Update, July 26th, 2012 OFF TO L.A.

Dear Friends and Family:  

I'm finally able to open my laptop after three weeks not being able to touch it.  Just want to let you all know that, after meeting with the Stanford oncologist, we have decided to get my care at Cedars of Sinai in Los Angeles where Suzanne  has a great surgeon friend who actually wants to organize my total care for the next 2-3 months.  After a blood transfusion tomorrow morning to bring up my hemoglobin, Rich, Steph and I will drive down, where I will start treatment on Monday. 

By accident or design, Ethan and Suzanne had just bought a house to remodel with huge guest quarters.  In the last two days they have furnished them with his Mother's stored treasures, ready to accommodate Rich and me, Steph & family, and Simone and Chris when they come down.  There I won't be tempted to clean or water or fertilize or otherwise take care of the house.  AND I'll have my whole family around me!

I'll be in touch to give you updates when I can.  A little while  ago, Stephanie read me Suzanne's beautifully-written  blogs about her Mother's Stanford experience. In listening to Suzanne's powerful metaphors, her unyielding  directness, her choice of words, I realize that a true writer has been born and I have to take a backseat as "writer" from now on.

Thank you, as always, for the love and energy that flows toward me.  It is palpable and threads its way through my room and will accompany me to Los Angeles,

The things I'm learning is contained in this 3-line poem by M. C Richards, a writer and potter whose work I have long admired:

Three Wisdoms

"Hop, hop!" said the hare.

"Go slow!" said the snail.

"Pace yourself,"  said the Cheetah,

"It's a long run."

And so it is. I'm ready for the long run.

With Love, Gabriele

Update, July 23rd, 2012 MOM IS HOME!

From Steph:

My mom is finally out of the hospital.  She is weak, but smiling and beautiful and glad to be home.  She continues to do better each day, although she will be on TPN (Total Parenteral Nutrition) for at least a week while she regains her strength and her digestive tract, which was seriously damaged by the chemotherapy.

We are planning to move her to Los Angeles for the remainder of her chemotherapy and surgery.  My sister, Suzanne, has a wonderful friend who is a hepatobiliary surgeon at Cedars Sinai Hospital.  He is a  specialist in just the operation she will need!  He will coordinate all of her care there.  We were very disappointed in the care she received at Stanford; in a nutshell, the care there is very fragmented, with many different doctors, interns, residents, fellows, and others coming through to see her, so there are lots of places to fall through the cracks.

Please feel free to leave comments here on this blog; I will read them regularly with my mom.  We are trying to conserve her strength so that she can work on healing, so I will also be referring most of the email she gets to this blog.  I will post regular updates, and I hope she'll feel well enough soon to post some of her own.  Thanks for your understanding, love, and support.

Update, July 21st, 2012

From Steph in Cupertino, California:

I am sitting here at six in the morning looking out over the valley, the sun rising in a golden line behind the eastern foothills.  My mom's house is quiet; I'm the only one up.  I'm thinking about my mom.

I've spent the last two days with her at Stanford Hospital.  She is weak and fragile and reflective, and she is herself: funny, wanting to talk, engaging, spiritual, beautiful.  Suzi laughed that she'd better look a little sicker, or no one would believe how ill she had been.  All the doctors who streamed through the room at this teaching hospital--a parade of residents, interns, fellows, and staff from oncology, surgical oncology, and general surgery--were amazed and buoyed and cautiously optimistic about her progress.  As you can read in Suzi's blog, my mom was extremely sick, leveled again and again by serious side effects of the chemotherapy: vomiting, shaking, fevers, delerium, fear, nasal-gastric tubes, oxygen, pain meds, obstruction.  http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/

But she is improving, yesterday better than the day I got here, and last night restful.  She started on "full liquids:"  tomato soup, yoghurt.  Her gut is bubbling and rumbling, the blistered lining sluffing off in small strips, slowly beginning its work again after nearly two weeks of shock and paralysis.  Her sisters Heide and Traute came visiting, and the four grandkids--Tia, Sasha, Griffin, and Adrian--descended on her, laughing and questions and holding her hand, snuggling to her side in the oncology family room. 

I will be here for the next while, and will share with Mom any comments written here.  Thanks to everyone for their prayers and energy, their care and concern.

Love, Steph

A poem from Gabriele, July 16th, 2012

Dear Well Wishers,

Your love surrounds me with a constant flow of good energy, and I am so grateful to you far and near.

Unfortunately, I had a very serious reaction near the end of my first round of chemo because of a missing enzyme that does not allow my body to properly process the chemo’s poison, and I took a real beating.  Fortunately, I am starting to rebound and we’ll see if I can begin to take in real food after over a week without it.  Then a new round of experimentation begins.  It all makes me think of this poem:

THE SELFISHNESS  of THE SICK

            --Beth Joselow

The selfishness of the sick is enviable.

They can have anything they want

they think, and so they make demands.

All is forgiven in caves

no one else wants to enter.

They are bathed by strangers,

gently held while their pillows

are fluffed and rearranged.   They

are served all of their meals and get

exactly what they ask for.

They eat, they drink, they drowse

on so much love, on painkiller,

dreaming of the old world

where they can

walk to what they want, unassisted.

                                        Beth Joselow

Sent with love,   Gabriele   

Update July 15th, 2012

Mom is continuing to recover, with ups and downs. Here's from Rich:

We all got pretty concerned last evening. Gabriele had shaking, chills, and a low grade fever. She was given an additional antibiotic after cultures were taken. She did get several hours of good sleep and is doing much better this morning. No pain, less abdominal distension, and no confusion due to narcotics. Simone and Suz were here all night; I went home for a few hours of sleep.

Suzanne continues to regularly update her blog; you might check. Gabriele is touched that so many people are sending love and praying for her. She is determined to keep fighting.

Love,

Richard

Suzanne's blog: http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/

Love to you all, Steph

Update, July 13th, 2012

This is Steph again, writing for Gabriele.  She is doing much better, walking, talking, laughing, and we hope she'll be home this weekend.  Suzi's blog has pictures and details:

http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/wonder-woman/

I'm hoping Mom will write her own next entry.  Love to you all,
Steph

July 10th, 2012

Update, July 10th, 2012:

I'm writing for my mom because she is hospitalized at Stanford.  The chemotherapy cocktail finally caught up to her, causing extreme side effects that landed her firmly in a hospital bed.  Simone and Suzi are there, and I'm planning to be there in about a week.

Suzi has written about this ordeal in her blog.  You can access it here:

http://walkingpapers.wordpress.com/author/walkingpapers/

And Rich has provided an update today.  Here are his words:

Gabriele is doing much better, she remains hospitalized, and she was taken off food for now to give her GI tract a chance to recover. Problem was she had a reaction to the relatively high dose of oral chemotherapy; doctors not worried about giving her smaller doses IV in a week or two. She was more alert yesterday afternoon than she had been in 2 days. Simone and Suzanne are here. We had a good meeting with the oncologist yesterday and we hope to have her home in another two or three days. No visitors yet. 

I will update this blog in a couple of days.  Love to you all and thank you for your love and energy streaming towards my mom.

Steph

July 6th Update

I'm in bed looking out over my beloved valley, dreaming of seeing the huge donut shape which will be Apple's headquarters and which I'll be able to see from my house...  I'm also working on a brand new MacBookPro Air, thanks to Rich.

For two days I have felt shitty (literally and figuratively).  I've developed mucositis in my mouth, on my lower lip while Rich slept peacefully beside me.  At the hospital today, they offered me cranberry juice and I downed two in10 seconds.  Well, guess what..  Today it started again.  Almost anything I eat or drink doesn't like it in my belly.

I'm down to 122 lbs. and, if I weren't so sick, I'd be mighty proud of myself.  Those high protein packs are my saviors.  We're switching meds from oral to patch.  Ann, the oncology assistant, is wonderful, and when she said "I'm sorry,"  I bawled like a baby.  She is so real and knowledgeable, so kind without being sappy.  

I'm hoping tonight to sleep.  I felt so helpless with my physical weakness, so fragile,, so out of breath that it was not a good day.

However, my resolve to do things right is back and both Nassir and Annie were so reassuring that I took heart, and we ALL get to meet the great Fischer on Monday.  I hope he's over his jet lag.


I feel surrounded by love --I mean genuine love. I'm hearing from people in my workshops years ago.  They must be reading Suzi's Blog.  Janet Post, author of Cotton Rock, found out from there.

July 5th Update

Suz reminded me that I don't always have to be upbeat.  I've been holding my own pretty well and feeling productive and loved, but yesterday and today I can say that Chemo is brutal.  I took my first pain pill today because my mouth feels as though someone peeled the membrane off inside, including the throat.  It also hurts to walk on my heels--and those haven't been in the sun, not for a second.  It's like my heels are peeling. The sun I got at 5:00 PM because I forgot to wear a hat, but it was enough to blister the exposed part of my chest and my shoulders -- which are brown as berries, anyway.  I guess it's a toxic mix.  My lower lip looks like a war zone, and I am not sure I can eat because it all hurts so much.  Also I didn't sleep well, and that is always a setback.

Having said this, I still feel positive,  if not upbeat, though I would never want any of you to go through this.  It's, quite simply, totally counter-intuitive to Nature.  The only way to handle it mentally is to do it day by day.  I did pick fruit, but could NOT carry the box up.  As soon as I finish this note, I am going up and crawl into bed because I'm cold, and listen to a tape.

I don't mind  being stationary, but I would like to write.  In two days I'll be done with the pills and I'll get a little breather.  Rich is off to talk to Annie at Stanford and to get me some meds for mouth and feet.

So, for today, I'm asking to fall asleep for a little while.  I'm sure tht will make me feel better.