Mukilteo Musings

Sometimes, LIFE is not Fair

Deja vu--isn't that what they call it when a setting or conversation seems like it happened before? Meeting Dave's sister last night in the lobby of UW medical center and waiting for Dave to come running down the hall from his office there was all too familiar.

Four years ago, Dave's sister, Shirley, came to Seattle from Helena, Montana because her husband of over 30 years had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most deadly of all brain tumors. He managed to get into an experimental treatment study at UW hospital so they stayed here for 6 weeks. We would meet Shirley and her husband in the lobby and then go to dinner. Her husband was relatively normal during this entire time. The treatment may have extended his life by about two months and he died shortly after; the scientists haven't figured this cancer out yet.

Last night we were again meeting Dave's sister but this time it was to visit my niece, Lori, who had brain surgery on June 29. She has had a seizure disorder all of her life and medications are no longer working. The surgery where they remove the part of the brain where the seizure activity occurs will give her about 90% chance of improvement. She is a young mother and wife and surgical assistant from Spokane, and she wants to live a normal life. Lori was doing pretty well last night though she had a really bad headache--an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, she said. We laughed; she'll be fine though the risk was significant. This is only half the story.

My other niece, Chris, Lori's sister, also met us in the lobby. After seeing Lori, we drove the short distance from UW hospital to Children's Hospital to visit Gracie. Gracie is Chris's little baby girl who was born prematurely with all sorts of complications including Down's syndrome. We were able to see her despite the fact that yesterday was a bad day for her; she has episodes where she stops breathing. The effort is to allow her to grow and keep her alive long enough so that a surgery, scheduled for next week, can help. Chris is also a young mother, wife, and graphic designer from Helena. She wants Gracie to live as normal a life as possible.

Dave's sister Shirley called this the "second summer from Hell". She has one daughter in one hospital with brain surgery and the other down the road at another hospital with a critically sick newborn. (Our nieces who I've known from the day they were each born--Irish twins they say born less than a year apart about 30 years ago.) The "first summer from Hell" was four years ago when Chris and Lori's Dad (Shirley's husband) died of the mother of all brain tumors. Deja vu---we went to dinner together last night and we laughed and talked and hugged. No, life is horribly unfair sometimes. But you still have to eat dinner, laugh, and try to live a normal life.