Don’t worry Mom, church people, and Ashley, “FU” = Forget You. There will be some stronger language coming up though. I am sorry.
My whole life people have told me, “You’re so good with words,” and “You should be a writer.” Yesterday I went to see my dear friend Stephanie at the hospital. You see she had been there for about seven days after going to the ER for pains they initially thought might be her appendix. Just a few short hours later they moved her to the Siteman Cancer Center downtown, because well she had some sort of cancer. Which one they couldn’t know until they ran her blood and body through every test the hospital owned. The word was she had either lymphoma or leukemia. Either way they said, it was the “good kind of cancer…most treatable.”
When Liz and I walked into her room Thursday morning, our always happy always smiling sister and her mom had clearly just been devastated by some horrible thing. That horrible thing was a much more dire diagnosis than we all expected. I’m not going to elaborate on just how dire, because I refuse to give it the attention. I will deny its ability to hurt her or her kids and husband any further.
As she cried harder than I have ever seen her cry, her mom leaned back on Liz in the hospital bed, I just stood there like an idiot. I was still very much under the impression this was going to be no big deal and I even had 9% chance in my mind that she didn’t even really have the C word, it was just some kind of infection that was going to go away. Instead she had a huge scar on her neck from a tumor already removed and she was in a lot of pain from having her bone marrow extracted not long after the neck surgery.
As the sad train crashed into our station, what did this American Bill Shakespeare have to say? “This is Bullshit!” Yeah normal lay people not familiar with the art of authorship, could never come up with words so insightful and full of meaning. All my vocabulary challenged wife had to say were silly things like, “You got this…So what you’ll be out of here before you know it…we love you we are here all the way…” Whatever. Nowhere near as lyrical and uplifting as, “This is Bullshit.”
Ok so a major fail on my part when she needed me. Thank God Liz was there to cover for me. Honestly though this is total bullshit. Stephanie is a high school guidance counselor that specializes on the Senior class. She makes sure they are as prepared as possible to apply to the college, trade school, or military branch of their choice. I have never seen someone as passionate about their job as she is. Once the crying stopped for awhile she was able to tell us where all her nurses, techs, and doctors went to school. That’s her favorite question to ask, because she always has her students and their needs on her mind. She wants to know where the pros went to school, how it was to get in, how expensive, she asks this so she can take it back to her school and advise her “kids” where the good schools are and how to apply for grants and scholarships. While she’s fighting cancer.
Stephanie and Dan have a daughter, Molly, who has Cystic Fibrosis. I have a BFF since junior high that also has CF, so I am intimately familiar with it, and it is a brutally violent and aggressive genetic disorder with as of yet, no cure. Stephanie leads her husband Dan, son Nick, and the rest of her tribe in raising money and awareness for CF every day she is awake. If Molly is not asleep or otherwise indisposed, she is on Stephanie’s hip or yelling “mommy” from somewhere. Having her Mommy in the leukemia section of the hospital for the next month or so will be especially hard on her. Even after Stephanie beats this thing she and Molly will have to be careful around each other as Stephanie’s immune system will not be as strong as it was and CF can bring her other illnesses. Because you know, cancer wasn’t enough.
When Stephanie isn’t in the school physically at work she is fighting for more access to trade schools and Science and Technology programs for her students. When she’s not doing that she’s managing a hockey team, hockey kids, and Dan. Dan and Stephanie own a small business called Dan O’s Pizza. It is hands down the best frozen pizza you will ever eat in your life. I promise you. They had just opened a new shop with new equipment and hired a larger staff. They sell pizzas for fundraisers, to bars, gas stations, concert venues and recently started sending them out the door hot for local workers and residents to grab on their way home or on their lunch breaks.
For the foreseeable future leukemia is really going to screw a lot of that up. Put things on hold, and put tremendous pressure on Dan, Stephanie’s family, and friends. Stephanie likes to run a tight ship at home. She’s going to have to learn to let others help and so will Dan which is unfortunate because you’ve never met two bigger perfectionists in their professional lives. These were the types of things we should have been prepared for, but for whatever reason that was not the vibe we were all carrying around. When she described her cancer I felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. I felt like she kicked me in the stomach and then must have made this stuff up to make me feel bad. I was ready to hear a couple shots and head on home and fight it there if need be, but back to life as normal.
I have never seen her cry like that before. It completely disarmed me of all rational thought. All I could feel was anger and all I could say was “This is Bullshit!” It is though. I still cannot believe the words I heard that day, because Stephanie is one of the last people on earth that deserves something like this. She has plenty on her plate already. She helps, she doesn’t ever ask for help.
If it feels like I am rambling here, it’s because I am. Once we were clear of the hospital Liz broke down and continued to break down the rest of the day and night. She cried every time she saw a familiar face and then they would cry too. And still I thought this was bullshit and it still could not be. Not that I would wish cancer on anyone specifically, but am I the only person who has never heard of or seen someone they really didn’t like or a really evil person, bad guy etc that got cancer suddenly out of nowhere when they were otherwise perfectly healthy? Everyone I have come in contact with that has/had cancer was someone I loved, they were awesome, nice, and loving people. Why on earth is that? It’s bullshit is what it is. I’ve “met” tons of really bad people in my law enforcement, military career and never once heard of any of them getting cancer. Not one. That seems statistically impossible.
Instead I know sweet children that have it, my unbelievably amazingly awesome Uncle Kirk had it even though he was perfectly healthy and loved by literally thousands of people in the prime of his life. He had gotten people of drugs/alcohol, saved marriages through counseling, kept people out of jail the list goes on. His earthly reward for all that? An inoperable brain tumor at age 52. Also a massive pile of bullshit I will never forgive. (Sorry for the language Uncle Kirk, but I am super mad)
The diagnosis/prognosis (I never know which one to use) was given my uncle and our family in the coldest inhumane tone and terms I have ever heard a doctor use. I guess when you’re in that line of work you have to be that way. Same way I had to be as military cop and a police officer. Stephanie received much the same type of bedside manner.
Other members of my family have passed from it, but they were elderly. Stephanie is 42. A great hockey kid I know named Colin is still fighting it and he’s 11 or 12. That’s also bullshit. My friend Michelle another of the sweetest people I know, just a year or so younger than me, ovarian cancer. Like Colin is and Stephanie most certainly will, she kicked its ass. But for the love of all that’s good why is she getting it in the first place?
As we are cracking jokes about hair loss and how nice (I have to take their word for it) it will be to not have to wear a bra for a few weeks and years of pounding beers will help when the chemo vomiting starts, the charge nurse walks in and interrupts. He says that a special guest wants to come in and he’s bringing something shiny with him if that’s ok. The hint elaborated a little further that due to Stephanie being a hockey mom, someone from the St. Louis Blues organization wanted to come in with the Stanley Cup. We set to cleaning her hospital room like you dash through the kitchen and living room and toss everything in the closet at home when someone shows up at the door unexpectedly.
I had to message Dan who was on his way from work, since they were told they would not be getting any definitive test results that day. Total bullshit again.y However, Stephanie said I couldn’t reveal the surprise too Dan as the huge hockey fan/player he is, she wanted him to be surprised. How do you tell a guy to hurry up to the hospital where his wife is waiting on cancer test results without freaking him out? Well apparently I over did it. He came flying in thinking maybe huge news came in that it wasn’t cancer after all and this was all a big medical mess up. I feel awful about that.
Stephanie gets as spruced up as she can in her “sexy sweats” no makeup, no hair products, and her CF t-shirt. Right on time former Blue Bob Plager and a marketing entourage bust in with video cameras and waivers to be on tv and oh yeah Lord Stanley’s Cup. According to Facebook I was surely the only human being in St. Louis that hadn’t laid his hands on the Cup and taken a picture with it in a bar, at work, at their kid’s school, the fire dept, police dept and on and on. Wherever the Cup traveled to in St. Louis, I was not there.
There it was right in front of me with the entire St. Louis Blues roster engraved in it like I have dreamed of seeing for 36 years. I could not have cared less. What I did care about was seeing Dan and Stephanie smile first a little then a lot. Dan started talking “Bobby’s” head off about any and every thing hockey and pizza related. I blabbered something about our kids playing for St. Peters and seeing him at the Rec Plex for his grandkids games against our club or some such nonsense, but mostly I was still thinking “This is Bullshit!” She had to get leukemia for us to see the Cup? Really? On the worst day of her life? Really?
Well yeah I guess she did. I feel like the Morans and those in their tribe and hockey family will be learning a lot of hard and good lessons trying to battle for her as much as we can. Bobby and the Cup walking in were a part of the first lesson. Bobby hugged and held Stephanie for a few minutes while she began to cry again and he said, “We are hockey people and hockey people fight.” Why the F…reak didn’t I think of that at the very beginning?! That is also bullshit. Stephanie wiped her tears and as Bobby gave her a final hug he told her she was going to “kick its ass.” You’re darn right she is Bobby.
I LOVE the St. Louis Blues for showing up at the cancer center in their last few days of still having the Cup. I LOVE me some hockey. Already our hockey family is hard at work behind and in front of the scenes raising money and showing their love and support for the Morans whether they know them or not, because hockey people fight. They fight for each other most of all.
As bullshit as this is, Stephanie I know will kick its ass. She has a heart of gold and is a warrior tough as nails. She will continue to inspire me through this fight. Hopefully my sonnets come back to me when she needs them.
If you are so inclined there is a GoFundMe page set up for the Morans I promise there is no more deserving a family. Your money will not be spent in vain.
Jacked Up Dad 