Dear Friends and Family,
April in the mountains heralds the final gasp of winter. The ski resorts close. The once dominant all-white covering fades from the landscape. By the time errant snow patches hide only under trees or on tops of faraway peaks, I pretend the holidays aren’t that long ago. I remove the Christmas cards I received in December from a special drawer in my desk. Most years, the mountains are completely green by the time I start my yearly epistle. So by my timeline, the fact that you are receiving my “Holiday Greetings” in April is really early this year.
Why?
Milestones.
In my lifetime, I can’t remember another year when our family celebrated more momentous events. And none was bigger than this past week on April 2. Two days ago, Nancy swallowed her final Cyclosporine tablet. (Cyclosporine is the medicine designed to hold her donor graft immunity in check. It is the medicine that has kept her away from crowds and out of airplanes.)
As Nancy swallowed that last pill, I reminded her, “Three months from now, we can travel anywhere our hearts desire. Where do you want to go first?”
Barring any setbacks, Nancy will have no restrictions. By then, the twenty other pills per day should be down to just vitamins and a few medicines unrelated to leukemia. She should also be well on her way to redoing her “baby” immunizations.
What am I trying to convey?
On Christmas Day three and a half months ago, Nancy resided in the hospital. She was beautifully bald and in the middle of her treatment. She had been in and out of the hospital multiple times, both for treatments and for complications from those treatments. Many days I worried about what came next. On other days, Nancy was so sick I wondered if she would make it to the following day. Good times were measured in minutes and hours, and, on rare occasions, full days.
Now Nancy is home in her own bed. She has a full head of hair that even requires haircuts. Good times are now measured in weeks and, soon, months. Consequently, for our family this year, I’ve declared April 2 as Christmas Day. I am sending our “Holiday Greetings” out today not only to those on my update list but also to those on my Christmas list.
With Nancy taking the last pill (Cyclosporine) that has been holding her immune system in check, her transplant will gain full strength sometime during the next ninety days. She will finally obtain the “protection” she needs against germs that will allow her to return to a completely normal life. We have been excitedly waiting for this day. It is a great and wonderful reason to celebrate Christmas.
Though Nancy’s milestone obviously surpasses everything else, a few other high points are worth mentioning in the same way I have traditionally undertaken my annual review for the last twenty or so years.
All right, I’ll get mine over with first.
Every year, our partnership has donated a scholarship to a graduating senior of the Park City High School interested in a medical field. In 1990, the recipient was Charlie Morrison. He excelled in college and went on to medical school—which made it especially gratifying when he joined our partnership in 2004. Not only is Charlie a gifted and caring physician, he is an easily loved human bursting with a good sense of humor. We’ve become fast friends.
Last fall Charlie and I were talking about medicine, mountain biking, and family when he told me his father was about to retire. “How old is your dad?” I inquired. “Almost sixty,” he replied in a tone that made sixty sound like it was just short of the century mark. When I related my conversation later that night to Nancy, she hooted as loudly as me. She recognized the irony—I am due to turn the big “6-0” in February, just like his father.
The day after our conversation, Charlie and I climbed for more than an hour to reach the top of a lengthy and sometimes steep mountain trail. I reached the summit long before Charlie. I didn’t tell him I was a few days older than his dad. The mountain bike ride was a personal milestone, if not outright challenge, given Charlie’s words about age.
The kids’ landmarks easily dwarf mine.
“Hi, Jayna. Guess what came in the mail today? Are you even a little excited?”
“Oh, well. I guess a tiny bit. Is it pretty, Dadder?”
When Jayna rushed home after her junior year abroad in Peru to be with (and help) her mother, she transferred from Vassar College to the University of Utah. Nancy and I were heartsick that she would not spend her senior year with her friends and classmates, taking the best upper-level courses while participating in the many traditional things seniors do at a small college. But Jayna was adamant. “I want to be here with you, Mommy. I want to help you fight your battle along with Dad.”
Jayna’s final year was different from her other college senior friends. She took basic courses in international studies because Utah didn’t have the same upper-level courses available at Vassar in her Latin American Studies major. Nights were spent in the hospital alternating sleepovers with me, not in the dorms or clubs being young and carefree with friends. Her thoughts were dominated by her mother’s lab values and medicines rather than daydreams about dates or planning for graduate school. At year’s end, she chose not to “walk” for graduation, opting instead to wait for her diploma to come in the mail.
Still, as I pulled Jayna’s diploma from the University of Utah envelope that had just been delivered to our mailbox, I was nearly overcome with emotion. “It’s not pretty, Jayna. It’s beautiful—just like you.”
“Oh, Dadder. You’re such a soft touch.” Even over the phone, Jayna could see my face from hearing my voice.
“But, Dadder. For the last time—I have no regrets. It was worth it.”
Jayna is now a college graduate. Despite having a GPA that would allow her to do pretty much anything (4.0 at the University of Utah and 3.9 at Vassar), her next step will be having fun after a difficult twenty-two months. She has decided to remain nearby for at least another year, so she has found a job in Salt Lake City and, for the very first time, her very own apartment. We see her often, and she continues to be exceptionally close with her mother.
And Jaret?
When Nancy came home from the hospital at the end of last March, she was light years better than the many months when she would fall asleep in the middle of a meal. Still it was not uncommon for her to have far fewer waking hours than those spent sleeping and napping. But her decreased strength could not dampen her singular purpose—to help Jaret through his final days of college. By his last semester, the task seemed formidable even to Nancy. His ending class was titled “Research Methods.” And what did that entail? Numerous presentations, a twenty-page paper, and the design of a project.
Many nights, Nancy would confide, “C minus is all he needs, Winnie. But I don’t know if it’s possible.” Speaking in front of groups and writing long papers are nearly impossible tasks for someone with autism, like Jaret. But he had made it almost to the end and even had a 3.4 GPA. So with Nancy’s usual unwavering support and constant help, Jaret made an A minus. He will receive his diploma in June. Quite honestly, we never would have predicted such an accomplishment. There are now two new college graduates in our family.
A final story about Nancy’s journey and how far we’ve come.
I am the luckiest guy in the world. The other day, I had two dates to the afternoon matinee, the kind of movie Nancy is allowed to attend since there are few other people in the audience. In fact, the three of us were the only ones in the entire old-fashioned movie house in the nearby hamlet of Kamas. We could talk normally, laugh as loud as we wanted, and throw popcorn (not that we did) with impunity. On the way home, I was designated chauffeur, since Nancy and our good friend Joan decided to sit in the back seat. It was totally appropriate, since they ignored me and did all the chatting, like two schoolgirls at a sleepover. Nancy was her old self. I heard frequent giggles in the midst of conversations ranging from haircuts to world politics.
One particular part of their chat caught my attention like no other conversation in the last year and a half as Joan related that a common friend was about to undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer. After sharing the sad moment, Nancy responded, “I’d be happy to talk to her if you think it would help. I could tell her what it was like when I had leukemia.”
I almost ran off the road. In my rearview mirror, Joan nodded her head while giving me a wink when she saw me looking at her with raised eyebrows and a surprised but totally pleased look on my face. At long last, my bride was ready to put her illness behind her once and for all.
Nancy is not alone. Our whole family looks forward to an even more ordinary life. But we won’t ever forget the many kindnesses of so many during our long and difficult ordeal.
So at a time that I have designated Christmas for us—I’ll be thinking of you often.
Summary: I declared Christmas for our family this year on another landmark day. And I am thrilled to declare that Nancy continues her path toward normalcy.
All our love,
Winnie