My Grandpa Cooper’s 1^st cousin Evie turned 100 on January 5^th of this year in England. Evie and I first corresponded while I was an undergraduate 35 years ago, when I was doing family research on the Coopers in England to add context as I was reading my great-grandparents WWI love letters. I then reached out again prior to a trip to England in 1998, hoping to visit her and her family while I was there, but we weren’t able to make it happen. However, about a decade ago, her and I started communicating again through Christmas cards and emails.  Initially, the emails were more for Grams Cooper than myself; however, over the years, Evie and I have been regular pen pals. Her son, Neil, and I have also corresponded via email, especially after his mom stopped using her computer a few years ago.  Neil even reached out in the fall to request that we record and send birthday greetings prior to this milestone birthday—and we got rave reviews for our effort! 

One of the stories she shared, at some point, was about living in London with her parents during the Blitz and the bombardment of England by the Germans during WWII. She wrote about how hard that time was, having to go to bomb shelters during raids, the uncertainty of the outcome and in her crisp, concise English manner mentioning that her father was killed during a raid. Those were very hard times and I am sure when they were going through them, they did not know if they would ever be able to get out from under the rubble or those times of trouble. They didn’t know whether things could ever get better or what was ahead for the country or the world. However, Evie and her family persevered. 

I feel that I have been under bombardment since January 1^st—especially this past month. And, I don’t think I’m alone with this feeling. 

Not that 2024 was easy peasy for me—there was the car accident; unemployment and search for a new job; my mom being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after nearly a year of health issues stemming from the cancer being in its early, undetectable stage and starting treatment; my new (used) car being in the shop and out of commission for 3 of the first 4 months I owned it; and Terry being diagnosed with prostate cancer in July (oh, yeah, about that. I guess I didn’t openly mention that before…). And, to top it all off, I am someone who has been actively aware of what has been going on politically in our country and in the rest of the world.  I have an undergraduate degree in History, Secondary Ed, English and Political Science and a Masters in Public History. I currently teach Civics and Human Geography. Not only am I trained to pay attention to what is going on, but I’m also trained to communicate that knowledge and awareness to others. On top of that, being aware of what is going on around me is important to me and I couldn’t just disconnect from the news or the election.  Needless to say, I did not enter 2025 in a peaceful state, but neither did I fully comprehend that what was happening was a ramp up…

So, here goes.

First, an update on my mom.  Mom started chemo in June 2024 as her first line of attack for her manageable, but not curable, pancreatic cancer. Her initial round was 3 weeks in a row of chemo infusion and then a week off. While the nurse who gave us the “What to Expect with Your Chemo Treatment” talk before treatment started said that she doubted Mom’s dosage would result in hair loss or too much in the way of negative consequences, by the third infusion, Mom was feeling the effect in a majorly negative way and had lost her hair. I was wondering if chemo was worth the impact on the quality of her life. However, changes were made to her dosage and regimen and so for the next 5 months, she went every other week with a decreased dosage level. She felt fatigue and general icky-ness after treatments, but it was manageable and it wasn’t debilitating.  She bonded with my niece Katie during chemo infusions watching videos and napping, was still able to go for rides on her trike bike with my dad, and was generally able to get out and about. Basically, chemo worked. Her numbers came down and the cancer stayed in check. 

The data was so promising, that after her 13^th chemo infusion on November 22^nd, her medical team decided to suspend chemo and try radiation instead. She spent the holiday season quite energized and was ready to have her radiation target marker put in through an endoscopy on January 13^th. But then, there was a setback that has turned out to be quite debilitating. 

Back in late September/early October, Mom had issues with one of her teeth. Instead of needing a root canal, which was the initial diagnosis , she ended up having a cracked tooth that needed to be pulled. The tooth was pulled, but the area around it did not heal the way it should have.  When she returned to the dental specialist on January 6^th, to have the dead remaining bone on the jaw sanded down, the area went into full-blown infection–we are talking a swollen cheek at least the size of an orange! Mom was miserable and at the ER on January 9^th, waiting to be admitted. Since January 9^th, Mom has had 2 hospital stays—one that lasted a week—following trips to the ER where she was stranded each time for more than 24 hours, with Barb at her side, before being admitted into the hospital. We have since learned that Mom will be taking an ambulance to the hospital in situations like this so that she doesn’t spend forever in ER purgatory! 

During the first hospital stay she was diagnosed with osteomyelitis (bone infection) of the jaw and the second time she was back in for dehydration (and managed to pick up a bout of bronchitis while she was there).  The treatment for the osteomyelitis was further surgery to remove more of the dead bone of her old tooth with follow up in the form of antibiotic infusions for 4-6 weeks. Sure, 4-6 weeks of infusions. No problem. Where is this done? In the middle of a snowy, chilly winter in the Detroit area, when Mom is very weak and using a walker, unable to get around their house or navigate the stairs without at least a watchful eye, and one of the medicines (Vancomyacin) is causing Mom’s hands, arms, feet, and legs to swell up, you don’t run every day to an infusion center for 3-4 hours.  Instead, you learn to give the infusions at home. Yes, infusions at home and administered not by a nurse, but by whoever is on hand to do it. 

Today that someone was me!

Now, that has been an interesting skill to add to our tool kits…

We sure did not come into 2025 expecting this hiccup. Barb, Katie or I have needed to spend the night whenever Mom has been home these past 5 weeks so that we can manage Mom’s care and make sure there is support for Dad.  I’ve been in awe at how Barb has stepped up and coordinated all of this while working; Dad has learned a new skill (not the easiest thing to do with his Parkinson’s) and been such a trooper about everything (and my students are in awe of how much he is there for Mom); and Katie has been a rock star nurse/super granddaughter stepping in and being wonderful! 

I’ve tried to help out when I can and have made 4 trips home to Michigan so far in 2025.  This weekend I took Amtrak to Ann Arbor. Here is a cool valentine’s postcard that our conductor passed out on Friday night! 

So, about Terry…

The week after Memorial Day 2024, Terry finally went back to his primary care physician to do a full physical after 7 years. The same week we found out Mom has pancreatic cancer (and I was given notice that I would not be returning to my school of 5 years for the 2024-25 school year), Terry found out his PSA had jumped from a 1.7 in 2017 to a 53. A 53. For those of you who aren’t in the know: A PSA of 53 is very bad and can’t be ignored. It was a couple of weeks before Terry informed me that there was anything going on with his PSA numbers—I just had too much on my plate and I’m sure there was some denial going on, as well—and so it was July before the gravity of the situation set in. Around the same time my car went into the shop, Terry had an MRI and then a biopsy of the prostate, which found that cancer had spread throughout Terry’s prostate. When Terry and I met with Terry’s urologist in early August, Dr. Yonnover was very concerned about the biopsy results and the PSA numbers possibly being a sign that Terry’s cancer had spread outside of the prostate and the prostate region. He prepared us for the worst, basically. No sugarcoating. 

However, a Petscan was required to know for sure and so Terry had one done in early September. Unfortunately, it was early October before we found out the results. Yes, we spent 2 months preparing for the worst; however, we were majorly relieved when we got the update that the cancer was local with only a suspicious shadow around one of his lymph nodes. No spread in the lungs, bones, or anywhere else! Woo hoo!!!!!

Ok, then. Two options were presented to us:

1.     Surgery (prostatectomy) and maybe radiation if there is regional spread of the cancer OR 

2.     Radiation with no surgery (radiation first cancels out the possibility of surgery later). 

Terry chose surgery. 

But about that. Terry couldn’t get into any surgical consults until the end of October/first of November. He met with a surgeon who practiced out of Illinois Masonic Hospital (without me) on October 30^th. This surgeon had an opening for surgery the following week and was really pushing Terry hard to get it done. He then went to the University of Chicago to have a consultation with a highly recommended surgeon on November 1^st and I was able to attend this appointment. The surgeon added a caveat. Would Terry be interested in a 6-month clinical trial, testing a hormonal treatment, prior to surgery? The oncologist in charge of the trial and members of his team were available to meet with us that morning, if we were interested…and so we did.

We received a lot of information at that appointment and had a lot to think about—on top of everything else going on in our lives the next couple of weeks.  I do wish we had looked to speak to a third surgeon, though. I didn’t like the one surgeon pushing us to have surgery with less than a week to prepare and so the clinical trial seemed very attractive—especially with what Terry stood to gain from the experience and how he would be able to push back surgery a few months. Maybe there would be time to get Terry’s business in a better position? Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough data about what the potential drawbacks or side effects could/would be. It didn’t help that Terry didn’t want to let people know that he had cancer, so I really wasn’t putting it out there to people who could weigh in with personal experience or help us consider what some of the drawbacks would be for an otherwise healthy 59 year old male who was undergoing prostate cancer treatment to seek out this option.

So, long story short, Terry started the trial on November 22^nd—2 days after our 20^th wedding anniversary. His PSA was up to 63 by the 22^nd and just 2 weeks later when he went back for his first check in appointment, it was down to a 22, which was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, there have been some major costs/tradeoffs/side effects that have come with the trial. Terry has experienced intense pain, especially in his back, as well as debilitating fatigue. He was so miserable by Christmas, that he was unable to travel back to Michigan to visit family and friends over the holidays. When I needed to take Amtrak back to Michigan the weekend of January 12^th, when this whole episode with Mom was kicking off, I had to leave Bleu with Terry and he could barely take Bleu out for a walk. By late January he was walking around like an arthritis plagued 90 year old, barely leaving the condo, isolated and miser, expecting me to not only hold down the fort with my job and all of the day to day household chores, but also have energy left to give him a back rub! This trial was not supposed to be this debilitating! (On the plus side though, his PSS was down to less than 0.1!)

Two weeks ago, after 2.5 months of treatment, Terry took a ‘pause’ with his meds. We are currently in discussion about stopping the trial all together and moving to surgery in a month or so. I feel like I’ve been personally done with the trial for a week or two longer than Terry. We tried it, but we did not gain what we hoped we would.  I am grateful that he spoke on Friday with a work colleague’s wife who is an oncologist. She was able to do some research on the specific trial and she thinks Terry would be better off discontinuing the study. An opinion other than mine is so important!

Fingers crossed!

I am sure reading this has felt like a bombardment, as well, so I will wrap up this post and will plan to continue with a Bombardment: Part 2 in the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading!