ALL DAY, ALL NIGHT... Romance Divas

I’ve never done a blog before. I know I’m supposed to talk about my scripts and romance, but I think I’m going to deviate. So much is going on in my life right now that I’m compelled express my feelings. I have been to five funerals since July, all of them family and friends but the one I have yet to face will be the hardest.

My brother was diagnosed six years ago with lung cancer. I remember it clearly. We were at his daughter’s wedding and he went home early because he didn’t feel well. We stayed at the festivities and had a grand time, never once thinking about his illness as anything more than an overindulgence of spirits. The next day he seemed fine, joking around with Larry and me, his siblings, teasing the grandkids, and later watching the video of Amy’s vows. We went home with beautiful memories and the promise to make more.

A month later that image was shattered. Not feeling well, Dennis went to the Dr.’s. They took an X-ray of his lungs, saw a dark spot, and presumed it was pneumonia. Two weeks of antibiotics and he still felt bad so a cat scan with contrast was performed. A huge spot the size of a softball appeared. Amy, a radiologist, fought tears as she looked at it.

The Dr. refused to give a conclusive diagnosis until a biopsy was performed. Larry and I attended. Our younger brother, Bob, couldn’t make it so we kept him in the loop. Sure enough it was cancer, the most aggressive kind there was: small-cell . . . yet it responded the best to treatment. Since the tumor was wrapped around his pulmonary artery, surgery was out of the question. In fact, the Dr. went on to say, they didn’t operate on small-cell cancer. That’s how deadly it is. They gave Dennis a month and a half to nine months to live.

He started chemo and radiation treatments with a very good attitude. If he was afraid, he didn’t show it. Dennis met the battle head-on.

I don’t know how to explain it other than I felt positive things were going to turn out. Something told me Dennis was not going to die.

A couple of months into treatment my best friend’s daughter had a dream. “Your brother is going to live, Aunt Marianne,” she told me (we always called each other Aunt, Uncle, or cousin even though we weren’t by blood). “I had a dream. The tumor in his lung got smaller and smaller until it fell off.”

As she told me this I again felt reassured all would be well.

Approximately two months later a friend of my brother’s had a dream, one where the tumor shrank until it vanished. Life really is more unbelievable than books. I mean . . . the same dream? By two different people? And people think we writers have such great imaginations! They’ll read the book thinking it never happened when it did. LOL!

Dennis had a body scan five months after hearing the same dream for the second time and the cancer was gone. My feeling was validated and we rejoiced.

The key to overcoming cancer once it has been found is to have check-ups. Sure they can be an inconvenience, but they save lives. My sister-in-law’s mother lived with cancer for thirty years that way. We were hoping for the same.

All the periodic visits and body scans showed Dennis to be cancer free. Four years passed before the cancer returned . . . in the same lung, this time in four lesions instead of one, the curse of small-cell. It comes back in multiples.

Chemo was ordered except this time they couldn’t radiate his brain. Small-cell cancer is notorious for traveling from whatever spot it first shows up in and to the brain. None was there, for which I was thankful. As before, I knew all would be well . . . and it was. The four spots shrank until they were gone.

The doctors were amazed. To beat such odds once was unimaginable. To do so a second time was phenomenal. Everyone knew who to thank for these ‘miracles’.

Two years passed cancer free. Dennis’ and my birthday’s fall in April two years apart, his on the 7^th, mine on the 13^th and a Friday to boot! As children we celebrated together. As adults we called, never forgetting the fun times we had growing up. Dennis acted weird when I called this year. My brother Larry asked if I knew anything about it. I presented stress as a possibility. Things never stay the same no matter who you are and what you faced . . . and chemo does something to a person. It changes them, on small levels.

Three weeks later we got the news. The small-cell cancer had returned - ten spots in his brain. Treatment began, as my brother insisted, but I know it will not work. I do not have that sense of security like I did before. My heart tells me to make the best of what time I have left. I had six extra years to enjoy Dennis’ company. Now it was time to say good-bye.

That’s pretty much what’s been happening. The three tumors on the front of his brain have fused into one big mass, taking his ability to function normally; the other seven located though out his brain are growing as well. My summer has been spent trying to create memories to sustain me for the time when Dennis becomes just that . . . a memory.

Am I angry? No. I am grateful for those six years. Am I sad? Yes. Who wouldn’t be? He is my brother, a part of my life. We fought, yes, but we also stood up for one another. No one would date me when they learned who my older brother was! Love was the biggest part of our relationship as a family. I never realized how much I had it in my life until I grew up and met people who didn’t.

And so - I want to thank you, Dennis, for walking with me in life as my brother. For the good times and the bad, for marrying Valorie and giving me another sister (Joanne was the first when she married Larry, the eldest), for my nephew, Eric, and my three nieces, Lisa, Becky, and Amy. I want to thank you for the three great nephews and four great nieces born since, even the one on the way - so many beautiful memories in each and every one of them! But most of all, Dennis, I want to thank you for being you. I love you and always will.