Newscoma

I believe there is a collective bone-rattling sigh going around with everyone. Man, the holidays are tiring. I think my head has frozen into this Mary Sunshine face mask that has become etched into some sort of Nicole Kidman thing. In other words, I’m one scary girl to look at.

Yesterday, some friends and business people in our community decided to throw my friend, who is ill, a benefit to help defray some of his medical costs. I have written about him before. If everything goes OK then we will be holding it on January 14th. Thus far, everything is coming together and I love it when people come together for a cause. We will have some T-shirts for sale pretty soon which are being donated for cost, we are holding an auction and have requests for open donations. All the proceeds of this benefit will go to him and his wife.

If you have anything you would like to donate or if you want to purchase a T-shirt, I’ll have those things up here as soon as it’s all ready, which should be the middle of next week with all the details.

I wrote about my friend here earlier this year. 

I talked to him late yesterday and he’s been taking radiation and chemotherapy, dealing with nauseous moments that he says just blind side him and many times are explosive. He’s also dealing with the emotional ups and downs that walk hand-in-hand with sitting on an IV drip for seven hour sessions and then the abundance of pain medication.

Needless to say, he’s fighting literally for his life. Squirrelly and I are going to see him, most likely, tomorrow.  As he is a wonderful and funny man, I’m going to see if he will let me set him up a blog so we can talk to him. He has one form of cancer in his left hip and shoulder and then he has a tumor near his kidney. He’s having trouble getting around, needless to say, and I thought this might cheer him. He has written ad copy, performed as a very popular stand-up comedian and had his own television show about country music at WLJT  which is our PBS station at UT Martin.

We do benefits occasionally and we are hoping to help him with this one as the costs are just horrific. He has health insurance, but he can’t work now, so the day-to-day stuff is about to get tight.

He’s just wonderful. I think he might like this blogging thing. We will see how he feels, but the interaction might be something he might enjoy.

Ironically, when I was speaking to him, I was reminded of when my mother had cancer. I told him of some things we used to do with her to help out. I told him about them and they were things he hadn’t considered. I thought I might share them with you as well:

1.) If someone you love has lost their appetite due to the chemo, one thing we found with my mother is she could eat ice cream. We would mix Boost, Ensure or sometimes even a Slim Fast in with her milkshakes so she could get the vitamins and nutrients she needed. During her remission, this also helped her put on a bit of weight. During the dark times, it just kept her going. At times, we would get her to drink a couple of them before her chemo or when she just wanted to get out of the house for awhile. It helped.

2.) Occasionally, the pills she had to take would choke her, so we would crush them up (under her watchful eyes) and put them in the milkshake. I don’t know how doctors of oncology feel about this, but it seemed to help.

3.) My mom needed stimulation. Her body was under attack and she didn’t have a lot of energy. We always made sure she had plenty things to watch on television and would rent her horror movies, as she loved them. This seemed to help distract her from thinking about how sick she was, and that was good. There is a level of deep depression that accompanies those who are very ill.  As she was an avid reader, she sometimes didn’t have the strength to hold a book, so this was helpful. This also seemed to assist in lifting her out of dark, frightening moods. When you have cancer, sometimes the thinking will get to you.

4.) We always had her favorite food available. Most of the time, she couldn’t eat it, but when her appetite would surge, at least it was there.

5.) We never shied away from talking about the cancer. If she wanted to talk about it, we did. We let her set the tone for those conversations. She didn’t talk about it a lot, but when she did, she needed someone just to listen. People need to be listened to anyway, and those battling cancer need a safe space to process their fears. 

Everyone deals with caring for sick people differently. These were just a couple of things off the top of my head that I shared with him, and a couple of things I will share with him and his wife this weekend.

We want to help our friend. The financial part is drowning him. Hopefully, we can assist a little.