Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (23 page)

I paid special attention to the anesthetist. Len was a warm, friendly, efficient and sensitive man from England. When he came to see me on the eve of my operation, I spent more time questioning him than all of the doctors and nurses together. I told Len that in the morning, just before he put me under, I wanted to gather all of the nurses and doctors around my bed and offer them a five-minute Legge motivational speech. Some last-minute insurance.

“Really?” said Len. “And what are you going to say?”

“What will I say? I will say: You doctors and nurses do this operation almost every day of every week. You are considered the best in Western Canada. You probably view this as just another neck dissection on just another body, but I’d like to tell you that for me, this is the first and only time I’m going to have this operation. Today, you will be better in all of your functions than you have ever been before. Your skills will be superb. No side effects whatsoever. No mistakes. Just a smooth, well-performed, 100 percent successful operation, the best you can possibly perform.” I used every adjectival rouser in the book, my own and everyone else’s!

“Great,” said Len. “I’m looking forward to it.”

The next morning at five, my nurse awakened me, and, not surprisingly, gave me pills to make me sleep. Then it was onto the trolley and off to the O.R. In there, all kinds of people scurried around, checking equipment, doing whatever it is that these green-gowned creatures do. Sharpening knives? Recovering from the night before?

I looked at the clock. It was 8:10 A.M. Time for the motivational. “Okay,” said Len. “Just one minor adjustment before you begin...“and as he spoke, a world of nothingness closed around me.

I looked at the clock again. It was 8:15. Five minutes later. Nope. It was twelve hours and five minutes later. I was no longer surrounded by the twilight of morning. There was pain, and a great city hospital went about its business in the darkness of a winter evening. The deed had been done. Things would be different, but I was very much alive.

Alive, but not necessarily the happiest of campers. Christmas was coming, and I knew that in this season of traditional celebration, when families invariably came closer together, I would stand out as a substantially scarred face in the family crowd. My cheek was swathed in dressings, but I knew that beneath it all was a different-looking husband, a different-looking dad, a different-looking guy who would appear at future bookings on the podiums of the world. Different looking and substantially broken inside.

Would there even be future bookings?
I asked myself.
Maybe I’d lost it.
I tested my voice and it was little more than a croak. I moved in the darkness and several I.V.’s followed me around, tugging painfully at my flesh.
Could I ever swing a golf club again?
I doubted it.

A lot of people have trouble visiting the sick in hospitals, especially those who come out looking different than when they went in. Visitors have to steel themselves for these visits: attempt to disregard the smells, the foreign images. They have to say to themselves: “I’m going in here to make this person feel better, and no matter what I’m about to see in that bed, I won’t flinch.”

My family came early to see me, and Kay and my three daughters all flinched. They caught themselves quickly, but they flinched. I’d never hold that against them. It’s just one of those things that happens when you’re shocked by an image you weren’t expecting. I suspect that I looked pretty awful.

My eldest daughter, Samantha, dived in for the kill—and I’ll always be grateful that she did. I can’t remember her exact words, but whatever they were, she got them right.

“For years, Dad, you’ve talked about people who end up in situations like this, people who have been bruised and beaten, who, for whatever reason, are hurt physically or mentally in life. And what you have said to them is that they must live for today and have hope for tomorrow....“

Both of us had tears in our eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“Now it’s your turn to be the model. Now it’s your turn to dig deep and draw on all of those things that you’ve said are important in life—courage, hope, love, the strength of the family. We’ll be with you. No matter what.”

Pete Legge

Teens Launch Campaign to Save Dying Baby’s Life

As he left home for his teaching job at Kamiakin Junior High, near Seattle, Washington, on February 26, 1992, Jeff Leeland prayed for his son, Michael. The six-month-old boy had undergone hospital tests, and results were due that day.

In January, Michael had developed pneumonia; tests revealed that the clotting cells in his blood were at a surprisingly low level. He was referred to Children’s Hospital and Medical Center.

At 10 o’clock, Jeff called home. “Hello, sweetheart . . . what’s wrong? Michael has what?” Through tears, Jeff’s wife, Kristi, repeated the diagnosis: “Michael has myelodysplasia syndrome. It’s a pre-leukemia disease.” Kristi’s voice broke. “He needs a bone marrow transplant.”

Jeff felt as though a sledgehammer had slammed into his gut.

Later, Kristi and Jeff shared the news with their other children: Jaclyn, nine, Amy, six, and Kevin, three. The family members were to have their blood tested in the hope that one of them would be an eligible bone marrow donor.

On March 20, Kristi called Jeff at work. Her elated voice cried out, “Amy’s a perfect match!” It was the couple’s first taste of tangible hope.

Unexpectedly, however, a dark cloud cast its shadow over this hope. The Leelands’ insurance policy had a 12 month waiting period on benefits relating to organ transplants. Jeff had signed up for the coverage the previous October.

A bone marrow transplant costs $200,000, money the family didn’t have. On top of this, the transplant needed to be done soon.

In solitude, one May morning, Jeff lay bare his wounded soul. Writing in his journal, his words formed a prayer to God, his only hope. His little boy was dying. In the stillness, a deep calming came in a whisper to his soul. God has everything in control.

Several days later, Dameon Sharkey, one of Jeff’s students, walked in. At 13, with learning difficulties and few friends, Dameon faced his own mountains of adversity. The teen approached Jeff and gave him his life savings— twelve $5 bills. After hugging and thanking Dameon, Jeff went to the principal’s office. They agreed to use Dameon’s gift to establish “The Michael Leeland Fund.”

From then on, the Leelands witnessed the incredible difference kids can make. In the coming weeks, the high-spirited junior high kids staged a walkathon, held a raffle and pursued media contacts. The ninth-grade class donated the proceeds from its dance to Michael. Mary, an eighth-grade student, cashed in $300 in savings bonds. Jon, a ninth-grader, knocked on doors in his neighborhood. The Leelands were awestruck by this outpouring of love.

As a result of the students’ appeal, reports appeared in the local media. After reading about Michael, a man walked into the bank with a check for $10,000, and a second-grade girl donated the contents of her piggy bank. Just one week after Dameon’s gift, Michael’s account grew to $16,000.

One woman set up phone chains for prayer and support all over the state. One man, though jobless and $35,000 in debt, sent $10 because “I have my health.”

Four weeks after Dameon’s gift opened the floodgates, the fund totaled over $220,000. Michael would get a second chance.

In July, the boy endured 12 days of chemotherapy and radiation to destroy his diseased marrow before doctors transfused his sister’s healthy cells into him. On Michael’s first birthday, his family received great news: Michael’s white cell count had finally exceeded the minimum acceptable level! A week later, Michael was able to go home.

Today, three years later, the disease is in remission. Doctors say Michael has a 95 percent probability of a lifetime cure.

The Leelands pray that the compassion their community demonstrated will not die out, and that Michael will one day be as selfless as Dameon Sharkey, the boy whose gift started Michael’s life-saving fund, and who became a vital link in a chain of love.*

Jeff Leeland

* The Leeland family has now established The Sparrow Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides seed money to youth groups involved in fund-raising efforts. For more information, write to: The Sparrow Foundation, 1155 N. 130th, Suite 310, Seattle, WA 98133.

Judy

Judy started chemotherapy just prior to attending one of my workshops for the first time. Although it was necessary for friends to drive her to and from her treatments and stay with her afterward, she felt that she was imposing on them. Because of these feelings, as well as the rigors of the chemotherapy, she desperately needed love and support. Many workshop participants felt rejected while growing up and were eager to shower love on a recipient they knew wouldn’t refuse it. It was a powerful healing process. The group bonded quickly, and I decided to keep the group dynamic going by meeting monthly.

At the next workshop, Judy lightheartedly shared her experiences about losing her hair, which she said was now falling out by the handful. “Maybe I should get a Mohawk hairdo and dye it purple. I might as well have fun with this,” she said. Her courageous attitude was an inspiration to us all. She shrugged this off, saying, “People are resilient in different areas. I just happen to have a lot of resiliency in this area.”

She never did get a Mohawk, but she did start wearing caps—some had sequins; a favorite one had a propeller.

One day, she called me just as I was leaving for the December workshop. “I had chemo yesterday, and I’m just too nauseous to make it,” she said. At the workshop, we made a special tape for her with messages from group members. When I told her about it, she cried.

After three months of being unable to attend the group workshop, Judy let us know that she would once again grace us with her presence. When she walked in the room, we engulfed her with our hugs. Left unspoken was our concern for her emotional state; it’s one thing to joke about your hair falling out, and another to actually experience it. We wondered how she had stood up under the strain.

Judy answered our question when she sat down and removed her scarf. I choked back my tears and then burst into laughter as I read the words on her bald head: “And you think
you’re
having a bad hair day!”

Nancy Richard -Guilford

Mrs. G in 3B

The notice was posted next to the tenants’ mailboxes in the apartment building I’d just moved into in Brooklyn, New York. “A Mitzvah for Mrs. Green,” it read. “Sign up to drive Mrs. G in #3B home from her chemotherapy treatments twice a month.”

Since I wasn’t a driver, I couldn’t add my name, but the word mitzvah lingered in my thoughts after I went upstairs. It’s a Hebrew word that means “to do a good deed,” or “an act that expresses God’s will.” It is more than that, really, more like a commandment to do things for others.

And according to my grandmother, it also had another meaning. This was the one she was always pointing out to me because she’d notice how shy I was about letting people do things for me. “Linda, it’s a blessing to do a mitzvah for someone else, but sometimes it’s a blessing to let another person do something for you.”

Grandma would be shaking her head at me right now. Several of my friends at the graduate school I attended nights had offered to help me settle in after the moving men left, but I’d said I could manage. Letting them help would have interfered with my image of myself as a capable and independent woman of 21.

Snowflakes had been tumbling past my window for several hours when it came time to leave for class. I pulled on two sweaters, a coat, a wool hat and boots, bundling up for the trek to the bus stop that the real estate agent had dismissed as a short stroll. Maybe in May it was a stroll, but in this December storm it was a hike. As I topped off my outfit with a blue scarf that Grandma had crocheted for me, I could almost hear her voice: “Why don’t you see if you can find a lift?”

A thousand reasons why popped into my head: I don’t know my neighbors; I don’t like to impose; I feel funny asking for favors. Pride would not let me knock on a door and say, “It’s a 10-minute ride by car but a long wait for the bus, and it’s a 30-minute bus ride, so could you possibly give me a lift to school?”

I trudged to the bus stop, reaching it just as a bus went by.

Three weeks later, on the night of my final exam, the snow was falling steadily. I slogged through oceans of slush to the bus stop. For an hour, I craned my neck, praying desperately that a bus would come. Then I gave up. The wind at my back pushed me toward home, as I prayed,
Dear God, how can I get to school? What should I do?

As I pulled Grandma’s scarf more tightly around my neck, again I seemed to hear that whisper:
Ask someone for a lift!It could be a mitzvah.

That idea had never really made sense to me. And even if I wanted to ask someone for a good deed, which I did not, there wasn’t a soul on the street.

But as I shoved the door of my apartment building open, I found myself face to face with a woman at the mailbox. She was wearing a brown coat and had a set of keys in her hand. Obviously she had a car, and just as obviously, she was going out. In that split second, desperation overcame pride, and with my breath coming out in white puffs in the freezing hallway, I blurted, “Could you possibly give me a lift?” I hurriedly explained, ending with, “I never ask anybody for a lift, but...”