Invisible

I just looked at my calendar and May is blessedly devoid of appointments. This concerns me a little. There are always appointments. Have I forgotten to put them on the calendar? I am usually so compulsive about that. I know I have a 2 appointment cards not yet written down, but usually my week is completely filled in. There is nothing. Does this mean we have come to the end of the craziness?

Last summer, when my mom was diagnosed with multiple myloma, things got hectic. Initially there was the feeling of overwhelming fear of the unknown. I had my first experience with TMJ that week. I wasn't able to close my teeth correctly for a few days, but by that time the fear was replaced with a sense of relief. My mom was not going to die. Something could be done. And on we went. My sister moved home that October and by that time my mom had started her treatment. For a few months it was just tests. She had X-rays and MRI's and blood tests and urine tests and the first thing that was decided was that she would have to wear a brace.

The brace, which looked like a combination neck brace and bullet proof vest, held her neck and torso relatively still and it meant that she would not be able to continue to work the way we thought she would be able to. She told my son it was her super hero costume, that it was helping her fight cancer.

Through November, December, January, and February our calendars filled up with an ever increasing amount of appointments. My sister and dad handled most of them. I took her to the ones they couldn't make. Mom, of course, had to go to them all.

When it was determined that the brace had never really been necessary it was a relief to everyone. She had worn it faithfully for 3 months with the belief that it was protecting her back. In reality, she didn't really need it and prolonged use could make her muscles very weak. Not to mention how restrictive it was to her quality of life. She couldn't even sit comfortably.

Shortly after she was rid of the brace it was time for her to go to UCSF medical center for the grand finale in her treatment. First she would spend anywhere from 2 to 6 days at the hospital while they harvested stem cells. She ended up doing it in three days and was quite proud of herself (she loves to excel at anything. Even healing. I can relate). A week later she headed back to San Fransisco. She would receive a one time, very high dose of chemotherapy drugs and then the stem cells she had harvested would be replaced. If all went well those stem cells would produce non-cancerous blood cells. She came home just short of the 3 weeks her doctor had predicted she would need to stay. Once again the overachiever, her cell counts went up steadily and they let her go home a little early.

That was almost three weeks ago. Today, she left the house for the first time for a reason other than a doctors appointment. Every day she says she feels a little better and every day I see her get a little stronger. On Friday, when she goes back to UCSF I hope they tell her she is in remission. I have no idea how long it would take for her to actually go into remission, but I can hope.

While all of this was going on, I didn't have time to be afraid that things wouldn't work out the way we hoped. In fact the thought never crossed my mind. Maybe I wouldn't allow it, but I never had time to dwell on it either. On any given day I would need to do some combination of the following: Take my son, Ben, to school. Take my handicapped uncle, Mike, to work, (take mom to an appointment if needed), pick up Ben, pick up Mike (all of the picking up and dropping off occur 30-40 min away from my house and at different times of day) take my grandmother to any appointments she had (she goes to the dentist and doctor every 4 months, gets her hair permed every 2 months and her nails done every two weeks). I also take Grandma to the bank and Vons once a week and to pick up medication whenever she needs it. If Ben didn't get picked up by his dad on a school day then I would drop him off after taking Mike or pick him up if it was my turn. Then I had school. Microbiology. Lecture Monday from 1-4 and lab Monday and Wednesday night.

Now, I have been doing a version of this dance for the last three years. Every time someones schedule changes I have to change with it. If Ben's dad's schedule goes from a 2-2 to a 3-4 (he's a firefighter who works very hard to provide for his family) well, then my schedule changed. If my dad started working nights instead of days, then my schedule changed. I am not a person who likes constant change.

So when I open iCal and look at May and I see no appointments, no reminders, no alarms, do I feel a sense of relief? Do I see free time staring back at me asking me to fill it with stuff I like to do? No, it makes me nervous, because as free as May looks I know that it is full of appointments that haven't been made yet.

Happy mothers day 2011

I wrote this form my mom, Gail, for mothers day this year. She is recovering from cancer treatment and it was really hard to figure out a gift for her. She is not eating a lot of different things so food and candy were out. She can't be around people so we couldn't take her anywhere. My sister is painting her a picture and this is what I came up with.

Mom, I love you. Happy mother's day. Jenna

Home. Work.

When I was a kid I liked school. I felt safe there and I knew what I supposed to do and I liked being with my friends. So this is not the story of a struggling student barely making it. Not really. In fact, I was a good student who could get by most of the time with out really trying too hard. And that's what I did. I was pretty confident in my ability to skate, too. I knew then, just as I know now, how much I had to do to get by and make ok grades. I don't remember studying back then. I went to class and did my homework (usually) and that was enough. Most of the time. But not always. There were a few subject that I could not skate through. A few things that I could not fake my way through or reason out when it came to tests. These subjects were spelling and math.

So, when it came to spelling tests and multiplication tables, did I speak up? Did I say, “I'm not getting this,” or “I need help”? Of corse not. I was too used to being good at school. It hurt my pride to admit that something didn't come fairly easily to me. So, I did the only logical thing a 4^th grader can do, I got a D in math.

As you can imagine, this did not go over well with my parents who were also pretty used to me doing ok in school. They weren't mad. (My parents didn't really get mad about grades. Positive reinforcement was more their style.) But I knew that it was not ok and I felt disappointed in myself and guilty and embarrassed. (That is the beauty of their system. They didn't really have to punish me as I was exceptional at punishing myself.)

I remember feeling like no amount of studying or work on my part would get me out of this. I had totally given up long ago and to try to take on all the learning I had to do to catch up with my peers didn't even seem worth my time. I don't remember what grade I got in math that year. Probably a C (I do remember that I did not get another D). I struggled with basic math until I got into high school and to tell you the truth I still pretty much suck at it. But what I do remember about that time was that my mom sat at the kitchen table with me, almost every night, trying to teach me how to multiply fractions, and I was awful. I wined. I cried. I complained. I'm sure she hated it. Every night after working all day, making dinner and cleaning up, what did my mom have to look forward to? Her oldest daughter spending more time feeling sorry for herself about how hard math was than actually trying to learn how to do math. It must have been exhausting for her. And, it wasn't the first time she sat down to help me through something like this. Or the last.

Any time I needed help with something we would sit down and go over and over and over it until I either got it or we ran out of time. Spelling test? Lets make flashcards and go over them together. In first grade I didn't get 100% on one single spelling test. Not one. This is what she was up against.

Need to memorize the state capitals? My mom put up a map of the United states in our hall way and she and I would sit on the floor everyday after school when I was in 5^th grade and go over and over and over them. I still don't know them.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I was good at a lot of things, but the things I was bad at...well, I was horriffically bad at them.

So, while my mom really wanted to help me learn to spell and do math and recite the capitals of these United States ,she didn't. It wasn't her fault. She did everything a person could do. I just didn't really get them. Not in a way you would characterize as proficient. However, she did teach me something better (you knew that was coming, didn't you?).

I am 29 years old now and back in school after earning a BA from Fresno State. You would be surprised how often I think about those times at the kitchen table with my mom. I think about it when I sit down to study for a test, because what I learned from my mom was to have a system. She showed me that the only thing between me and success was a plan of attack. Every time she would help me we would figure out the best approach to learning that particular subject, we would set it up and go for it. If it didn't work she would change tactics. Flashcards not working? Spell the words out loud. Can't remember the capital of Washington? Of course you can “You know, Juno”. She was a creative thinker when it came to this kind of stuff. She would always find a way to help me even if, in the end I never really got it.

My mom really gave me a gift. She taught me to be a creative thinker and a problem solver. I am good at figuring out the best way to learn a lot of material in a short amount of time. It is one of my strengths. And it is a skill I really needed, because of my 29 years I have spent 21 of them in school. Because of my mom and those study sessions I feel like I can learn anything. Talk about a powerful feeling. Think about it. Anything I really want to do well, in my mind, I can do it. I just have to really (really) want it.

There are so many other things that my mom did for me. I could spend a life time describing ways she influenced me, recounting words she said to me. The older I get the more I understand the things she tried to teach me and why she thought they were important. And my ability to get through classes may not have been the most important thing she taught me, but then again maybe it is. Haven't I used those skills to get through every challenge in my life? Didn't my systematic patience help me accomplish goals that seemed daunting in the beginning?

How could I have known that while my mom was teaching me long division she was also teaching me not to give up even when breastfeeding was excrutiating. When she was helping me get through 3^rd graded spelling she was showing me that I could start over and try to do something I really want to do. Every time she said let's do it another way she showed me that if something's not working you find another way to do it. You make it work for you.

My dad always says that my mom was really good at being a mom. He says she treated it like a job. She read books and tried to learn about being mom. In short she studied. And it paid off. She always was and is a great mom. I try to be just like her when I am taking care of my son. I try to have the patience she had with me. I always keep in mind that you can't give up on your children when it seems like they are just not getting what you are trying to say to them. After all, you never know what you are really teaching someone while you are helping them with their homework.