YMCA Celebration

Jon and I have worked at the South Pasadena YMCA since 2006 (with a few brief hiatuses)! The YMCA has been more than a place of employment, it has been a place where we truly built community. It is a place where members rally together for morning runs, road races, hikes, classes, family fitness, camps, etc.

Two years ago, I started teaching a 5:30 am interval class. It was a new class and quickly developed a cult following (smile). After a few months, one of my faithful students shared with me that our class was giving him more than a workout. This class "community" was part of his healing--he had lost his 10 year-old son less than two years prior to a neuroblastoma. An integral part of coming out of his depression was stepping into this fitness class. Word spread and months later, a group of us from the 5:30 am class accompanied he and his wife at a St. Baldrick's pediatric fundraiser. We watched him hold a picture of his son, Abhay, in his hand as his head was shaved...

Words fail to communicate the tenderness in this experience...


Because the YMCA is a place of generosity and love, our friends and fellow instructors organized a week-long fundraiser to celebrate the end of Jon's cancer treatment. Hundreds of people bought shirts proclaiming "Dephouse Love" and wore them to fitness classes in Jon's honor. It was humbling....

 This week we mulled over the notes, cards, and anonymous well-wishes and were overwhelmed with gratitude.  Friends we have known for years and strangers we have never met extended their hands in support...

The hardest part for Jon is integrating his old "life" with the fact he has/had cancer. There is no "evidence of disease", but he has to live with the treatment effects and the pending quarterly scans..It isn't something he can neatly tie in a box and "move on from"...and then there is the question, how does he use his experience to serve others?

Jon will be using the funds from the YMCA fundraiser to ride 500 miles with the Pablove foundation this fall. http://www.pablove.org/pablove-across-america/

This cycling event raises money for pediatric research and family support. This ride will be a chance for Jon to integrate his love of endurance sports with his cancer reality. We are are both open-handed to the ways in which Jon's story/life may serve other kids and families....and we are so grateful to our YMCA family for making this ride possible...

And a very heartfelt thank-you to our dear friend, Michelle Speers, for organizing the event....a lot of hands made it happen, but it was Michelle's heart that brought it together...love....love....

Clear

Chest scan is clear!

VAC and Chest Scan

VAC Wound Therapy

Coming back to this blog takes an exhale. It would be nice to package the last six months in a trash bag on the street corner. However, the residual affects of treatment, both physical and emotional, are slow to vacate.  When Jon had his primary tumor excised, a rather large chunk of muscle was removed. In the hollow, a seroma (a pocket of clear serous fluid) began to develop. This seroma fluid found a way to vacate the wound site; and latent infection began to develop two months after surgery. A compromised immune system (chemotherapy) and exercise also played a role. None the less, Jon had a VAC (negative pressure wound therapy) put in last week.

This process involved opening up a small part of the wound site and inserting a sponge. A sealed dressing is then applied to the wound with a tube attached to a small device that provides negative pressure. I have had to change the dressing twice at home; and both times failed to adequately seal the site. Jon's battery-powered VAC device reminds me (with a gentle vibrating buzz) that I failed....I have sealed and resealed with extra tape to no avail...

Tomorrow is Jon's 3-month follow-up CT scan of the chest. Invariably it produces a bit of anxiety...but the vibrating wound VAC has served as a great distraction.

Our South Pasadena YMCA had a fitness fundraiser for Jon last week. Our reflections/musings on this event will soon follow.

"Buying a Ticket...

While Jon was in the hospital with a  neutropenic fever last week, the oncologist paid him a visit.  She said, "Congratulations...you just bought a ticket out of more chemo..."  Yes--he heard that correctly....2/3 neutropenic fevers is considered "too risky" to continue treatment.

She said, "your bone marrow doesn't like chemo...."

hmhmhm...is there bone marrow that likes chemo?

None the less, Jon is resting in the fact there is no "choice" to be made. He is finished with chemotherapy, and he celebrates its' end.

Jon will have a chest scan at the end of the month and a pelvic MRI in three months.

He is pressing into the next phase of the journey...restoration.