2012 is Finally Here!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.........hold on. My editor tells me that some hack named Dickens beat me to that intro. I'll give credit where due, but it is still very apt in our case. Please accept my regrets for the distance between posts. Our holidays have been busier than expected. JoJo is doing well but exhausted from all the planned holiday activities and some not so planned. 7 of 8 treatments are now complete with the 8th scheduled for next Tuesday. Neuropathy has begun to take hold in her fingers and toes. This is an undesirable but not wholly unexpected side effect of cancer treatments that she has experienced with previous chemo. Tingling, numbness and lack of feeling are bothersome and unsettling, but past treatments with an oral drug called gabapentin have proven effective. We hope an increase in dosage will be adequate to hold further progression at bay.

Another bone marrow biopsy is on line for 2 weeks from today. As it begins to loom larger, the anxiety level ticks up. Understandably, JoJo is just plain nervous about facing the results. Her doctor is optimistic and so am I, but neither of us have cancer invaders hiding amongst our organs and cells. It is difficult for JoJo to keep from falling into the "What if this doesn't work?" trap. If I can just keep her busy and focused on good things for a couple of weeks, we can get her through this.

We looked forward to the holiday season with great anticipation as JoAnne had endured her current treatment regimen so well. A number of family birthdays coincide with Christmas. Daughter Kelly and son Ryan have Dec. 12th and 23rd birthdays respectively and granddaughter Delcy joined the clan just one year ago Dec. 21st. Tax planning. Delcy is getting her sea legs under her, and walks enough to qualify for the memory book, but not so much she can escape our watchful eyes. Still, she is much more active than we are used to. Brother Torben was more of a cuddler. Is there joy greater than watching a one year old find her way? Ryan and Alison were home from Pittsburgh which added to the holiday spirit. In sum, it is difficult to have a lousy Christmas with family and a 1 and 5 year old scurrying about.

Our annual festivities began on the 18th with Sunday dinner at sister Shirley's. She sets a very fine table. A dinner tradition was started several years ago whereby our family madrigals are called upon to render The Twelve Days of Christmas with each of us owning one verse. Collectively, we are an affront to the composers of this holiday standard, but fortunately they have long passed. Julie and Kelly eke out a couple of nice verses while the rest of us squawk our way through. Then we break out the Chat Pack cards, add a little wine and have a very enjoyable time.

We had a small birthday party for Delcy on the 21st where she was awarded free reign over her first cupcake. She was reasonably tidy for a one year old.

On the 23rd, Ryan and Alison booked a room at the local pub where friends and family could drop in and catch up while they were in town. A similar effort last year was hampered by nearly two feet of white stuff that locked down nearly all commuting and cut into attendance. This year we had a rare brown Christmas; no snow. I found myself lamenting it's absence for a moment, then thought better of it. Winter may bring snow and cold yet, but having made it this far already, duration will be shorter than average.

Christmas Eve brought us to a gathering of my cousins at Karl and Diane's. They do a great job of entertaining 30+ guests and plying them with unique atmosphere, good food, libation and lutefisk. Each year Karl puts together an abundant collection of eclectic gifts purchased from the haute boutique, Axman Surplus located on University Avenue in St Paul. You are missing something if you have never seen Jingle Bells performed on kazoos by 30 people in the dark wearing clip on noses that light up. For years, my Dad would don the Santa Claus suit and drop off the gifts for the kids and adults alike. When he died, the bells were passed to me, and I now have 3 years under my belt. It is a much harder gig than it appears, but as long as our grandson Torben doesn't recognize me, I will consider it a success.

Christmas Day was celebrated at our home with the kids and grandkids in attendance. The high point for me is preparation of our holiday feast; Danish aebleskivers and Swedish pork sausage. I am not certain if native Scandinavians condone mixed marriages of this type, but it works for us. As our tradition has grown, everybody takes a turn at the stove attempting to create perfectly browned and properly cooked pancake-like balls. And as an added surprise, Ulrich, the nearsighted Danish troll serendipitously appeared in our platter of aebleskivers. We didn't notice him until viewing the pictures so he was unwittingly consumed along with a proper marinade of lingonberry syrup. This rare experience may be the equivalent of the Virgin Mary's image appearing on a grilled cheese sandwich some years ago. We choose to view it as a sign of good health in the coming year. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it and you will see Ulrich just a touch below the centerpoint  of the platter; the one with the big eyes. After we had our fill, it was off to unwrap gifts where young grandkids add a magical quality to an already blessed event.

All in all it was a warm and rewarding although not perfect holiday. As many of you know, we share our home, oft referred to as the Arcadia Compound, with our two daughters, their husbands, two grandkids and of course, Fenway the Boston Terrier. Our communal living arrangement would alone be a ripe target for a blog, but I just can't imagine being able to do it without ruffling feathers somewhere along the line. So I stick to safer topics like cancer, caregiving and the deep thoughts that originate within JoAnne and me.

Nonetheless, our lives are uncommonly intertwined with those of our family because we live together. In the days just prior to Christmas, circumstances were cast upon our daughter Kelly that have resulted in her becoming a single parent of Delcy and Torben for the foreseeable future. I have labored long and hard over how to communicate this or if I even should. In the final analysis, each of you follow the blog because you are interested in JoAnne's welfare. It would be wholly disingenuous to hide such a distressful experience.

Delayed gratification. The process of enduring and overcoming undesirable obstacles in exchange for a greater reward down the road. Between JoAnne's illness and life's responsibilities, I can't say we would have made it this far without setting goals and attractive rewards that allowed us to deal with all the adversity. And yet, each time we get close to a goal, the line seems to move. Our last recently graduated from college. A watershed event in our lives, and not one week later we find ourselves with an entire new set of challenging circumstances spilled into our lap. The holidays, cancer treatments and both grandkids home full time for a couple of weeks with no school or daycare. It doesn't allow much time for blogging, if you know what I mean.

Kelly had made a commitment to join the Christmas festivities with her Sioux Falls, SD, in-laws over the New Year's weekend. In a classic illustration of the domino theory at work, we were concerned that 500+ miles of driving alone through southern Minnesota with unpredictable winter weather, a 1 year old and a 5 year old, might prove at best taxing and at worst, dangerous. I offered to go along. But it didn't seem right to leave JoJo behind by herself on New Year's Eve. So I invited her. But in spite of owning 5 cars, none of them would hold 3 adults and 2 kids in car seats. So I rented a van. Now we had lots of space and it didn't seem right leaving Fenway home alone. So we brought the dog. We drove out on NY's Eve day and found a comfortable hotel room where they call full size beds queens. Fenway don't do queens. He is a king sized bed dog, but we did have his kennel so it worked. Buffalo Wild Wings catered fixin's to go with our box of wine and we all nodded off well before the ball dropped. 

NY's day we made the return trip home while the winds howled out of the NW gusting to 50+ mph. Truth be told, we travel well together.

If there is anything my middle aged melon has learned over the years, it is that one can adjust to almost anything given time. We need to keep JoJo balanced. She likes to keep busy with home chores and watching after the grandkids to the point where she can easily overextend herself. She is our number one priority. 

In the corporate world, the tendency for unpleasant tasks to follow the chain of authority downward is often referred to as schmidt flows downhill. As JoJo noted the other day, if you are a parent, schmidt often defies gravity and flows uphill. We have suffered a loss of expectations once again, so its 1-2-3.........denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance. It is however, a lot easier to get to the endpoint with this crew.

Keep the faith