Mellifluous Medicine Playlist: Bombadil [I Will Wait]

Today's installment of the Mellifluous Medicine Playlist comes from a little-known folk-pop band called Bombadil (out of Durham, NC), named after that merry fellow from J.R.R. Tolkien's imagination; Tom Bombadil. If you were at my grandfather's funeral, this song was played. I have had a slight obsession with this song for a few years now. 

SONG: I Will Wait
BAND: Bombadil

Favorite lyric: Oh my Jesus Christ, can you bring me back to life? Can you lead me to an afterlife that I would like?

A Quick Update...

We have met some tremendous people that have helped us navigate the waters of the healthcare system. Some have battled cancer themselves. Some have lost spouses and have learned the hard way of how to go about getting the right care. The health care professionals have been great... when we can get in contact with them. But, so much time has been spent calling, waiting, and trying to find out about our next step. From what we've been told, this is common. Every day seems like ten days to us. Without knowing for sure what it is within me that's giving me these symptoms, and only having a doctor's inclination that it is Hodgkin's lymphoma (which my symptoms and tumor align with perfectly... it's a good inclination), we are anxious to start the recovery process. Today. As soon as possible.

One of our friends reminded us to be persistent and call every day. So, Ema did. 

On Monday we have a consultation with a cardio-thoracic surgeon in South Bend. We will talk about the surgical biopsy and schedule a time later in the week for me to get it done. My oldest child, Nora, starts school on Wednesday. I'd really prefer to drop her off at school and pick her up on her first day, so I'm going to suggest we do the surgery after Wednesday. It seems antithetical to wait longer to have the surgery done when I've already confessed by growing impatience, but Nora only starts kindergarten once in her life. I'm her dad. Her biggest fan. I shouldn't miss it. The stinkin' tumor will need to wait. 

When we found out that I likely have cancer, Ema made me promise that we could do just one simple thing. She wanted to get professional pictures taken prior to me looking like a young Patrick Stewart (a man can dream...). Our friend and photographer Lisa Haislet (who has an immense amount of talent and kindness) was accommodating enough to fit us in on very short notice. The kids and I were tired. I couldn't breathe very well. And, getting three kids to look at a camera is as common as a lunar eclipse on a Tuesday. Yet, Lisa managed to get some really great pictures of our family. We will treasure these forever. If you're in the LaPorte area and need a great photographer, I highly recommend Lisa Haislet Photography. 

Mellifluous Medicine Playlist: Rudimental [Not Giving In]

I'm in the process of making myself a playlist to listen to if/when I start chemotherapy (if that's what will happen). We have some time before then as I still have to have my surgical biopsy, a port installed, and a ton of consultations to confirm it is actually cancer. Nothing moves quick enough for me. 

I'll be listing some of the songs that help/inspire/move me. Perhaps you'll be down one day (or find that you have a large tumor in your chest wanting to rudely end your life) and need a bit of a pick-me-up. You too can use this playlist. I shan't hog it to myself.  

Without further ado, here's today's installment:  

 Song: Not Giving In
Band: Rudimental (featuring John Newman)

Shauna Niequist on the Pedestrian Life

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Since I can't do much right now because of the cancer/illness (no driving, working, or tom foolery in general), I try to read as much as possible. I met Shauna Niequist once through my friend Jason Miller. She's such a terrific writer that I want everyone to read her words. They just taste right when reading them. Here's a bit of what she has written about appreciating the pedestrian life. We are doing so much waiting right now, that this has been a good reminder to not forget that this is life. My cancer is my life right now. And, I don't want to miss these moments as well. They will shape me like every moment in the past has as well. Here's Shauna: 

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.

I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.

The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.”

― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life