Archive for the ‘ALL Cancer Sucks’ Category

One of the Greats

Jun 20th, 12 / 3 Comments

When Tim and I were house hunting, we narrowed our choices down to four houses in similar neighborhoods. We chose the house we did for a couple reasons: 1) It was clean and ready to live in (minus some cosmetic details like painting). 2) It was VERY well maintained. 3) It had a nice big backyard. 4) The next door neighbors were about our age and had three young boys. We pictured our eventual children being friends with these boys and having them all running through both of our yards as though we had just one big yard together.

We moved in to our house in the winter, so it wasn’t until springtime that we really got to start speaking to those neighbors, Jeremy and Jen. One night that first summer, while I was pregnant with Aric, they invited us over for dinner. I’m normally pretty shy around new people, even people I’ve been living next door to for 6 months. But Jeremy and Jen are the types of people who you can talk to for hours and hours, even though they started the night as almost perfect strangers.

The ease in which I could sit and talk with Jeremy, even over mundane things like their wildly growing bush between our houses, is something that isn’t found easily with, well, anyone. It’s no wonder he loved to preach and spread God’s Word. He had a gift. I found myself enraptured with anything he was talking about. We never talked much about God or scripture or anything, but I always wanted so. I’ve been having personal struggles lately that I really wanted to talk out, and thought Jeremy would be the perfect person to talk to about it.

I mean, why wouldn’t he be? Since his early 20s, Jeremy’s body had been struggling through disease after disease, and he still held his head high, praised Jesus’ name, and gave thanks for every minute he had on earth.

Over the last couple years, we’ve had each other’s families over for dinner, got each other’s mail while on vacation, and used our nice, long driveway as a place for our boys to run up and down. Then, last October, Jeremy got news that the treatment that had saved his life from non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma was killing him. He was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS (Robin Roberts recently came out and said she had this as well). His only hope for a cure was a bone marrow transplant, but due to a rare antibody in his blood, there were no matches for him at all. Any where.

He was given an experimental transplant; stem cells were turned into bone marrow cells for his body to take. He entered the hospital at the end of April for radiation to kill off all of his current bone marrow and the subsequent transplant.

Forty days after the transplant, Jeremy’s heart couldn’t work any harder. He passed away just as a thunderstorm was moving through.

And I don’t know what to think.

I do know that for the last several months, Jeremy had been given an amazing opportunity that few of us get, and even fewer take advantage of. He was able to truly prepare for his death.

“but we do not like to talk about it. we do not like the specter of death. we do not like its presence. we squirm and look away, talk about the weather and the game, insist that there is no possible outcome but the one we want, the one in which i don’t die. the one in which i live. to think of it any other way is intolerable.

 that is not fair. it is not fair to the ones who live most viscerally with the numbers at hand. we need the opportunity to grieve, to prepare, to ready ourselves for one part of what could be ours to bear.”

- Jeremy Erickson; Death, the Possible II;  Feb 9th, 2012

“another good friend, one who lost his mom to cancer when he was seven, wisely asked me what the one thing would be that i’d want my boys to know going into this. i answered, in retrospect, i would want them to know that my death did not take me by surprise. he said, yes, with tears, that’s it. that’s what made the difference for him.”
…
“should we refuse [death] our attention because it is not fair? because i’m young? because i am dad to three young boys?”

- Jeremy Erickson; Death, the Possible; Jan 26th, 2012

Go, read his blog. All of it (or at least the posts starting in October). Even now, looking back at his words, I can’t help but be awestruck at how profound his words have become, how prophetic they ended up being.

But that doesn’t help me understand this any better. It doesn’t help me find any amount of peace for his boys, who are now without their daddy. No peace for his wife, now without her love.

His funeral was on Monday. I can honestly say I’ve never been to a service that beautiful before. I knew that Jeremy had a hand in planning it; I’m certain he picked his own scripture readings and the songs he wanted sung. Songs that he, himself, wrote.

I may be alone but I am not so lonely
Not as far as I can tell
I may be frail but I am not so afraid
I’m not dependant on myself
And I won’t go alone

I will look up to the mountains
And I will see my savior coming
With all the love I’ve longed to know
I will listen to the heavens
And I will hear my father laughing
Telling me it’s time to go
And I won’t go alone

I may be a fool but I am not so foolish
To believe a God who cries
I may be dying but you won’t find me crying
Cause my home is in the skies
And I won’t go alone

My body’s broken
My body’s broken but I’m holding on
And I won’t miss it when I’m gone

-Jeremy Erickson, Not So Lonely (Nancy’s Song)

Listen to the song, please.

Throughout the service, listening to his family and friends speak about the amazing man Jeremy was, all I could think about was how I let this man live next door to me and I didn’t make more of an effort to befriend him. There wasn’t a single person who crossed his path (and there have been thousands) who wasn’t moved by his words and forever changed by his presence.

And then, as the congregation was singing another of Jeremy’s songs, I felt something. I don’t know what it was. I’m not going to sit here and say I felt Jeremy’s presence or the Holy Spirit or anything like that. But I felt something. In the stuffy church I was overcome with chills. Tears started flowing. This …. feeling came over me. And while I knew life was going to be hard for the boys, they would be OK. Jen would be OK. As the pastor told us all “Your story ends well.” And in that moment, I felt it.

Jeremy, I will miss you. I will miss hearing you play with your boys, encouraging them to make new rockets, toys, everything with their imaginations. I will miss our talks at the fence, our impromptu pizza nights. I promise you we will not stop having Jen and the boys over for dinner. I will always let your boys use our driveway as a race track. I will be there for Jen to help her out as she navigates this new world of single parenthood.

As Jen wrote in your funeral program, “We are laying you down as one of the greats.” And while I didn’t know you all that well, I know for a fact that that is true.

Rest in peace, my friend.

ALL Cancer Sucks

Baby Keegan

Dec 6th, 11 / 2 Comments

Keegan Chupp passed away early this morning surrounded by his family.

He’s been battling brain cancer for most of his 2 years on Earth. This cancer has been so very aggressive and resistant to the strongest treatments available. And this morning all his pain left him and he was taken into the Lord’s arms.

I have no words to express my sadness for Beth and Ryan, Keegan’s mom and dad. I cannot even fathom what they are feeling right now, nor do I want to. I’m so angry at cancer and it’s ability to take away a 2 year old boy so agressively. Why?

I can’t stop thinking about Keegan’s mom, Beth. Her strength throughout all of this has been amazing. She has stayed by her son’s side through every hospital stay, every surgery, every bit of bad news. These last few weeks have been spent with Keegan trying to make his last days on Earth happy. They even got to take a trip to Disney World with him.

Beth is an amazing mother. Her strength has been something I am in awe of. She has done everything she could for her son, and then some. I can say with great confidence that Keegan was given the BEST earthly mother to care for him during his time here.

I will post information regarding funeral arrangements and things we may be able to do to help the Chupps or to give our remembrance to the family.

And please, please keep the Chupp family in your thoughts and prayers.

UPDATE: A service of Keegan’s life and God’s faithfulness will be 10 AM Friday December 9th, 2011, at One Life Henderson , 1644 Second Street, Henderson KY Officiated by Pastor Bret Nicholson. Friends may visit Thursday from 2-4 and 530-8 at Alexander East Chapel, 2115 Lincoln Ave, and on Friday from 9 am until service time at the church.

There is a fund to help raise money for Keegan’s final costs. Please click this link or visit Beth’s blog for information.

ALL Cancer Sucks

How Pink Towels (Don’t) Save the World

Oct 6th, 11 / 12 Comments

This past weekend I was watching football with Tim. Of course by watching I mean I happened to be in the room while it was on TV and I looked at the screen for a second. During this game, I noticed that these big, tough men were wearing pink gloves, pink shoes, pink towels, pink piping on their jerseys, pink ribbons, pink pink pink pink pink! When you see that much pink, it can only mean one thing: Boobs – I mean breast cancer.

Let me set the record straight before I get all up on my soap box and get all ranty. I completely support raising funds to research cancer, the causes, and ways to prevent it. Cancer sucks. To quote dear Aunt Becky: Cancer is bullshit. Cancer took my grandma away from me. Breast cancer runs in my family, too. Cancer sucks and we need to do everything we can to figure out what the heck it is and how the heck we can stop it.

That said, let me get all ranty up in here. Why the heck were big burly men wearing pink in support of breast cancer research? Why were they parading around in pink playing their big, manly sport? Was it because it’s humorous to see masculine men wearing such a feminine color? Or was it because breast cancer is sexy?

There. I said it. I’m not the first to say it, and I’m not going to be the last. To marketers, breast cancer is sexy. How offended would the general public be if football players went around with nekkid boobie tee-shirts or nekkid boobie patches on their jerseys? ZOMG! FOOTBALL IS A FAMILY SPORT! CLASS IT UP, YO!!! So they did. With cancer.

Think of how many times you can say “breasts” when talking about breast cancer. Never before has it been so appropriate to talk so openly about breasts during manly sports. I mean, heck, men LOVE boobies, amiright?

Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for these football players to wear colors in support of prostate cancer, the most common form of cancer in men, shoot, the #1 most common cancer of them all?! Or testicular cancer? But EW! Prostates and balls are SO not sexy! What man wants to parade around with ribbons supporting nut-sacks? How gay!

Ok, if you want to show solidarity against women’s cancer, what about cervical cancer? Gross, right? Who wants to think about cervices? And who wants to parade cervices around town?

And it’s not just football using breast cancer to make money. The delicious cup of Yoplait yogurt I just polished off had a pink lid on it with the message “Together, we can lick breast cancer!” It’s supposed to mean that you should lick the yogurt off the lid and mail it back in and they will donate money to breast cancer research. I read “Together, we can lick breasts!” SEXY TIME!! (Oh, I’m sorry, according to the yogurt I just ate the phrase is now “Save Lids to Save Lives.” Hows that for a guilt trip?)

My Lean Cuisines are pink. My eggs are pink. My chips are pink. My bucket of deep fried, artery clogging chicken is pink. My coupons in last Sunday’s paper are pink for Pete’s sake! Everywhere I look, I’m reminded of boobs. Oh, and breast cancer. People seem to do/buy ANYTHING that promises to help find a cure for breast cancer. And lets not forget about feeling as though we HAVE to buy these things, because otherwise you love cancer, and hate boobs, right?

Let’s not forget the crap that goes around on facebook. Women got messages stating that by listing the color of our bra on our status, that would raise awareness for breast cancer. We (I saw we because I did this the first time, too) saw this, thought oo! I support hating breast cancer! I’ll play along! Did it raise any money? No. Did it raise more awareness? No. Did it make people giggle to talk about their boobs on facebook? Yes.

On the Susan G. Komen website, there’s an ad that states “Old Navy and the Dallas Cowboys promise to help end breast cancer forever.” A nice message to be sure, but why can’t we end ALL cancer? Why are boobies the only parts of the body that should be cancer free?

Here’s a line I got from the website cancer.org (emphasis mine): “Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States, other than skin cancer. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer.” Wait wait wait? Breast cancer is neither the most common nor the deadliest?

Where are the walks to support raising money for lung cancer research? Why aren’t people handing out tubes of sunscreen to passersby to help them prevent skin cancer? Why do we giggle away skin cancer because otherwise we’d have to give up our gorgeous summer tan? Is it because we think lung cancer and skin cancer are completely, 100% preventable? Does society view those cancers as punishment to people who spend long hours out in the sun smoking cigarettes? It is because there’s no CLEAR link that causes breast cancer like there are for lung and skin cancers which means that good people get breast cancer?

I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t care.

I hate cancer. Completely and fully. And I want ALL cancer to end. I want all women to get mammograms and to self check to catch cancer as soon as possible. I want sunscreen applied as though it’s going out of style. I want all men to have their prostates checked regularly and so do self exams as well. I want EVERYONE to have their colon checked regularly, as awful as that process is.

Yes, let’s continue to rally together for a cure. Of ALL cancers. Let’s hold walks, fundraisers, commercials, theme days in football, but let’s do it for ALL cancer.

There’s more than just breast cancer out there. Please don’t forget that. All cancer sucks. And ALL cancer needs to be stopped.

And furthermore, ladies, let’s remember that the number one cause of death for us is heart disease. Heart attacks don’t just happen to men, you know. It can happen to us, too. So watch your diet. Get some exercise. Get your cholesterol checked as frequently as your doctor suggests. Boobs aren’t the only things killing us!

PS – As I was researching and writing this, there was a fantastic post over on BlogHer about Cancer Snobbery, then I found another about Pinkification. Both of these were in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, which is apparently October, which explains the pink football players. Go check those out, too! They are awesome and way better articulated than my post!

Edited to add: Last night Steve Jobs passed away from pancreatic cancer, the same cancer Patrick Swayze died from. From what I’ve read, getting the diagnosis of this cancer is a death sentence. It’s the most aggressive, deadly form of cancer out there. If we’re only going to pick one cancer to rally behind, maybe lets pick this cancer, eh?

ALL Cancer Sucks, angst, rants, soapbox, Things that keep me up at night, things that suck, venting, yukky things