Chapters:

1. In the beginning.

A bit about my life just so you know who I was.

It all started 14 years ago... or may be more.

How cancer starts is a mystery now and it was then ...

3. Suddenly the picnic is over

I had a good few years even sometimes forgetting...

Death's shadow in earnest.

Medical tests upon tests what the hell are they good for?

No ups just downs and a flicker of hope

More chemo but it all stays a blur and much the same every day, when having a BM and no nausea is a good day!! Yippee!

6.The flame is going

Does not feel hopeful no-one can face me now and say anything positive, scary brain stuff too..

7. What do you know?

I knew it was close but was unable to really care anymore, couldn't even talk about it

1. In the beginning...

As this is my story you might think that I will start at my birth and so on. I am now 74 years old, or would be if I was alive, and it is a couple of years since I died. Do you continue to age after you're dead? Heh! What a minute, you say, how can a person who has died write about themselves? Please, just take my word for a while and you might find out how it is done.

I'm not going to the beginning, just far enough so you have some idea of why I am writing my own story of what happened . I decided to return to a place in my life so you really do have a better idea of who I was other than that I am a dead person writing about a disease that killed them. I was more than that. Born during the beginning of WW2 I grew up in London during the Blitz and the mayhem that followed. The war and the global tragedy affected my parents so it also affected me. Greyness was all around during my childhood, color seemed to have vanished during those war years. Even smiling or laughter was tough; how could you laugh when your neighbors had been blown to death the night before? No, I am not blaming my health issues entirely on the Nazis but they did actually play a part. You'll find that part a bit later on where it dovetails into my story. I managed to survive the bombing, food rationing and little health care that was available. I was bright and went to a prestigious high school where I excelled in academic subjects. My teachers directed me to go to college and as I had no other directives I went. I was at college for a year and then I couldn't take the pressure from home. I felt guilty to be the one out there enjoying my life and studies when my father had only my younger sister for company. So I gave up college and came back home to be a substitute house wife.

I learned to cook almost entirely from cook books although I had a teacher in high school who had been very kind after my mother died, and who helped me to understand many of the basics to cooking. I never learned to do many of the things that others take for granted like riding a bicycle, either it was wartime or I was sick, I am not sure which affected me the most, but the idea of taking any physical risk was almost impossible for me. Cooking I could do without personal risk and also something that was appreciated and best of all , mistakes were eaten and gone! My father and sister ate the same mac and cheese every day for a month until I got it perfect. I found I enjoyed cooking as I had control. I had only a high school education, the one year of college counted for nothing, and I needed to find work. First I worked in the retail trade as we lived in the city of London and there were jobs available. My dad was a machinist who worked at a ladies hat factory and I worked there doing clerical work for a while. Working at retail was not a pleasant experience and I was sexually harassed so much that I left.

I joined a Jewish youth club and made many friends there. It was safe place for teenagers to hang out . I had some boy friends and several offers of marriage but made sure that I was never in a situation with any of them as I was terrified of getting pregnant. I was always conscious of my larger than average breasts , I knew the boys noticed them so I wore loose sweaters but that did not really help. My high school boy friend's mother kept saying opportunity makes the thief, he was going to medical school and I am sure his mother did not want her son to become too involved with me. Although I avoided close sexual situations a group of us did sneak away for a weekend by the beach, we slept together in a group and a couple of my friends sneaked away to have sex.

I managed to get a job working at a settlement that was a private organization setup by a philanthropic man who owned one of the largest cigarette companies in England. My job was to help with a day care center for kids where the mother's worked and could not be home after school. About 100 kids came every day and we gave them a snack and I organized their activities. It was hard work but I enjoyed it. There was a close intimate group of co-workers there, mostly about my age, and some lived on the premises. I lived there during the week and went home at the weekends. They gave me the smallest room, it was just big enough for a bed, sandwiched between a hot water radiator and the door.

One day my record player broke and I talked to my friend who suggested that we go to a college dance where there would be engineers and may be one would fix it for me. That's how I met my husband, Ronald, and, yes, he did fix my record player the next day. He could fix almost anything, something that amazed my dad who thought he was the TV repair man for a long time. We fell in love quickly, there were some ups and downs but we got married about six months after we met. I would not have sex with him as the fear of pregnancy was so high on my list of no nos! He was very pushy and I almost gave in a few times but somehow lasted. We bought a tiny house in the suburbs and even brought Ronald's cat, Whiskey, from his parent's home. By the time we were married for six years we had two babies, I was running a children's nursery school in our home and he worked for the BBC. A very conventional middle class family.

Then the chance came to go to California with two young babies and a few thousand dollars made by selling the house. Ronald is an engineer so finding work was fairly easy although we came at the end of the boom of the 60's. After a couple of years we ended up in Santa Barbara. Coming into this lovely town via the bird refuge with the lake and the palm trees it looked like paradise to us. California changed us; there was such a difference in life styles. England was still suffering from the two world wars and everyone was tight and closed, California seemed so open and friendly, life was good and we soaked it in. I would often pack up dinner and then we'd all go to the beach, sometimes picking up some of the neighborhood kids who would cram themselves into, or on , our new Malibu SS cream convertible. There were no seat belts laws then so often the kids would sit along the top of the rear seat perched like so many birds. It was a dream-like life in so many ways, far better then I had ever thought possible.

Soon after we bought our house, where I lived for the rest of my life. It is a tract house but we had made it very comfortable. Ronald had completely remodeled the kitchen and it was a joy to use. Our children grew up, got married, each, a few times, trying to find love but often finding sadness instead. It was an easy time physically and a hard time emotionally. Our escape was to go the High Sierra every summer.

2. It all started ...About twelve, may be fourteen, years ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery to remove the lump. I had done all the regular mammograms and self exams but my breasts were pretty large and the tissue hard to palpate. The cancer was found during a annual mammogram and the radiologist was sure immediately he saw the X ray. His assistant, a woman in her thirties, showed me kindness and also compassion, as she had been near to many others who had gone along my new pathway. After a needle biopsy to confirm what the radiologist had thought, the surgeon took out what he thought was all of the cancer and some lymph nodes so they could be examined to see if the cancer had spread. The surgeon , David, a long term friend of our family who somehow, I thought, would have been happier in his life doing some woodwork or gardening instead of trying to accumulate wealth for his selfish Hope Ranch widow. The lab somehow never found the nodes in all the tissue and my friend, who is a pathologist, said that they probably washed them down the sink. Nice job! I thought, you washed my nodes down the sink! I have always had a good feeling about the medical profession even though my mother was killed through surgical error and subsequent neglect. I'm one of those people who grew up believing that those in authority like doctors, policeman and teachers knew what they were doing and could be trusted completely. It is funny how they always talk about surgical error when in other fields it would be a major fuck up. Still that was a long time ago when I was only sixteen and that is another story. BTW I would never have used fuck up while I was alive so here you get a freer form of my thoughts. The last time I went to see my mother she was supposed to be getting better from a minor surgery to relieve excessive bleeding during her periods. I went into her drab hospital room and the bed was empty, I asked where she was and the nurse said “ Oh, Mrs. Mulkes! Didn't you know she died a few hours ago”. I was only sixteen and I can still feel how my body dropped a thousand feet in a second to a hell that I can recall with a blink. So much for the medical profession!

The node data is critical because from this the status of the cancer can be determined; meaning simply has it spread or is it likely that it has now been removed from my body. Now I would never know. The lab results where not totally useless, they found that I was hormone sensitive, my doctor said that I had some options, such as a total mastectomy, radiation over my chest, chemo-therapy and may be some others that I do not remember as the impact of his words did not penetrate my mind until much later. He did not say, you can do nothing. I do remember that he said to stop taking hormone replacement therapy drugs immediately. My mind just couldn't take it all in; I kept thinking this is not happening to me over and over again, it was just a horrible dream.. “None of the above” sounded like something I wanted to do so I told them that I was going to Tuolumne Meadows in the High Sierra for the summer and I would decide when I came back. I desperately wanted some control of my life.

We used to go there every year where Ronald, my husband of almost fifty years would teach a sketching class and I would chase bears as part of the National Park Wildlife management program. It was really much more about management of campers, who were generally dumber than a plank of wood and stubbornly refused to understand that they were in bear country not a neighborhood park provided with wildlife for casual viewing. I would spend my days walking around the campground trying to get the campers to put their food away so the bears wouldn't come and eat it. Sadly, once a bear got human food it would keep coming back and if it got too aggressive the Park service was scared that a person might be injured. Then they would kill the bear. Sounds logical doesn't it!! If so, I guess you haven't worked for the National Park Service. I loved the bears and thought that the Park Service treated the campers far too easily.

When we came back from our summer in the mountains we wrote to Dr. Love, one of the leading experts in breast cancer, who wrote back that I had an option that made sense to her, to just have radiation and not chemo. I dreaded chemo as I had heard so much bad news about the effects and it did not look like chemo would make much difference to the outcome. It still amazes me how quickly my own body became a question of data and percentage risk. We learned that when a treatment improves survival from , say, 2% to 4% then the medical reports will claim a 100% improvement in that treatment method. The reality for a patient is that it makes little difference if it's 2 or 4 % , it is so little... the treatment might be worse than the cancer.

Radiation seemed a nice clean option and I was re-assured that they would only treat the affected tissue by using the latest techniques. This involved laying very still while my body was mapped in three dimensions. The radiation sources would produce narrow beams that could be focused and directed to damage only those parts that the radiologist thought essential. The fact that my chest and heart were in the same field somehow did not bother him and at the time I did not know enough to ask critical questions. He was a young red-haired energetic doctor who liked cycling and was very healthy; I am sure he felt he was really helping me but his judgment might have been colored by his technical skills not his compassion. I wonder how he would feel if our roles were reversed. Isn't that always the way with accepting knowledge, we're never ahead, just steps behind...we never know what is the real question I should ask.

I did this every day except weekends for six weeks. Ronald would drive me to the center and I would put on one of those silly outfits that pretended to cover you but in fact had slits and gaps everywhere so that you were just as exposed as if you were totally nude. At least they let me keep my underwear on! The Cancer Center, where I had the radiation, was decorated in soft “feminine” pastel shades and had cookies and coffee provided by the volunteers. The atmosphere was more like a hotel lobby. It made me remember Soilent Green and I shuddered inside, every day I went there. However it also seemed like an amazing treatment, so clean and harmless! I tried to imagine the rays driving into my flesh and killing the cancer, not thinking about anything else. Once on the shiny clean stainless steel treatment table I would lay down, they put supports for my body, made sure that the targets were lined up on me the same as before, pressed some buttons and then disappeared to escape the radiation. The whole procedure took about 20 minutes. The care that the staff gave was exceptional, very gentle and caring. It was like when I had to take one of our dogs to the vet to be “put to sleep” ; that dreamlike state that somehow allows us to continue to do something we have to do but that is so hard. I felt that each of them knew more about how serious my sickness was than they would say. They seemed so concerned that my skin might get burned by the radiation and gave me cream to apply. I did not have any burning and really no side effects. I did get very tired after each treatment and when I came home Ronald made me a cup of tea and sometimes I went to bed. We never asked why am I tired?. Once again I thought about this much later when it's meaning was lost. While I was having the radiation Ronald would walk around the block seeing how many times he could go round before coming back in to pick me up. I think he needed to be away from the place and needed to keep active. I do not think that he realized, or did not want to accept, how serious my condition was and expected me to be the same woman as I was before the diagnosis. For while I tried to keep that image of a changed woman from him.

After the shock of knowing I had a deadly disease moved on to reality I decided that my life had now really changed and that I wanted a new way of relating to my immediate family. Life wasn't for ever. I had always felt that I was not valued as much as I needed. Now I was a survivor and did not know if or when the cancer would return. The years flew by and my family had to adjust to my new self. I wasn't so tolerant of what they wanted and tried to engage myself in those areas that I enjoyed. My adult children's lives were not stable and I had previously tried to make their lives my major priority. I don't think that they saw it that way, as Ronald and I had many friends who we often entertained, and the kids felt shortchanged. There was more than a little resentment by my kids with my involvement with so many friends. The way I saw it was that my friends gave me back, and my kids, drained my energy. Ronald went along with all of this, at least I thought so because he would never come out and say anything so I was always guessing at what he thought. Trying to get a meaningful response from Ronald was always hard so eventually I gave up. He like to live in his dream world where all is joy and happiness is everywhere. I tried to get him to seek counseling but he simply denied having a problem and I refused to play therapist to my husband. I would just work around him.

Ronald was so thoughtful but so neglectful at the same time. A strange combination and he had such lovely eyes that would well up at the slightest sadness. I sometimes felt that he was with me only because he was too lazy to work out any alternatives. I even thought about leaving him and starting a totally new life. I wanted to go back to school and become a lawyer, something that I did not talk about to anyone. Ronald was too pre-occupied with his own life and the effort for me to make so many big changes was more than I wanted to handle. His way of showing how much he valued me was to build an incredible kitchen , I think I would have liked an invitation to Paris instead. I just could not say anything , and sadly, I did not say anything. We each continued with a life that looked planned precisely so that from the outside others said what a loving couple.. and that made us feel warm and hollow at the same time. Like goldfish in a tank swimming around and around each day eagerly coming up for food.

I enjoyed my garden where I could be alone with the plants. Tending plants seemed to be a way for me to have total control over the outcome. I could go outside, go up to my plants, talk gently to them and I felt they listened. I liked to walk in the field behind my house; it was mostly wild except for a patch where a farmer grew flowers and sometimes vegetables. It was very peaceful there, mornings were often dewy and the grass would glow with the morning sun. There were birds around and their song filled the air, hawks flew in circles gaining height from the updraft against the hillside. I had watched several generations of hawks over the many years I lived there. I envied their apparently carefree life.

This cancer was the second major time in my life where outside events controlled my life without giving me a chance to make any decisions. The first was when I was eleven and was diagnosed with TB; this was probably due to our very poor living conditions ( that's where I can blame the Nazis ). I was sent to a special isolated convalescent hospital in the English countryside where they forced hard cooked eggs on me first thing in the morning and without a drink! I hated them then and have hated them since. The thought of eating a hard cooked egg brings a gagging response in my throat. They would put a long red-rubber tube down my throat and suck stuff up. The thought of having anything in my throat still bothers me now. It was a hard time, especially being away from my family and school friends. They had some kind of teaching at the hospital; I do not remember any details now only that I was allowed to read as much as I liked. You weren't allowed to bring books so I only got to read the books they had there. I liked to read and I think I read every book they had at least once. When I came back home, after they said I was clear, my school friends kept their distance but my mother was incredible. Even though supplies were short and we were poor, as a result of the war, she made sure I had good food and care. We were Jewish and although pork is not allowed she bought and cooked bacon because it was easier to get; in a separate pan of course! I loved her very much. It was only four years before she died.

I did have a third time when outside events changed my life and this time it was for ever. About eleven years after my breast cancer diagnosis I was in the garden moving some plants when a ladder, that Ronald had left out, fell over and, as I tried to reach out to stop it, the ladder and I fell together. I fell hard going backwards to the ground with only a slight cushioning from some weeds. I got up and started to go into the house, but before that, Miranda, one of my grandchildren, had rushed ahead and screamed for Ronald to come out. I was already up by the time he came and I yelled at him for always leaving stuff out. The back of my chest was very bruised and I put ice on it for a while. I was so mad with Ronald; he will jump from project to project not finishing or putting away his tools or materials! I eventually went to the doctor as it was so tender but he said that it would take some time to heal. It started to feel somewhat better so we went to the mountains again. It was a place where I could have time to think without any interruptions. Ronald was always more thoughtful there too. It was one place where our lives were in our control and where he was tidy and also very loving. I would read as much as I wanted and he could sketch, it was a blissful time. I did my “bear roving” but found it tiring. One of the campers complained to the park service that I was aggressive and without hearing my side of the story they wrote to apologize to him. My campground supervisor showed Ronald the correspondence but was scared to show me as she was concerned about how I would take it. When Ronald told me about this I was furious with everyone. How could they not even get my input before apologizing to the dumb camper? How could my supervisor not realize that I was the one that need to see the information, not Ronald? How could Ronald not tell her that I was the one that needed to be told first? I resigned immediately as I could not in due conscious continue in a job with such hypocrisy. It wasn't “save the bears” it was toady to the campers! It destroyed my experience and I felt that part of me had died. First the anger, then came the sadness, it was a very emotional time. We stayed in our camp and Ronald continued his teaching. I spent my time wandering around going for short hikes and reading.

I found that my back remained uncomfortably painful but also found hiking very tiring. One day Ronald wanted to show me a beautiful meadow he had found while hiking to Ragged Peak. It was up about 1000 feet above our camp and about two miles away. I agreed on the condition that when I had enough we would come straight back. It was very hard to climb up the trail but I kept going as Ronald had said that it was well worth the effort. The trail led from the road into a heavily wooded hillside. It was a switchback that had been made many years before and was used mostly by hikers going to Lembert Dome. It was dusty and hot but the views were great. You could look through the trees across the river meadow to the mountains. Ronald was surprisingly patient with my very slow pace so I did not complain just kept on going and stopping to catch my breath often. I could only walk

up this steep hillside for about two to three minutes at a time. Finally we got to the meadow and it was truly gorgeous. It was very large for a grassy meadow at so high an elevation, the backdrop of the rugged mountains made the smoothness of the meadow more dramatic. The sky was totally clear and you could see for ever. It was place where, if we had the time, I could have stayed until sunset. Or indeed, if I had known what my future looked like, I would have stayed there until I froze to death during the night. We walked a few hundred yards and I became totally exhausted. I just told Ronald that I needed to go back. He wanted to go on and I did not want to tell him that I felt so tired. I am not sure why but he would have then been determined to find out what was wrong with me.. he often thought that he could play being a doctor. He did not want or like to see me anything less than healthy. It all seemed too much effort so I said nothing. There was a lot of nothing said at times like this. I wonder now if I could have engaged in a meaningful dialog with Ronald, and he actually listening to me. Probably not, he would interrupted me so often that I would have had to use my tiny reserve of energy up. I think that I realized then that something was really very wrong with me. I was short with him as he was unaware of my condition, and did not seem to, or want to, notice. After a few minutes of unpleasantness, Ronald tended to sulk when he did not get his way, we went back, slowly down the mountain. This trip was made a day or two before were to leave the mountains and return to Santa Barbara.

On our last day we went to say good bye to the rangers who we knew well, having spent many summers enjoying their company. Ronald would say, feeding them! I like to cook and yes, we did feed them often, and they were always most thankful and very hungry.

Cooking was skill that I had to learn quickly when my mother died. She had done all the cooking and I was schoolgirl who did her homework. I excelled at school and now found that I had to learn to cook from scratch, my mother hadn't taught me anything about cooking. I did not even know how to cook a potato! I went to the library and started with macaroni and cheese. We ate that for a long time before I moved on to something else. Each time I continued until I could cook the dish perfectly. I liked having this control over something in my life. Macaroni and cheese is one of Ronald's favorite meals and he would always ask me to make it for our wedding anniversary. I would say what do you want to do for our anniversary and it was always the same.. “Macaroni and cheese and then to bed! “.

One ranger said to look at an owl in the tree over our heads. It was getting dark but we managed to see a Great Horned Owl at the very top of a Lodgepole pine. They are rarely seen in Tuolumne Meadows, we had never seen one there before in more than 25 years of visiting. We stood and watched it; I turned to Ronald and said “ I wonder if we will come back next year?” He knew what I meant as we had often talked about the time when one of us would not be coming back. It was nothing specific, it was just a thought that came to each of us during the sadness of our annual departure from a place that we felt magical and very special.

When we came back home, in September 2008 , I was still very tired and my internist was puzzled; but after an Xray, he had no clear idea except he thought that I might have a hematoma. He seemed worried about it but did not say anything definitively. Basically this hematoma looked on the Xray like a large blood clot in the lungs and it could have come from my fall. If it was, then it would clear in time so I waited. I was still very tired but after about three months, as promised, we took our youngest two grandchildren to Montana de Oro. This place is about an hours drive up the coast. It has a rugged coastline with sandy coves and headlands that are great for hiking. We had been there many times, first in a little tent, then later in a small motor home. We would sometimes go in the winter , park on the beach and enjoy the stormy waves pounding against the rocks. But this time I was too tired to even walk to the beach even though it was only a few hundred yards away and almost everything irritated me. I just could not cope with Ronald or the kids. I felt that my life was a mess and wanted to just run away. Somehow I thought that if I was by myself my pain and problems would vanish.

The kids saw a gull with it's beak and legs caught by some fishing line and the three of them went onto the rocks to try and help. They tried for a long time but could never get close enough. The other gulls started to attack the injured bird and finally it managed to fly onto a ledge against the cliffs. I knew it would not last long as it could not feed itself. I understood how my life was somehow paralleling that of the bird's. On our way back a large bird flew into our camper and was killed, I felt very uncomfortable about this but said nothing. I was too exhausted to really care. We came home in silence.

I went back to my doctor who suggested that I see a respiratory care specialist who immediately put me through a series of exhausting tests. Suddenly he stopped the tests and said I needed a CAT scan immediately as there was something serious going on with my lungs. I had only partial lung capacity. An hour later he looked at the CAT scan while we were in his office and said that it looked like a massive hematoma to him but he was concerned because of the large amount of liquid. Ronald seemed to be in a daze about this and became almost mechanistic from then on in handling our life. Or, really my life. My sickness became all we thought about. It filled every moment of the day, there was hardly anything we said or did that was not health related. Next week and another doctor and a hospital procedure later, I had some fluid sucked out of my lungs. The fluid went to our local pathology lab and we waited and waited. It came back negative to cancer or anything else. I had terrible pain from this procedure, it was overwhelming. The doctors did not understand why I had so much pain. “Very unusual” they said. Meanwhile slowly the pain lessened after I went through Tylenol, then Percoset into a stupor.

The local guys then sent it out to another lab for more detailed examination. We breathed a sigh of relief but my tiredness continued unabated.

I had difficulty sleeping and although Ronald made disapproving looks when I took sleeping pills they allowed me some respite from all the drama. Ronald seemed lost on the internet searching for a clue as to my condition. He found a medical paper covering all the problems that could lead to fluid in the lungs. He said impassionately that from what he had read I probably had Angiosarcoma, a very nasty cancer, and that I might have only 3 months to live. Dead by my birthday! I did not pay much attention but deep inside I wondered if he was pleased to know I would be gone soon. My health problems were wearing us both down, our relationship was now in a bad place; there was no time for love or caring. My legs hurt all the time and I could get no relief. The pain felt like a severe toothache and it penetrated into the very depth of my bones; especially my legs. Ronald found my tiredness overwhelming. He resented doing all the many things that I usually did. The only place he was still loving was in bed and there we were far from passionate, it was mostly a release for him, and for me an obligation. I was worried that if I did not participate he might find someone who would. We did not talk about anything but my health. Like some horrid beast it had consumed us.

In April we went to see my oncologist and she told us that I had a confirmed cancer, Angiosarcoma.

Damn! Ronald was right again! She said it was very difficult cancer to treat, especially now, as it had already spread throughout my body. That was why my legs hurt. The cancer was in my bones. When the cancer gets in the bones the tissue grows but there are no spaces for it so it presses on delicate nerves, hence the exquisite pain. This news was very hard to hear but Ronald behaved as though this was a technical problem that could be solved. He was not truly compassionate and I felt very much alone, I wanted him to just listen and hear how much I hurt but he kept thinking that there was a solution and he could find it! When he wasn't caring for my needs he was on a computer searching the internet for the holy grail.

I learned from my oncologist, Dr. Margaret Ray , the only choice I had was to try a chemo that might shrink the cancer in the bones. When we pressed for some idea of the prognosis, she said it was more like months than years. The chemo for the bone pain worked fairly well for about two weeks but the pain returned, not just in my bones but sometimes in my ribs and back. After the chemo I had nausea and could hardly eat as I had no taste. So you can get a wider perspective I am adding some excerpts from my log book as these give a clear idea of what I wanted to write down at the time about my condition, I have put them as written in quotes and not edited in any way. When you read these remember that they were written by me when I was extremely sick and that I knew that Ronald would be reading them; he would probably make a comment if it did not read the way he thought I was reacting to a particular med. Somehow keeping the log became one thing that I could do and have some control.

“ 5-7-08, Woke up feeling normal-slight back pain low ache. Gardening at first light. The smell of fresh beans and carrots is intoxicating. My petunia in no longer lonely-maybe shallots and petunias have a symbiotic relationship”

Later Ronald tried to make something I would eat, but most of it was uneatable, and he had to throw it away.

“5-8-08 Very sleepy again. Very consistent. Normal BMs with help. R is so supportive. I hate me when I get cross, with disease—you always hurt the one you love. Mir is here again -such a joy. Lewis is a little “sick” . Decided to stay away from Kristen's wedding. Too much exposure risk! I need to live so I will be careful getting chemo. Balance, balance, always. Life is a tightrope. Decided to forgo night meds to let R sleep 6 ½ hours. Mistake for me-took the gained time to catch up pain relief.”

My medicine regimen was complicated a s many of the meds had to be taken either before , after or with food. Since I was eating so little it was a tough job to organize the pill taking. There were pills I was supposed to take very 4 hours and that meant waking Ronald hence my decision one night to miss them.

“5-9-08 Seemed to sleep most of the day- Nasty back ache at waist level-Not enough improvement? But too tired to move. Eyes much better. I MUST be able to make the eclairs for Peter.. I'll start early& do it in stages. Cutting down on constipation stuff” It was Peter's birthday in a few days and I always made him chocolate eclairs for this occasion. I wasn't going to let my disease stop me, but it was very hard doing something that before the cancer I could do almost in my sleep.

Friends heard about the diagnosis, they started to send cards and Ronald strung a line across the bedroom. He also bought a very large screen TV as I was now in bed almost all of the time.

I was now on narcotic drugs to relieve the pain and some of the time I was unaware of my surroundings.

“5-18-08 Even more sleepy today but toward stupor. Getting fed up with lack of achievement and woolly thinking. Up & down the Styx-not even to and fro. Food tasting different-can't seem to push through this mood”

I am scared and kept asking Ronald if I was going to die. He calmly replied that he did not know but the prognosis was very poor. I just wanted him to tell me he loved me, I already knew what the prognoses was.

“ Monday 24 May feeling better but need to rest for many hours. This is so difficult for me. Can't concentrate on reading. Goal for the week is golf club covers for Peter & cat for Grant. Chemo pattern is now; Friday getting tired PM getting worse & Sunday worse of all. Monday good improvement. Can't seem to get any exercise. Friends are amazing. Volunteer what I really need. I am so lucky”

Soon I was unable to walk as my body was too weak. The doctors said that my bones were very weak and I might break them. Ronald had to help me to the bathroom but even trying to sit down was so hard, my rear bones and flesh were so tender; we got a commode, this was a bit easier.

“Wed 4 June Good morning time in garden, picking fruit. Pain came again started around 2-3 PM , Percoset didn't seem to help. I am getting very stressed & does this contribute. 4:25 will try Xanax and move around, see if this helps. Both Mel and P have sore throats so they don't come over. This is hard. As soon as I moved around the pain faded. I wonder if this is a “hallucination/percoset “ effect. A bath was good too. No back pain today. My life seems to represent a see-saw.. I hope it is well designed”

I went for another type of chemo that was started in the hospital, when it was finished somehow a wheelchair appeared. I used it to leave the hospital as I could not walk.

Peter and his friend Jon turned up on a Saturday morning and built a ramp so I could get out of the house even while being in a wheelchair. Peter wanted to just do something and I know working on this project kept him from thinking about my death. I could hear them working hard together cutting wood and pounding in some nails. I felt proud that they wanted to help and could manage what they set out to finish, all in one morning. However I found I was too scared to go down the ramp, it felt like I was going to fall on my face, so Ronald lifted me down the back steps and I then got back into the wheel chair. It was very painful going down the stairs and Ronald had to take all my weight and also try to move slowly. I found that with enough pain meds I could move in the wheel chair around some of the garden. I braided some shallots that I had grown, it was so good to feel the plants in my hands. I wondered if I would ever use them, but it did not matter. Kimmie, Peter's wife came over and helped me do some of the braiding. Such a simple sharing gave me such a caring feeling. The warmth of the sun and the breeze off the field behind the house felt so good but after about thirty minutes I was too tired and Ronald helped me back to bed.

I began to realize that I was dying but kept the thought inside.

“7-29-2008 Went to LA with P & R to get straight picture from Dr. Chimlawski: 'can't cure but may be delay by careful use of chemo. Should do what I can when I can.' Doesn't matter if delay chemo for a couple of weeks so can go to T if I can balance pain med. Peter offered to come with John which will help no end. From past 2 weeks I think I am deteriorating quickly so need to concentrate on quality for me & R & M & Pete. I am lucky have them. Tay is a puzzlement. How to keep promise to him?”

No-one wanted to talk about the prognosis except Ronald who kept analyzing every CAT scan, every X ray, every blood test, in fact every test I had. I think that he thought that somewhere there might be a breakthrough if he could only understand it all. One day he put my scans on the big screen in the bedroom and wanted to show me some details. I felt that he was just interested in my health just like it was one of his electronics problems. I was not sure that he was thinking of me in the way I needed. I could not bear to see my scans so I made him remove them from the screen. The sight of huge gray cross sections of my skeleton terrified me.

I could not hear the TV very well as my hearing had become worse since starting the chemo. Ronald built a couple of high quality speakers that he thought might help. I still could only hear if the volume was so loud that he found it uncomfortable. He then bought some wireless headphones and I could hear much better. Sadly I found that I could not read anymore, it was too much effort. The words kept slipping away. I was on a morphine patch that made every thing fuzzy in my head so I just watched TV.

Being in bed for so long I developed an ulcer. I thought this was just a skin problem but the infection and dead tissue went right down into the hip bone. It was incredibly painful , adding to my existing pain. I did not know that a human could endure so much pain. The visiting nurse suggested a foam mattress pad that would cushion my body and help to avoid the skin ulcers; Ronald ordered one. The nurse was so understanding and gentle I felt her affection for me was genuine. She was a wonderful person .

The cards kept coming and Ronald ran a second string to hold them. It was now only about three months from my diagnosis. I had visitors almost everyday who came to see how I was. Mostly women who I had known for many years. Some friends came from Germany; they were a couple who we had met in Tuolumne Meadows many years before and with whom we stayed in contact. They came with a fictional story/video about a bear that they thought I would enjoy. I tried to watch it but during the opening few minutes the mother bear dies and I couldn't watch the rest. Ronald made rice pudding every day after finding that I would eat it. One day I thought that I would try to eat some chicken and he went out and came back with a rotisserie chicken from the market. After one bite I could eat no more and I felt his anger at the waste of a trip and the food. His time was spent almost entirely looking after me or sitting in bed with me. I did not care about anything much now just keeping my log and hoping that I wasn't either in pain, vomiting or having diarrhea. We were still having some sex, Ronald still desired me although I am sure I looked like a ghost. Our doctor said to be very careful and avoid any stress on my bones as the cancer had made them extremely weak. We asked about the risks of bone damage from sex and he said “ why do it?”. I guess he did not understand that this was the link we had that kept us close in this awful time.

I slept very poorly and because the pain patches did not work anymore I was put on a pain pump; a convenient way to deliver morphine directly into the veins. The access is via a portal, they make an incision on your chest and put a short tube into a vein, then they put a plastic cover onto the chest skin, where it is held with tape. To have a portal to handle the tube I had to have minor surgery and Ronald asked if it would be removed when it was no longer needed. Dr. Margaret Ray, my oncologist, did not reply. Looking back I realize that this was her way of avoiding answering truthfully that this was used almost entirely with terminal patients. Every time we went for check up, now weekly, Ronald and I asked Margaret how long I had to live but never got a clear reply. She just said that she did not know. This wasn't the answer we needed; just having a idea would have made us feel we had some control.

Ronald kept a logbook on a laptop to try and keep track of all the medicines that I had to take. He also tracked my reaction to each bout of chemo. He still believed that knowledge was power and if he did all he could then he would not feel so useless. Melanie had done her own research and found that some non-prescription alternative drugs had shown to be helpful for cancer treatments. She bought them for me and insisted I take them on top of all the numerous drugs that I had to take. Some of the drugs were for non-cancer problems but most were related in some way to my cancer disease. The drugs had interactions so it was a major challenge to plan the time to take them. Ronald's log kept track of them for me. As I was eating so little and everything tasted terrible I became constipated except immediately after the chemo when I had vomiting and diarrhea sometimes simultaneously. Each retch was so painful, even with all the morphine , and just trying to get to the bathroom in time a challenge. Ronald was so good about cleaning up and never complained.

I used to write in my logbook how I felt each day especially after a chemo treatment. One day I noticed that Ronald had written in the book. I was furious and tore the pages out. I told him this was my log book and he was not to add comments about my health. It was the only place I had where I could make my own notes without his add-ons. I had so little control of my life, even a medical log had become my sanctuary.

One weekend I had a collection of younger women visiting and I felt strongly that I would give away some of my jewelry to them so that they would have a solid memory of me . I opened my jewelry boxes and spread the pieces on the bedspread. I went through them all telling why I had them and the story behind each item. When one of the women remarked how nice a piece was I gave it to her. I did not want to admit that I would not wear any of this again but I am sure that they all knew this to be so. Later Melanie came by and was visibly angry that I had given away what she perceived , as family property. I did not feel any need to apologize for my actions, they were my possessions and I did what I wanted to do with them. I was never attached to most of them and I did not really care where they ended up.

On July 11th , my birthday, and I was just well enough to walk a few steps with support. The family decided to go my favorite Chinese restaurant where we had dinner. I picked at the food, as nothing tasted like anything but mushy indistinguishable stuff me. The chemo had killed all my sense of taste and smell. Just driving there and siting was an enormous effort but I pretended to enjoy the occasion, I kept thinking that this was my last birthday and would this day be remembered just like that. Rachael's last birthday! When we arrived home I went immediately to bed and told Ronald that the food tasted terrible. I took my evening meds that included sleeping pills and slept for a few hours. I would wake and see Ronald looking at me; was he wondering when my time would come? He spent much of the time on a laptop keeping track of the meds and my condition. By now I had almost stopped writing and also could no longer read. The words on the pages slipped out of my mind so that each sentence was a struggle to understand. Finally I just gave up trying. Ronald offered to read to me but I had never enjoyed being read to and told him not to bother. I did not want to die, I really wanted to get better as I felt that I had never done what really mattered in my life. I had just done what was expected of me by others, driven, but not the driver!

The log book told my sorry story, day one : new chemo med sitting in the doctor's office with a tube pouring poison into my arm. Ronald sitting, sketching in another chair; day two vomiting and diarrhea

all morning, struggling with Ronald's help to reach the bathroom, awake most of the time; day three, vomiting less but unable to eat, unable to drink; day three slight fever , drank tiny amount of juice, ate two spoonfuls of rice pudding. Day four extremely tired, was in a semi dazed state, could only watch TV with little or no recognition of what I was watching. Slowly after about a week the major nastiness faded. I was now unable to walk except with Ronald holding onto my body. This was how I got to the bathroom. It was a slow shuffle of pain.

I started to feel a bit better and then went to Dr. Ray to find out that my weight had dropped nearly fifty pounds since the diagnosis. She had good news, she said that I could start a new chemo that might help. To celebrate we went to a local hamburger place with Peter, where I managed to eat a surprising amount of my meal. Peter was going to China in the next few days and wanted to be sure I would be OK until he came back. I was not free of pain and was still using morphine all the time but I could walk slowly and was eating and drinking. It was amazing how life so quickly gets reduced to the very simplest of activities. The new chemo was taken orally and I started on Friday, by the next day I felt terrible , I could hardly breath and did not want to drink. We were used to the very unpleasant effects following chemo so we were not surprised but my weakness and dizziness continued. Ronald contacted the doctor who said I should stop taking the new chemo and also take a dose of cortisone to help alleviate the symptoms. When I awoke on Monday I was unable to move, I could hardly speak and I did not want to drink. Ronald reported this to the doctor who said if I did not drink at least two cupfuls I would have to be taken to hospital. I tried but could not swallow. I could not even explain what I was feeling to Ronald. I could sense the fear in his face as he phoned for an ambulance. “it is not an emergency” I heard him day “ I just need my wife to be taken to the hospital”. The ambulance came and the two men tried to lift me, the pain was terrible, I felt that I was going to break me in two. I was soon in a bed in the oncology wing and my own doctor had been called and they put me on a drug to help remove fluid from my lungs. I was drowning as my lungs filled. I was put on oxygen as I had little oxygen in my blood, I had hardly any blood pressure, I could just lay there and hear conversations about me, I was very sick I knew that. I hated the feeling of the face-mask and tried to remove it. I was told that I would feel better with the oxygen but I did not care. Slowly during the day more and more people kept coming to see me but I was given even more morphine and I drifted in and out of consciousness. My mouth was dry and I said I wanted a cup of tea, Ronald came with a cup of warm tea but with the face-mask on I couldn't drink. Asking for a cup of tea were my last words. Somehow he managed to use a straw to help me but by then I had drifted back to sleep. I slept heavily sedated yet peacefully Monday night. I heard some talk about how long “it takes” and realized or thought I understood that they were talking about my death. “A few days at most” I think I heard. I was unable to talk as now they had increased my morphine level so I was unable to respond. I noticed that Ronald was touching my hair and that my breaths were coming so fast that there was really no time between them. Finally the breathing became very gentle , it was too much effort to continue and it stopped. I wanted to say something but I could not speak nor move, I could see some blurring images then they went white, I heard some muffled sounds, then they too faded into silence. I felt peace or nothing I am not sure.

On Monday night before I died a very large owl kept circling over my house, the neighbors watched it for some time until it was too dark to see. I have never seen an owl circle over our house and now I never will. Attached to the key to my desk is a book mark with an owl shown as a symbol of wisdom. It says “Owl medicine teaches us to carry our light in the dark and find the true path in all situations”.

I hope I managed to do that.

Rachael

Larry is a little dog and he lives on the 4th floor of an apartment building with a young 23 year old musician who plays in the Boston Symphony; she is the second oboist. Larry spends most of the day sitting on the settee by the window looking out at the pigeons who like to perch on the ledge below the window sill. He only gets to go out to the park when his owner comes home from her rehearsals. He loves to do this and dreams all day long about the park and the delightful fragrances that lie waiting for him.
One day a young boy called Charles was in the park, slowly walking home from school, because
he knew that the apartment would be empty and cold. His parents both worked and wouldn’t be home for several hours. He kicked at a few stones and then noticed that just where he had kicked a stone was a strange twig. he bent down to have a closer look and discovered that it was not a twig but a snake’s tale. It looked like it was sleeping , mostly underneath, a bush . He looked bit further and found that the tale was attached to a small three foot long python. This didn't bother him because he was used to handling animals and especially liked reptiles. Many afternoons he could be found in the local pet store looking at the reptiles. He picked up the python which didn't seem at all bothered and it wrapped itself gently around his neck. Charles liked this and he walked home stroking the python as he went. He played with his newfound friend watching it climb over his toys in his bedroom. It seemed to like to be close to him and ended up curled in a tight coil on his lap.

Later when his parents came home he told told his parents that he'd found a python and then showed it to them. They said we must take it back to the zoo. They called the zoo and the zoo said they did not want a python; “ they had enough problems with pythons already” and then said they should take it to the animal control where it would be disposed of humanely.

Charles was very upset with this; he'd already become rather attached to the python or rather the python had become attached to him. He now walked around with a python wrapped around some part of his body. His parents were gentle people and decided that if he could manage to look after the python it will be a good lesson for him so they let him keep it if he put it in a big cage which they made for him in his bedroom.

Slowly the python grow until it was about 9 feet long and was very, very strong. It got used to being handled by Charles and it seemed to have learned a few simple commands. For instance, if Charles pulled on the python anywhere on its body gently three times it would pull back and try to pull Charles or whatever was holding on to it. If Charles pulled the other way it would let go. When it was in its cage it liked to wrap itself around a large old log that they had found in the park.

One day Larry was dozing on the settee near the window, woke up and noticed that the window slightly open. Maybe it was just open enough for him to squeeze out. Now Larry was a curious dog and the opportunity seemed too good for him to miss so with that he pushed his nose in the tiny gap between the window and the bottom sill. He managed to get himself completely through and then found himself outside the window on a very narrow ledge. He became quite scared and turned around to try and get back into the room but unfortunately the window had now slid down and closed. Larry started to whimper and felt the wind blowing up from the street so far below. He continued to cry just outside the window but nothing happened so he crept slowly along the edge until finally he came to a corner where he could go no farther. The ledge simply ended there and Larry didn't have room to turn around.

Charles was walking home from school that day and noticed way up above he could could see Larry and very faintly he thought he could hear him crying. Now it turns out that Charles’ apartment was one floor above the one where Larry lived. Charles suddenly thought of an idea. He rushed off to his apartment, unfortunately for him or maybe not fortunately his parents were still at work. He went out to the edge of the window in his bedroom and could see Larry crying, but it was quite a long way down to the ledge and Charles could not reach Larry no matter how he tried.

Charles had a brilliant idea he will use the python like a rope and hold it and climb down to reach the little dog. Charles took the python out of its cage let it wrap itself around his waist. the other end was still firmly wrapped around the log. Very carefully he climbed out of his bedroom window until he was just within reach of Larry. He leaned out as far as he could and just managed to grab Larry by the collar and held very, very tight. He then pulled three times on the python and the python slowly, very slowly pulled him up all the way to his bedroom window. Once he was in the bedroom he quickly closed the window and grabbed hold of Larry again. He then put a rope through the collar and took Larry down to his apartment and knocked on the door. The door opened and the young musician looked out and saw her dog. She said “Charles how did he manage to end up at your apartment. “ Charles told her that Larry must have managed to get out onto the ledge and he had managed to pull Larry back into his bedroom.. Charles did not mention anything about his python. He went back to his apartment and found out that his parents had just come home and wondered where he was. As usual they asked him what happened during the day. He replied “Not much , I kinda rescued a dog, but it's all over now.”

We didn't have any pets although there was a cat who somehow had adopted us and would follow us into the field but she never came into the house. I think my mother sometimes gave her some scraps but we had very little ourselves so she probably lived on field mice. I kept asking for a dog as i had seen them and thought that a boy needed a dog to make his life full. My mother told me quietly that we could not have a dog because we did not have any way to feed it.

One day my father came home from his work at the aircraft factory with a large wooden dog. It was a Weimaraner. He said that one of the men at the factory made them out of the scraps from the planes. We decided to call him Daniel because he had such soft eyes. His ears looked soft but did not feel silky smooth like a real dog. We put him by the fireplace and every morning I would walk by and say “ goodmorning Daniel” and I felt he answered me with a doggy hello, As the year passed on we all got used to seeing him standing there seemingly watching us.

Winter came quickly and the house was drafty and very cold. We had no heating other than a small stove in the kitchen and a large open fireplace next to Daniel. My dad tried to find scrap wood but it just got colder and colder, everyone was in a similar place so the pickings were few.

One evening just as the last tiny piece of wood burnt itself to ashes in the fire my dad took the dog and said ‘’ at least we can have some warmth from Daniel “ and placed him the fire. I started to say something but the look in my father’s face said that there was nothing I could do.

Slowly the flames started to creep over Daniel’s body and I thought I saw his tail move. Without thinking i put my hand into the fire to touch his head for the last time. As I did he suddenly changed and moved his head toward me. Then he simply walked out of the fire looking like a beautiful normal fur covered Weimaraner. He kicked the ashes from his feet and shook his head while we all just stared without saying a word. Then he went to the back door , pushed it aside as though he had known how to do that all his life and walked into the field. I tried to run after him but soon he disappeared out of my sight.

George, my neighbor, and I were chatting over our fence when George called out

“ Hey, what’s your cat got in his mouth?” The tiny rat was squirming. I was about to kill it when it looked up at me with tiny black eyes. I guess it was those eyes but somehow we connected as two beings on the planet. I was transformed from a killer to a nature lover; it was now not a nasty vermin, it was a baby needing love and care. Don’t ask me how this happened but it did.

Then I put the cat in the house, gave her a treat so she dropped the rat baby. I took it out to the end of the yard and let it go. George yelled “ I’ll be damned, ain’t that somethin’, John’s become a tree hugger!”.

I went back to my comfortable rocking chair; I must have dozed off. Suddenly, I heard a commotion coming from the woodpile alongside the kitchen wall and went to see what was going on. My cat had cornered a very large rat between the house wall and the woodpile. Neither were moving; they were just staring at each other. The rat was unusually large, with a big head and sharp dark eyes. It didn’t look worried about the cat and I wondered if they had met before. I grabbed a bucket and threw it over the rat trapping it.

I hate killing anything and this rat had a personality that said “I am big and not to be messed with”. I could, of course, have just lifted the bucket and let it go but I was intrigued by its huge size. I slid a piece of plywood under the bucket so the rat couldn’t escape and went into a now empty chicken coup. I lifted the bucket, the rat very calmly walked out, looked around, and sat down. It started to wash itself and seemed so at home that a thought came to me “Could it be tamed and kept as a pet?” My friends and neighbors would be horrified at this, as rats were a major problem in our community. We poisoned them, we shot them, we trapped them, our dogs and cats killed them.

This rat seemed different, and you’ll think I had gone a bit crazy, first releasing a baby rat and now thinking of keeping a rat as a pet!

I kept feeding the rat for about a week and strangely the rat seemed to show no fear of my presence or even my cat’s; they would sit on either side of the wire netting and look at each other for hours. I would sit in the coup and read poetry out loud. I became convinced that the rat and I had developed some kind of rapport; it was about the meaning of life I thought. What the rat thought I couldn’t say but it would stare at me, sometimes in a very knowing way.

After a month I realized that I just couldn’t keep it in the coup for ever and there seemed no point letting it loose as it now knew I was a food source and would hang around the yard, may be even conversing with my cat!

I had a terrier years ago; I kept his leash and collar because they reminded me of the fun we’d had together. One afternoon, I approached the rat and slipped on the collar and attached the leash. To my surprise the rat did not move while I did this, in fact it just lifted it’s head and looked straight into my eyes. I opened the coup and walked out with the rat on a leash. Now, I was really feeling crazy!

I walked out into the street and the rat just walked alongside just like a well-trained dog. I thought perhaps the rat understood me. I stopped and the rat stopped. I said “Sit” and the rat sat. “Wow! “ I thought, “this is amazing!”. I said, “Roll over” and the rat rolled over. I tried “Come!” and the rat came up to me and gave me his paw.

Across the street an old guy was watching me and finally came over. He said” Boy! That’s a very clever animal you have there. What breed is it?”

I thought for a moment then replied,

“ Why, it’s a very rare Rat Hound”.

Ronald Doctors

969 Barcelona drive

Santa Barbara, CA

93105

rdoctors@gmail.com.. 805.689.2495.

Sandor decided to move to Grant’s Pass, an area at the border between Oregon and California. Just after he reached his new home he was offered the opportunity to adopt a dog that had been abandoned by its owner and was severely malnourished. The dog was a German Shepherd and he decided to call her Sheila. Sheila was extremely devoted to Sandor and the two of them were very close. She slept on the floor just by his bed so he could reach out and rub her head during some lonely nights. This gave him comfort.

Sandor had become an expert cook after his wife died and he was incredibly hospitable. He was one of the kindest persons I’ve ever met. Many newcomers in Grant’s

Pass, mostly from California, learned that Sandor was not only an excellent cook but also extremely hospitable. One of the neighbors would come over uninvited and sit around waiting to be invited to dinner. They knew that a dinner would be offered and Sandor, naturally, would always offer. He would often invite folks to dinner even though it was inconvenient for him; such was his nature.

His neighbors arriving just before a meal and sitting around waiting to be invited became a habit. Sandor went along with it and felt okay because may be he had a need for companionship and was lonely or more likely he was reminded of the times he and his wife entertained their friends and wanted that feeling to return . The neighbor and his wife, called the Johnsons, had many meals with Sandor and would complain that his much loved dog, Sheila, should be outside, not inside the house. They went on to say that dogs were dirty and why didn’t he put her outside where she belonged!

Each time they came they would say that Sheila should be kept outside and how dirty it was to have a dog in the house. This went on and on for some time. Sandor was too polite with his Old World Charm to mention to them that he did not understand or appreciate the negative remarks about Sheila who was extremely clean and totally gentle.

One day the Johnsons who, once again came for dinner completely uninvited as usual and sat themselves down at the table waiting to be served. Sandor fed them his special goulash that was, as always, a really tasty meal, and as the meal ended Sandor very carefully and deliberately picked up the plates and put them on the floor. The Johnsons were surprised and wondered what was going on. Then Sandor called Sheila who was sitting quietly by the kitchen door. She came over to the plates and began licking them eagerly until there was not a single spot on any of the plates. Sandor then picked up the plates and carefully put them back on the shelves along with the other plates. The Johnsons went white in the face and without saying a single word they left. Sandor had many other guests come to his home but the Johnsons never appeared again.

I was married for nearly fifty years and for the first few years I changed my clothes and put the soiled ones on the floor next to my bed. Then I went to bed. In the morning I would get up, wash, put on clean clothes, and eat breakfast. The dirty clothes sat on the floor. This continued for several years until one day my wife, Rachael, said, “Why don’t you put your dirty clothes in the laundry room. I am not your maid!”

I was stunned and did not know what to say. I felt like I was ten years old again, suddenly caught doing something I had never thought about. It surprised me how quickly I felt small, even though I was a grown man. When I was a kid my parents used physical violence as a means of control, fear of that was ever present. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had never been asked or told to do this. Once I saw my behavior clearly, it seemed awful. It was not anything that I couldn’t do — that is the point, it was a nothing to do but a huge step. Doing something I had not ever thought about. I told Rachael that it wouldn’t happen again. It never did.

When I lived at home during those many years, my mother picked up my dirty clothes every day without saying a word. If she had asked me to put them in the laundry room, I would have done so. But she never did, and so I never learned. I wonder now why she never asked. Many other aspects of my life were carefully controlled by her, so why was this one left untouched. Silence, I have learned, can be a powerful teacher.

Almost every day as I picked up my clothes from the floor after that, I thought about how I could have been so oblivious for so long. I also wondered why it had taken Rachael so many years to point it out. Perhaps she had grown tired of asking for small changes, or perhaps she assumed this was simply how things were. My life has carried many unanswered questions like that. I could have asked — but did not. A quiet fear of what I might uncover has followed me since childhood.

Is it blindness because we are not looking, or because we do not know that we should look. Maybe it is cultural. In my time many women believed they had no real choice. Did my mother believe that. I never knew, and later in life, when I could and should have asked, I didn’t.

In some relationships the traditional roles shift. I knew a doctor and her husband where he was the homebody and she worked. The finances were probably part of the decision; she had much greater earning potential. They had two daughters, and I often wondered how the mother daughter connection played out in that household. Did they miss part of tradition, or did they gain independence. As I followed their lives, I saw that the girls grew into thoughtful, independent women. I also wondered what small things went unspoken there, simply because he was the father and not the mother. Every household has its own version of dirty socks.

Sometimes in a work environment, culture overshadows individual behavior. We move through life fitting ourselves into structures we rarely question. Yours may look different from your neighbor’s, but we all adapt as best we can. Even now, I occasionally catch myself repeating old habits and have to stop and ask where they came from.

So friends, I wonder if there is something similar in your own life. Something you do every day without thinking about how it affects others. If you have a story, I would like to hear it. You can leave out names. I am totally discreet.