a full month, even with a two week hiatus from active posting. There were over 375 unique visits to the Martha Phelps Studio blog page and the visitor counter is starting to push toward the 1000 mark! Thank you all for the honor of being a part of your busy days.

I’d have to say that my favorite post this last month was one that didn’t even appear on my own own blogsite, but the site that was created as a community venue for sharing information about my son’s experience with leukemia. Day One Hundred Ninety-One shares the news and reality that is nearest to my heart and our family.

The posts Faith, Cartoon Sampler and Simple Monday Message are meaningful to me because they include a wide variety of artwork - from images that come through the camera lens to some of the painting I’ve been doing this past year to the whimsy of a quirky sense of humor conveyed through very rough computer-mouse generated cartoons. Making and sharing visual images is a joy.

Once Upon A time in Luning scratches the surface of the journey that was made to Death Valley, CA  - and there are more stories yet to unfold from that adventure, while Extending Life’s Radius was an extremely personal revelation that I took a risk in sharing, but what the heck - how else do we all learn, except by showing up and showing who we truly are?

This whole public journal is a part of the commitment I have made to continue to reinvent myself, even at 47. I loved getting Seth Godin’s blog today, Accepting Limits, where he succinctly talks about this very notion. I hope you’ll take a moment to check it out, and I hope you’ll continue to look in on what is happening here with An Untamed Life On Purpose.

Those of you who are fans through Facebook, thanks for inviting your friends and companions to also become followers. I mainly use that page to post my blog, but also offer regular interesting quotes and (hopefully) provoking questions.

This photo, a new profile shot, was taken by good friend, Jim Schlight. Yes, I really am that happy with a camera in my hands! I hope you all have work and play that make you just as content. 

Have a wonderful day. ~ mlp

Extending Life's Radius

 Mt. Shasta - a mere 76 miles from home - taken from Hwy 89 vantage

I heard somewhere that it’s not unusual for “most” people in the world to be born, live and die within a twenty mile radius. This is easy to imagine, when I consider the lives of folks living in developing countries, but it’s damn near impossible to fathom when I look through the rose-colored lenses of my middle class American educated upbringing in comfortable Ashland, Oregon. Nevertheless, the girls and I pondered this “leaving one’s known twenty mile turf” theory while our odometer logged in more and more miles in the opposite direction of home. We were readily able to acknowledge that our act of packing up and making a 1500 mile trip would be considered a very large departure of the norm for many folks.

Perhaps that was part of the reason our trip was such a stretch for me; I was actively choosing to drive away from a safety net I have had anchored in place since I was about ten years old. See, I was the kid who wouldn’t accept a sleepover invitation unless it was close enough to home that I could easily walk home (or be picked up by a sleepy parent ) at 12:30 A.M. That was about the hour I would invariably realize that I was SO wickedly homesick, so painfully anxiety-ridden with fear of being away - that,  with knees literally knocking together, I'd make the walk of shame to the parent’s of whichever friend had invited me over and ask permission to call home.

Mind you, after playing out that particular scenario two or three times in elementary school, it ceased to continue with regularity because I became a skilled practitioner of avoidance and was adept at politely refusing most invitations to slumber parties, Friday night sleepovers and summer weekend camp outs. In middle school, when the social ladder is as much a part of one’s overnight luggage as a comfy pillow, it was often a very tough call between accepting an invitation (and perhaps spending a night in overwrought tension) or declining (and being left out of essential adolescent  exploits to be shared among peers on Monday morning by the lockers). Sometimes I would momentarily forget my angst - in the excitement and thrall of potential adventures, and I would say “yes” to a generous friend who wanted my company. Then, I would remember my looming apprehensions at the last moment and crumble in complete humiliation - disappointing tenfold whomever my pal was with a phone call to say, “Sorry; I can’t make it after all.”

By the time I was fourteen, my parents were ready to disown me due to what they considered irrational behavior. It wasn’t irrational to me though, nor was it complicated. I didn’t particularly need THEM to be at home; in fact, they could travel away all they wanted, as long as they left me there  - safe and snug. About the time that they began to surrender to the idea that I would live in Ashland forever and never trot the globe, I began to conquer some of said homesickness by the company I kept, and made my first successful trip away with my high school sweetheart and his parents at fifteen, and the rest is - as they say - history. Sort of.

Diagnosis-wise, I’m fairly certain my symptoms were anxiety attacks, not exactly your run-of-the-mill childhood homesickness, but truly scary events. Do I still experience that knee-shaking, belly quaking fear from time to time? I guess the fact that I have traveled happily and successfully for the past three decades is some sort of “Proof of Ability,” but the honest answer is: Yes. Absolutely. (And I’ve learned to get over it.)

The first two nights spent with my son in the oncology unit at Oregon Health Science University gripped me like I’ve never been gripped, and since Reid’s cancer diagnosis, I have become reacquainted with fearful feelings I haven’t felt since adolescence.

So this first trip out and away since leukemia moved into our family, this first time away from Reid since he got sick, THIS was a big departure from the “new norm” of our life. All the way to Death Valley, California I asked myself, “Is fear of FEAR big enough to hold me back anymore? Do I decline otherwise new journeys because I’m afraid of being sick to my stomach with terror in the middle of the night? After having come all this way - after having left behind all that we once believed was comfortable and familiar, is worry big enough to keep us from venturing out, kids in tow to see, share and discover this amazing planet?”

I know it will be a damned tough call at times. Sometimes, like this past week, I will have to dig very, very deeply into my heart, remind myself to breathe and resolutely plant one foot forward. Being able to set forth and journey - both literally and figuratively - was and is a privilege and a joyful act of life celebration. The learning opportunities outside our doorsteps have as much to do with what we experience while away - as how they impact our return and the changed, hopefully sweeter relationship we will bring back home. 

 McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, CA

127 miles from Ashland, OR

New Math

Leukemia is the general term used to describe four different disease-types. That’s FOUR (4) disease types.

There are eight subtypes of Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (which is what Reid is dealing with). Didja get that number? EIGHT (8). Treatment for AML may vary by subtype.

Some people have differences in the chromosomes of their AML cells (chromosomes are the part of the cell that carries genes. Genes give instructions that tell the cell what to do.) The cell has 46 chromosomes. Look -- more numbers: FORTY-SIX (46).

Please, please, please -- don’t walk up to me and say “I knew (NOTE: PAST TENSE) someone with the same cancer your son has.”

Maybe, but doubtful.

Pay attention. Do the math. There are a lot of variables with leukemia. There are many types, subtypes and chromosomal combinations. Put them all together - and then add in the FACT that each individual is, well - an individual. While there may be commonalities between people, there are also totally unique treatments, responses, life styles, personalities, attitudes and possibilities. 

Get to know Reid, and you'll be certain he "has" a positive, strong, optimistic and vibrant life spirit. Concentrate on that equation; it's what counts here.

"Please Drain Tub"

"Please drain tub." That’s what a tasteful little sign above the jacuzzi requested as I steeped in appreciation of a gift certificate recently given to me. The words brought memories into mind --

First, I recalled 17 years ago when, at day’s end of a very intense personal growth workshop, the facilitator said to the group, “Take a long bath tonight but be sure to shower for a moment afterward. You don’t want to stew in the juices you’ve been releasing; be sure to rinse it all away.”

And next, I remembered our fourth day of cancer. I was on the phone with a friend. The stormy debris of the first shock-wave was surfacing: intense fear, the gravity of Reid’s illness, a leukemia diagnosis, being alone, being homesick for my daughters. Searching to offer me some sort of comfort, she said, “See if you can find a bathtub, Martha. You need to be held. Find a bath and let the water hold you for a little while.”

We’d been there for three days, and I wandered from Reid’s room only far enough to get a cell phone signal or use the bathroom. It was hard to conceive of leaving long enough for a quick meal, let alone an entire bath, but I went searching.

I discovered the “family facilities” in the Knight Oncology Treatment Unit: a laundry and sleeping room on the 13th floor; another sleeping room and a shower on the 14th floor. A shower. For family. Hot water - and a moment in time.

I’ll never forget that first shower. It was neither an embrace nor a receptacle for the grief that washed from me. I closed my eyes and let the water take control. It was elemental, and with deep shuddering breaths of solitude and vulnerability, I stood naked  - in all ways - and cried.


Maybe it’s a good thing there is no tub in the oncology unit. Maybe someone very wise said, “Let's not put bathtubs in the family facilities. There’s already so much sadness here, we’d best not have folks soaking in it also. Showers only here, so we can send grief down the drain.” 

Let it go; let it go. Let it all go down the drain.

At The Sound of the Tone

The phone and I have a different relationship since Reid's cancer diagnosis. “Different,” like how? Different like this: now I don’t really want to be talking on the phone at all; now the actual eager impulse to make a telephone call comes at wildly random moments that may or may not coincide with lunar phases, or how good my coffee tastes, what shoes I’m wearing or any other number of indiscriminate and unrelated factors.

This is not to say I won’t pick up, call back or dial out. I will, but not without either gritting my teeth - or being in the mood (which, as you’re deducing, has become a rare phenomenon). So far, there isn’t a middle place between my two “be on the phone” settings.

Don’t get me wrong, please. I really like having a phone. It’s a tremendously useful tool, and if it gets momentarily lost or left behind, my anxiety meter definitely goes to yellow zone. What did we do before cell phones? Instant messages? Texting the immediate occurrences of our day to day lives? How on earth could anyone reach us way back when? And if they tried us twenty times, and we didn’t have a message machine -- they could certainly feel frustrated, but rarely held against us that we weren’t returning calls we didn’t even know had been made. To me, use of the phone was more fun back then and less obligatory, but in times of crisis - it made communications very difficult. Which brings me back to Now.

Now - one part of being a family with cancer in the 21st century is that (hopefully) communications are easier and more frequent. During the 34 days that Reid was at OHSU - 350 miles away from home - the telephone was an essential part of dealing with both distance and difficulty. I was inundated by calls - multiple times a day - from family and friends who were desperate with worry and a deep need to know what was happening. Likewise, in our isolation, calls out were like distress signals from a tenebrous fog - reaching for connection and comfort.

Since that time, as Reid’s treatment has progressed, I can honestly say “Thank God for the phone.” Calls to the clinic and the nurses, late night emergencies with on-call physicians, and especially - my being able to keep in touch with Reid and his younger sisters at the push of a button - have immeasurable value to us. Leukemia is some seriously scary shit, and being able to check in regularly can occasionally help ease fear.
 
Yet the days of chit-chatty, long and rambling, just for the fun of it telephone calls are temporarily gone. I don’t have it in me to press the phone to my face for longer than a few minutes. Come sit for a cup of tea, share a meal with us, or let’s take a nice brisk walk. Come be face to face; we don’t even have to talk and if possible, we can leave our cell phones on silent.

Let’s make a date. Call me.

Too Revealing

People keep saying I should be writing all "this" down. "This" being the vague euphemistic reference to the fact that my eldest child was diagnosed with leukemia last September.

While I've been diligent in semi regular communications about Reid's health status via a blog created on his behalf, it's the more personal and in depth that are being called for: the experience of being a family with cancer, how it feels to be a mother dealing with a child's cancer, and how I'm a woman who's world has been turned on tilt (by a number of things).

"Why don't you do it?" Asked one old friend, and I told her that I felt as though I was sparing others by not sharing all the dirty details. It's my version of "what you don't know - can't hurt you, " and after seeing the people I love hurt so deeply by cancer - why would I want to add to their pain?

Writing the reality feels raw, uncomfortable, too revealing. So why am I here today?

Because I've realized that to be revealing may be the most honest way to embrace life.