Today marks my eleventh chemotherapy and ninth radiation treatment. It has almost become too automatic. When Sammi had trouble getting the IV in today, I didn’t even get light headed. After poking around for several minutes, she had to move from the right to the left arm. I didn’t even flinch. For those of you that have been reading this soon to be Pulitzer Prize nominated essay, I started out deathly afraid of needles. Now, it is just a walk in the park. Not sure if it is familiarity or the fact that my level of tolerance has changed since that dreadful night with the catheter. I still get chills when I remember that experience.
For those of you not living in Arizona, we are going through the prettiest stretch of weather we will have all year. It is between 70 and 80 degrees every day and generally very sunny. It is the perfect time for sitting outside and catching a little baseball. As most of you know, I have been addicted to baseball since I was about eight. As a kid, I would memorize the backs of baseball cards. I would play myself on my little baseball action game. I would pitch the little wood baseball with a magnet to my mechanical bat and hope that I would hit a home run and the ball stick to the metal outfield fence. Yes, it is obvious that I was an only child and had no friends. At least I didn’t become a serial killer.
At the age of 56, one of my most favorite things to do is watch either Justin or Jason play baseball. I’ve been pretty lucky over the years as both of the boys are pretty good, so I have always had some things to brag about at work the day after games. This year has been tough as Justin did not make his new high school team after moving from Ohio. Kind of rough when you have been playing varsity since you were a freshman. However, Justin helped me put things into perspective when all of this happened. I’ll never forget what Justin told his coach after he was told he didn’t make the team.
“Coach, as bad as this is, this isn’t the worst thing that has happened to me this week.”
You see, that was the week that Justin found out that both his father and grandmother had cancer. Certainly there are more important things in life than baseball when you come right down to it. Yet, at the same time, I’m not sure what I would do without it. For the last several weeks, I’ve been able to watch Jason play on the freshman team for Hamilton High School, defending big school state champions. He was injured last year and really didn’t get an opportunity to show everyone what he could do. He played quite a bit, but just wasn’t the same.
This year has been different. He is back to being 100% and he has been able to give everyone a little better view of what he is capable of doing. Tonight he actually hit a home run in our last at bat to help win the game. That put a smile on the old man’s face. Although, this might seem trivial in the overall scheme of things, it has really helped me get back to some sense of normalcy. The problem with cancer is that it really does it’s best to take over your life. Since this started, I have had more procedures done and talked to more doctors than I have during the previous 56+ years. You just get numb.
Whenever you go through life changing developments, be it sickness, job loss, divorce or death, you need something to remind you that it is possible to get back to normal at least for a few hours at a time. Thank God for Abner Doubleday and his little invention. Now if I can just get the doctor to let me eat some salted in the shell peanuts, life will be good.
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