Happy Anniversary to Us! (and the little f**ker was malignant)

Hello all.

You may remember last month at this spot, you left us recovering from a bronchoscopy, a biopsy of the lymph nodes in Scott's chest. That, in turn, was somewhat spurred by a CAT/PET scan in March, which showed a recurrence of the cancer in not one, not two, but - count 'em - three! places in his body: about a 1 cm square bit of liver, the chest lymph nodes, and a piece of his right leg bone.

Well, we got the biopsy results back, and they're cancerous. No s**t, Sherlock. We actually sort of knew that going into the thing. The interesting thing here is they can't really tell what sorts of cancer cells they are. They were going to see if the lymph malignancy was a new cancer of the lymph system (a sort of Hodgkins' Disease, if you will), or a metastasis of the colon cancer to the lymph (which would be the worse of the two options.)

We were braced to hear he had a new primary cancer (which would be good news, because a new primary is often a Stage 1 or 2, and easier to treat than the ol' Stage 4 bugger that's been riding us hard these past few years).

We were braced to hear that he had a confirmed metastasis from the liver to the lymph nodes (which would be bad news, because the lymph nodes are to the body sort of like the drainage sewers are to the city, and once the bad oozy stuff gets into one lymph node, it often goes a-wanderin' near and far.)

But we were not braced to hear the medical infighting that is evidently all too commonplace these days when big hospitals employ big doctors. The bronchoscopy doctor said the lab doctors were not doing a good enough job analyzing the perfectly adequate sample he had gotten. The lab doctors told the esteemed bronchoscopy doctor that he hadn't got enough of a sample for them to tell whether it was colon cancer or something else. All they could say was for sure was that it surely was cancer. They didn't know what type it was and they weren't going to risk any sort of professional reputation based on such a small, inadequate sample.

Before this degenerated too far into a "did too / did not!" sort of preschool-style exchange, our wonderful oncologist came on the scene, waving her hands and calling a truce.

She said that although Scott was a trooper and willing (even eager) to undergo another bronchoscopy (and I could have gotten anther foot rub/Yogurt Park), she was not going to put him through the medical risks of a repeat procedure.

Whether it was a new primary cancer, or the same ol' stuff, the metastatic colon cancer was the biggest, most pressing problem, and anything else would just have to wait. She was going to continue to treat the metastatic colon cancer, and once that was beaten into remission, she would entertain thoughts of what might or might not be fartknocking around the lymph nodes in the chest.

Most folks would be devastated to hear this sort of news - malignant cells of unknown origin in the chest! But we often deal with more bad news by 9 am than most people deal with all day.

So, we did the only reasonable thing. We rented a limo and took the kids to the beach to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.

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This is the place to put in a HUGE thank you to our Bikini Squad! The girls LOVE their bikinis and wore them to the beach (and Maggie occasionally sleeps in hers). So thank you, thank you, thank you - you know who you are.

For starters, we got the limo for Wednesday the 16th.

"Oh, you were married on the 16th?" asked a neighbor.

"Actually, no, on the 24th." This much I remember, despite the mush that has become my brain.

"Then why are you celebrating on the 16th?"

Ummmm...what do I say here? Because the 24th falls in a Week 1 of the New Big Chemo, which means Scott will likely be seeing double from the anti-nausea drugs and too sick to get very far out of bed, the kids will be wild with anxiety, and I'll be rather too caffeinated to make it all the way to the beach without a perma-porta-potty on board?

"Well, it was more convenient to do it this week." I was hoping it would sort of fly under the radar. It sort of did. And it sort of was.

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9:05 am. The limo has not yet arrived. I ordered it for 9 am and I am getting nervous. Scott has long ago learned that 10 minutes doesn't count for squat in the course of the universe and hasn't even realized that the limo might be late. I have my equipment stacked out front: map, cooler of food (brie, fresh-baked baguettes, cheap champagne, cheaper sparking apple juice, organic grapes, organic strawberries), epi-pen bag, brand new thing of diaper wipes, roll of paper towels, purse, cellphone, beach tote #1, beach tote #2, beach tote #3, change of clothings Nos. 1 through 6 (two apiece for myself, Elli, and Maggie; Scott does not go through clothing at the same rate the rest of us do), and the ubiquitous Diaper Bag (which has now become the Poopy Pants Bag because while we are generally potty trained, we still Fudgie and Betsy-Wetsy semi-regularly.)

9:10 am. The limo is here. It is large, white, and straight outta 1985. The driver is Mr. Kemal, staid, proper, in his little suit, and straight outta Karachi. I realize he thinks he *is* on time because he's only ten minutes late.

9:30 am. It takes us easily twenty minutes to get in the car. It now does not matter when Mr. Kemal got here, because we have eclipsed his lateness with our own chaos factors. First Elli gets in the trunk. Then I have to sweep the cabin for peanuts. Then we have to find Maggie. We put the dog in the house, take the car seats out of the minivan, try to install the car seats in the limo, realize not all the seat belts work, and settle on the few working ones. The girls face sideways. The dog is now out of the house and wants to get into the trunk with Elli. Maggie is in the limo and wants to eat the ice from the champagne thingy. As far as I'm concerned, she can eat the chewing gum under the seat so long as it doesn't have peanuts in it.

9:35 am. We are still not going anywhere because Mr. Kemal wants to know where we want to go and I don't know. I tell him, "Santa Cruz! The beach boardwalk! It's our tenth wedding anniversary!" He is unimpressed. I can tell he's jaded, all too jaded - he's taken too many drunken yuppies wine tasting, too many spoiled rich debutantes to proms in Blackhawk and Danville, too many ungrateful demanding people to too many of the same places. He wants an address he can plug into his GPS system. I put the dog back in the house.

9:40 am. Scott is coming out of the house with the exact address of the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk. The dog comes out of the house too. Mr. Kemal is thrilled to have an address to plug into his GPS. We buckle in Kid 1 and Kid 2. Scott and I sit in the back of the limo. Then we get out and put the dog back in the house. Then, finally, we are off to the beach! Mr. Kemal rolls away and I see the driver partition roll up. I imagine he is relieved he doesn't have to hear us. He is probably quite right.

10:15 am. We made it as far as Mission Blvd down near Milpitas (I think) before we had to stop. This is actually a personal best. With one colon cancer patient, one coffee addict, one Fudgaholic, and one five-year-old with an averaged sized bladder and a penchant for 8-oz bottles of milk, it's actually amazing we made it this far before we had to stop. We frantically push the "driver call" button and he takes us to Jack in the Box.

10:40 am. We have pottied twice, eaten once, washed hands once, sprayed water all over the ladies' room only once, and gotten back in the car. Limo goes through Silicon Valley and over the vomit highway, otherwise known as Route 17. If you're not prone to motion sickness, it's a glorious route through ancient redwood groves en route to the glorious beach. If you are prone to motion sickness (especially if you're now sitting sideways between two girls because they won't leave each other alone, and that steak pita thingy from Jack in the Box isn't sitting too well), well, let's just say Highway 17 is something to survive.

11:15 am. We are getting close to the beach. I can see the surf shops. The ice plants. The hippies. Elli raises her hands to her face and issues the Battle Cry: "I GOTTA GO POO!"

11:17 am. We stop again, this time at a Denny's. Scott cannot believe we have had to potty twice on what should be one 90-minute drive to the beach. Mr. Kemal long ago gave up trying to believe what his clientele do or do not do in the limo. I am too busy rushing the girls into the ladies' room to care. Depending on who you are, it's terrible, mediocre, or excellent. (You can quit reading here if poo offends you.)

Have you ever seen the word "Monster" used as an adjective? You know, as in "Monster Truck," or "Monster Beverage," or "Monster Final Exam?" Think of the most extreme incarnation of that general effect, and then think of what size production a six year old, 55-lb girl would have to produce to qualify as a "Monster Turd." Then double it. Put 95% of it in the potty at Denny's (with the door to the stall wide open and some other poor lady trying to wash her hands and Not Look). And put the other 5% of it on the underwear.

Maggie thinks this is terrible. "Oh Elli! You pooped in MY underwear! You pooped in MY Fancy Nancy underwear! You're not my friend and you can't be my sister anymore. Not till you say you're sorry. I don't want you to wear my underwear anymore!"

It is true, all too true. In the scramble to get dressed this morning, we had some illicit laundry poaching, some reallotment of the few remaining pairs of coveted non-pooped Fancy Nancy underwear (we started the spring with three 3-packs of pristine white Fancy Nancy undies, and because everybody likes to wear them, and half of everybody likes to poop in them, we are now down to something like 3 clean Fancy Nancy ones and 6 ones with visible poo stains in them. This despite my best scrubbing, bleaching, and soaking.) Now the score is Cleans 2, Fudgies 7.

All the Fancy Nancy underwear technically belongs to Maggie (Elli's is Hannah Montana, which got pooped through and through long long ago, and one day when the laundry lady around here admits defeat, she'll nudge the shopping lady to go out and procure some more Size 7 undies. But the laundry lady is still working with her chlorine-free bleach and her Sit-On-The-Throne-Every-Hour-On-The-Hour-Because-I-Said-So campaign. Losing the campaign, but still working valiantly. The next campaign is shaping up to be the ever-more-powerful Sit-On-The-Throne-Every-Hour-On-The-Hour-Because-I-Said-So-And-I-Am-Your-Mother version.)

Elli thinks this is mediocre. "Well, at least I got a lot in the potty! Mommy, do we have any changes of clothing for me?"

And I think this is excellent, wonderful, awesome, and any combination thereof. For starters, better in any sort of potty than in the limo, and don't think for a minute the fact of being in a limo would have forestalled that sort of volcano. And there are so many worse places to put that last 5% of the turd than on your sister's underwear. For example, last year I learned that when you leak even a tiny bit out during abdominal surgery, it can cause septic shock. Relative to that sort of consequence, even a little scrubby-scrubby on the limo seats doesn't sound so bad. (Note to self: if I ever hire a limo again for this family, see if I can find one with brown leather seats.)

We wipe Elli down, bundle up the biohazard undies, get out Change of Clothing Number 2-A (person #2, change A), change Elli in the limo, and proceed to the beach.

High noon. It has taken us somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 hours to get here, a good hour above even the most laid-back of estimates. But we are at the beach! And it's our anniversary!

Mr. Kemal is warming up to us. He cracks a smile when he drops us off and mentions he has one child. (I think it was that last desperate sprint to Denny's, when we didn't even want him to park - simply stop in the street and unlock the friggin' doors - don't bother to walk around formally and let us out. Ever since then, he's been thawing.)

We grab our beach totes and bags. We each grab a kid. Mr. Kemal rolls off with the white limo and walk to the white hot sand of the glittering Santa Cruz beach. I realize he's rolling off with our cooler, with our organic strawberries, with our artisan baguettes, with our diaper wipes and our paper towels, but no matter. Cannon Elli has been Unloaded for the morning, and all is well with the world.

We spent a few lovely hours on the beach. The sea lions barked. The Pacific Ocean danced and sparkled. Elli said she could see China. Both girls ran into and out of the cold surf, gathering kelp and seaweed. They appropriated a large sand castle left over from a previous inhabitant. We watched Junior Baywatch jog down the beach in their matching red swimsuits (it looks MUCH better on TV), and watched them limp back about 30 minutes later, straggling one red suit at a time back to the Lifeguard Camp.

This is a little bit of a Dream for Scott. He remembers the first time his father showed him the California beaches, and he's been wanting to show our girls the beach for a long time. In particular, he wanted to be the first one to show them the beach, and he's thrilled he got to do it.

By 2:30, we were trying to go. By 3 pm, we were almost in Mr. Kemal's limo. He was looking around the boardwalk, worried about us, and we were coming along like the mythical herd of turtles. (Lost your organic strawberries and double-cream brie? No matter - we bought some lovely deep-fried fish-n-chips and sourdough cheese sandwiches, sprinkled them with sand and black flies, and ate them cold in the shade whilst the footwashers splashed on us. Any old coot can have champagne and strawberries; it takes a special person to enjoy the sandy version with a spritz of salt water and the crunch of the black fly as protein. And Maggie, who is very wary of new foods, has embraced sand as the Fifth Food Group.)

By 3:15, we had gotten ourselves fully into the limo and were headed back home.

We fished the champagne and the sparkling apple cider out of the trunk, and buckled everybody in their car seats. I got out champagne flutes for everybody, and Scott popped both bottles.

Maggie's grubby sandy little hands gripped her champagne flute like a baby monkey holding a banana. Elli held hers like a movie star. Scott tried to balance his on his knees while he poured, and I didn't even bother trying to hold one until everybody else's was poured.

I tried to bring a little gravity to the situation. "Girls, do you know what we're doing? We're doing a toast. Mommy and Daddy have been married 10 years today. It's our wedding's tenth birthday today. And we're celebrating with you girls!"

Maggie looked at me like I was mad and sucked down her sparkling cider.

Elli guzzled hers and held out her cup for more. Scott refilled it.

"Girls, this is your mother speaking. Some day, 100 years from now, you will be 106 and 104 years old. And you will be telling your grandchildren that you sat in a limousine, and drank a toast to your parents' 10th wedding anniversary. And you rode in a gas powered limousine, to the beach, in a car seat."

Elli thumped her chest and let out a huge belch. Mr. Kemal raised the partition fully so he could quit listening to us once again. I gave it up.

By 3:45, Scott, Maggie, and Elli were all asleep in the limo. I put their cups down.

By 4 pm, we were on the freeway proper. I had a kid asleep on my shoulder, but I managed to generate just enough wiggle room that I could lean out and nudge the rest of the champagne bottle free.

I sat there, husband and kid asleep in the way-back, another kid asleep sandy on my shoulder, guzzling champagne straight out of the bottle as the trusty Mr. Kemal drove us home, thinking, The great part about this is I don't have to drive. The challenging part is that I'm going to have to pee before we get back home. And ain't nobody stopping for nothing as long as these kids are still sleeping.

We made it home.

And I made it, just barely.