In a marriage or any intimate relationship, silence is not golden. The strong silent type need not apply for the position of husband, lover, best friend, confidante, caregiver, and supporter of a woman with breast cancer. Your bride, your wife, needs and wants to hear from you. Actions may speak louder than words, and you may take all the right actions, but speaking words brings comfort, reassurance, and knowledge of your inner feelings. She cannot read your mind. Being there for her is more than physical or economic security. Words have meaning. And the three most important words in the English language at this time, at this moment, when together you face her mortality, are: "I love you."
The late Louise Crisafi, a saint here on earth, always giving of herself for others in need, taught me this lesson on the Friday Shirley had her biopsy and was diagnosed, having opted for the then new two-step process. This meant we knew on Friday that she would have a mastectomy on Monday, a weekend together, scared, anxious, frightened. For Shirley, confronting death and permanent loss of part of her womanhood. For me, just at a loss and floundering, not knowing what to do or what to say.
Louise was an American Cancer Society Reach to Recovery volunter, as well as a YWCA Encore leader, devoted to helping other women facing breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. She was a good friend. When I asked Louise what to do, feeling as helpless and overwhelmed as I was, she said simply: "Tell her you love her." I was off to the races. I spent the weekend saying those magic, powerful words over and over, as frequently as possible, perhaps more than I had done in weeks, months, or years previously.
A year or so later in a television talk show featuring three women with breast cancer, including Louise, Shirley reminisced about how verbal I had become that fateful first weekend. Those words brought comfort and made a diference. Say "I love you." It works. And I hope I do so as much today.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Our Family Odyssey: A Journey Together
Our family's incredible healthcare odyssey began the summer of 1982 in Winter Harbor, Maine, when Shirley took part in a hokey Lobster Festival parade. She felt something in her right breast, attributed it to a pulled muscle from aerobics in the parade, or perhaps the lumpy horse hair mattresses we slept on and made love on. Her woman's intuition knew better, but denial is powerful.
The inexorable movement toward diagnosis and treatment began in the Fall, starting with her internist, Jeffrey Weinberger, then a local gynecologist followed by a man about to become her surgeon, Phil McWhorter, a superb surgon and a friend. The final step was seeing her oncologist, Dickerman Hollister, Jr., a Renaissance man who, along with the late Joseph Murphy, her radiologist and radiation therapist, ultimatly saved her life.
The initial diagnosis was devastating. "We're too young. I don't want her to die. I can't live without her." the Kubla Ross stages setting in: denial, anger, acceptance. I do not want to be a single Dad raising a child, a girl, on my own. God did not mean for it to be that wya. And yet that's what we seemed to be facing and I was feeling.
Shirley knew from her conversations with Phil and Dick that she had about the worst of the worst possible scenarios: extensive lymph node involvement, an aggressive metastatic form of breast cancer with a very poor prognosis. Phil punched me in the gut with his words following her surgery: "The tumor was too large and too deep into the chest wall for me to remove it completely."
Shirley would ned extensive chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and radiation treatment. The world was turning dark. A year or so following her surgery, Shirley commiserated with former First Labt Betty Ford on the dance floor at a charity ball in New York. That was when I first learned of or was able to take in that many, many lymph nodes were involved. I never shared Phil's words with her until years later.
Our first sit down together with Dick Hollister was a moment to remember. We were in his words "playing for all the marbles." Did we want to save Shirley, maybe, unlikely, or leave open the option pf additional children in the future? Our joint rsponse took a nanosecond. Dick walked us through his proposed regimen or course of treatment: six months of chemotherapt and hormone therapy, followed by six weeks of radiation, and then another six months of the same strong chemotherapy and hormone therapy. He also offered us sources for second opinions in New York or Boston, followed by telling us he would take our case and his proposed treatment protocol to Yale-New Haven Hospital for review. A no-brainer for both of us then, and in retrospect.
Medicine is built on relationship and trust. A good physician is still a hands on healer, despite all the technology and resourcesto be brought to bear. We opted for Dick. We opted for and received life. Preciouse, precious life and health.
The inexorable movement toward diagnosis and treatment began in the Fall, starting with her internist, Jeffrey Weinberger, then a local gynecologist followed by a man about to become her surgeon, Phil McWhorter, a superb surgon and a friend. The final step was seeing her oncologist, Dickerman Hollister, Jr., a Renaissance man who, along with the late Joseph Murphy, her radiologist and radiation therapist, ultimatly saved her life.
The initial diagnosis was devastating. "We're too young. I don't want her to die. I can't live without her." the Kubla Ross stages setting in: denial, anger, acceptance. I do not want to be a single Dad raising a child, a girl, on my own. God did not mean for it to be that wya. And yet that's what we seemed to be facing and I was feeling.
Shirley knew from her conversations with Phil and Dick that she had about the worst of the worst possible scenarios: extensive lymph node involvement, an aggressive metastatic form of breast cancer with a very poor prognosis. Phil punched me in the gut with his words following her surgery: "The tumor was too large and too deep into the chest wall for me to remove it completely."
Shirley would ned extensive chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and radiation treatment. The world was turning dark. A year or so following her surgery, Shirley commiserated with former First Labt Betty Ford on the dance floor at a charity ball in New York. That was when I first learned of or was able to take in that many, many lymph nodes were involved. I never shared Phil's words with her until years later.
Our first sit down together with Dick Hollister was a moment to remember. We were in his words "playing for all the marbles." Did we want to save Shirley, maybe, unlikely, or leave open the option pf additional children in the future? Our joint rsponse took a nanosecond. Dick walked us through his proposed regimen or course of treatment: six months of chemotherapt and hormone therapy, followed by six weeks of radiation, and then another six months of the same strong chemotherapy and hormone therapy. He also offered us sources for second opinions in New York or Boston, followed by telling us he would take our case and his proposed treatment protocol to Yale-New Haven Hospital for review. A no-brainer for both of us then, and in retrospect.
Medicine is built on relationship and trust. A good physician is still a hands on healer, despite all the technology and resourcesto be brought to bear. We opted for Dick. We opted for and received life. Preciouse, precious life and health.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Ackowledgements, We Are Grateful
I would like to thank my sister, Margaret Bennett, who is also a survivor and a caregiver, for her friendship, loyalty, and love since we were children, and for her insights, support, counsel, and encouragement during all of life's travails, and, in particular during my writing of Prayer, Laughter & Broccoli.
I also wish to express my gratitude to Ed Vicinanza and Joe Locascio for teaching me to reach for the stars and to pursue my dreams. Lucy Hedrick, a true friend in every sense of the word, showed me the way to writing as an avocation. Julia Cameron ignited my crative soul with The Artist's Way at a time when my soul definitely needed recharging.
Our family would like to acknowledge the love and support of many special friends and people who have helped us over the bumps and still do enrich our lives. This includes friends like Frank and Ellen Schiigg, Bill and Jackie Hammock, Phyllis Finn, the late Pat Brown, andthe late Louise Crisafi. First Congregational Church and our friends and colleagues saw to it that we did not have to cook a meal from scratch for months after the start of Shirley's treatment, nor did we lack for child care for Alison, then 3. We are grateful.
I also wish to express my gratitude to Ed Vicinanza and Joe Locascio for teaching me to reach for the stars and to pursue my dreams. Lucy Hedrick, a true friend in every sense of the word, showed me the way to writing as an avocation. Julia Cameron ignited my crative soul with The Artist's Way at a time when my soul definitely needed recharging.
Our family would like to acknowledge the love and support of many special friends and people who have helped us over the bumps and still do enrich our lives. This includes friends like Frank and Ellen Schiigg, Bill and Jackie Hammock, Phyllis Finn, the late Pat Brown, andthe late Louise Crisafi. First Congregational Church and our friends and colleagues saw to it that we did not have to cook a meal from scratch for months after the start of Shirley's treatment, nor did we lack for child care for Alison, then 3. We are grateful.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Dedicated to Shirley Ann Billings Flierl
Prayer, Laughter & Broccoli was my first book and was the result of years in the health care industry, particularly community health and wellness services, and experiencing up close and personal living with breast cancer of my wife Shirley Ann. The book was dedicated to Shirley, my bride and my life partner, the mother of my daughter, Alison, my lover, my business partner, my best friend, and my soul mate. Shirley was diagnosed with an aggressive metastatis breast cancer in 1982 when she thought herself to be "too young" and "too small" and at a time when we had so much to live for. It was her courage, faith, humor, persistence, and joy that brought Alison and me through the experience whole and better for it. I now rededicate this blog to Shirley and to the other men struggling to be there for their wives and partners.
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