Postscript to previous entry

Just found a clip of the famous French toast scene from Kramer vs. Kramer, and am adding it here.

Barry, Berry, Bury

With my midwestern accent, I have never really been able to differentiate when I pronounce these three words. But my “Barry” certainly can.

I was reminded of this over the weekend. We had our friends Ellen and Barry over for Shabbat lunch and had a lovely afternoon. They brought over fresh blueberries. Then yesterday we had a lovely brunch with our friends Ava (one of Barry’s radiation oncology residents) and her fiancé Jason, who were joined by Jason’s parents, whose names are Ruth and….you guessed it, Barry! For dessert? Of course, there was a lovely platter filled with berries.

After brunch, since we were already in The City, we headed over to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas to see the new film, “Menashe.” We arrived during the previews and, much to our surprise, the theater was completely packed! Unbeknownst to us when we decided to go and see this film, there was a discussion with the director and the lead actor following the screening. It is always interesting to attend such events, but it is not every day you see someone who has never been to a movie theater in his life standing in front of a movie audience talking about the film in which he is the lead actor!

I struggled with this movie because it is almost entirely in Yiddish (a language in which I know only a few expressions) and, having arrived so late, we were only able to find seats in one of the last few roads, from which the small subtitles were mostly incomprehensible to me.

Fortunately, this movie is somewhat understandable even without the dialogue. The movie, apparently based to some extent on the lead actor’s life, tells about a rather ornery and selfish Chassidic man whose wife has died, leaving behind a nine-year-old son, Rieven (which I assume is a Yiddish version of the name Reuven, or Rubin). The Rebbe of the Chassidic sect insists that the young boy live with an aunt and uncle and their children unless and until Menashe remarries. Despite his many blunders, Menashe does love his son, but his marriage to Rieven’s mother had not been a warm and happy one, and he is reluctant to go through this again.

We could not help but be reminded of the 1979 film, “Kramer vs. Kramer,” with Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Mr. Kramer had also been completely absent from the day to day responsibilities of raising a child, let alone mundane matters like preparing French toast. But he quickly came up to speed and managed to be a fine father, even at a time when fatherhood was not quite the hands-on activity we take for granted today. 

This film has received quite a bit of critical acclaim but apparently has not made its way to Rotten Tomatoes. It is a touching story worth seeing.

Love,

Rebecca

Help for a family devastated by terrorism

I am sharing a link in the hopes that some hearts will open for this family that has undergone devastation at the hands of terrorists.

Thanks to our dear friend Joanne who knows this family and shared this with me.

Help for a family devastated by terrorism

Love,

Rebecca

Not that kind of girl

Not that it is anything I might have ever considered either way, but for years I have known that tattoos are generally prohibited in Jewish law. The source of this is Leviticus Chapter 19 Verse 28, which states “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for a dead person; you shall not etch a tattoo on yourselves.”

Still, I did not think twice (and was assured by our rabbi that I should not think twice) when told I would need to have tattoos to help guide the radiation therapy. These marks are put on the skin to help the radiation oncologists and therapists accurately aim the radiation at the correct area during each treatment.

They did not give me a book of pictures to look at to select my design: I might have chosen a big heart with the names of our six grandchildren. Instead, four very small dots now lie on the perimeter of the area in which my bladder lies to ensure that the radiation consistently gets to the same target for each of the 37 planned treatments.

Here is a picture of the mark on my upper left thigh. The black lines in the picture are from a marking pen and will wear off.

So we are one step closer to beginning radiation therapy (note: this is sometimes called “radiotherapy” but that sounds to me like listening to a classic rock marathon on the radio). Now we have to wait for the completion of treatment planning that will define in detail precisely how the beams will be directed to maximize the amount of radiation going to the area where the tumor had been located. I am scheduled to begin radiation therapy on Monday August 14^th.

During this upcoming break in the action I hope to get a lot of rest and a nice long weekend up in Sharon. Those two things will hopefully provide me with the strength I need to travel the road ahead.

Love,

Rebecca

Bladder of gold

At the ungodly hour of 4:15 am we headed over to MSKCC where I was scheduled to have surgery to place what are called “fiducials” in my bladder. A fiducial marker or fiducial is an object, usually a gold seed, that is placed in the field of view of an imaging system which appears in the image produced, for use as a point of reference or a measure. Fiducials implanted in or around a tumor, or in this case the area where the tumors had been before surgical removal two weeks ago, act as radiologic landmarks to very precisely define the target lesion’s position.

The procedure is often done under general anesthetic, but after consultation with my pulmonologist, it was decided to attempt this procedure using propofol, a short-acting sedative that results in a decreased level of consciousness and lack of memory for events. I am glad to report that this plan worked, and was a lot less distressing for me than the spinal anesthetic used two weeks ago for my original bladder surgery. I do not remember anything and I came out of the medication very quickly, allowing us arrive at home by early afternoon.

All this talk of gold fiducials got me humming an old (1971) Neil Young song:

I want to live, I want to give
I've been a miner for a heart of gold
It's these expressions I never give
That keep me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Redwood
I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold
I've been in my mind, it's such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old
Keeps me searching for a heart of gold
And I'm getting old

Here is my rework of the song lyrics in honor of the 4 fiducials placed in my bladder this morning:

I want to live, so I have to give
I’ll be a patient with a bladder of gold
It's all these urine samples I have to give
That keep me searching for a bladder of gold
Hope I’ll be getting old
Keeps me searching for a bladder of gold
Hope I’ll be getting old

I've been to Sinai, I've been to Memorial
I’ve crossed The City for a bladder of gold
I've been in my mind, it's such a fine line
That keeps me searching for a bladder of gold
Hope I’ll be getting old
Keeps me searching for a bladder of gold
Hope I'll be getting old

I don’t think I will ever be able to listen to “Heart of Gold” in the same way again!

Love,

Rebecca

Inspiring words

With her permission, I am sharing here an excerpt from a message I received from our friend Aviva, an amazing woman we have known since she, Barry, and I were undergraduates and her husband was a medical student at the University of Rochester in the early 1970s. You may recall that Aviva won first prize in my earlier contest for the best quip after I fell and needed stitches during my treatment for CNS lymphoma (“you needed that like a hole in the head”):

We are blessed with intelligence and analytic abilities.  And we are blessed to know and have access to the best doctors and eminent scientists.  So we go about problem-solving looking to arrive at the perfect - or at least the most optimal - solutions to our problems.

But alas, after all that hard work of "discovery," we find that no matter how much information we amass, it is not enough information.  For what we need is a crystal ball, and those are in short supply.

It is very humbling.  It makes us realize that, ultimately, we are in G-d's hands. 

You did your part.  You have amassed an amazingly smart and competent and thoughtful team to help you through this new journey.  

During this calm before the next storm, so to speak, we snuck out this afternoon to see a movie, “The Big Sick.” I know, this sounds depressing, but then we read Manohla Dargis’ review in the New York Times who described “a joyous, generous-hearted romantic comedy that, even as it veers into difficult terrain, insists that we just need to keep on laughing,” we had to go see it.

The movie focuses on a Pakistani-American young comedian, Kumail (played by Kumail Kanjiani) whose parents are desperately trying to find him a suitable wife, setting him up with a series of lovely young Pakistani women. But life becomes complicated when he meets and falls in love with Emily (Zoe Kazan), a fact which he is simply unable to bring himself to share with his parents. This causes a painful break-up of the young couple, but life takes a strange turn shortly thereafter when Emily becomes ill and mysteriously lapses into a coma. While the doctors are trying to determine just what is causing her illness, Kumail spends much of his time at her bedside, gradually forming a relationship with her parents. Eventually the cause of her illness is determined and they are able to bring her out of the coma. 

But she remembers only the young man who had left her, and their road back together is not entirely smooth. Still, I will tell you what all the reviews share, that there is in fact a happy and very sweet ending. This really was a charming movie, just the sort of thing we needed right now. I definitely recommend it if you have a chance.

Have a good week. I promise to keep you all posted as the journey continues.

Love,

Rebecca

The journey begins

It has been a long week of visits to the two hospitals and meeting with many doctors. At some point, you put together the best information you can, make a decision on how to move forward, and leave the rest in God’s hands.

We have decided to pursue treatment for the bladder cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The primary treatment will be radiation therapy, with a small amount of chemotherapy to enhance the effects of the radiation.

As many of you know, Barry is a radiation biologist who has been a Professor of Radiation Oncology at Mount Sinai for the past 26 years. The MSKCC radiation oncologist who specializes in the treatment of bladder cancer is Dr. Marisa Kollmeier. Marisa was one of Barry’s students when she trained in radiation oncology at Mount Sinai about fifteen years ago. In those days, Barry taught only the Mount Sinai residents (his weekly course is now attended by residents from eight programs in the New York City area), and every year we would host a dinner for the group of six or so in our home. So I have known Marisa for a long time, and it is our great fortune that she has become a leading radiation oncologist in the treatment of bladder cancer. The other two members of the team are Drs. Gopa Iyer (medical oncologist) and Bernard Bochner (surgical oncologist.) Dr. Bochner actually trained the surgical oncologist with whom we met at Mount Sinai: it is a small world of folks who treat bladder cancer.

On Tuesday I will be going to MSKCC to have markers, little gold seeds the size of grains of rice, implanted in my bladder to help guide the radiation. The next step will then be what is called a simulation that is required to develop the plan for the radiation treatment. The actual treatment will then begin several days later.

Although we had hoped to travel to Sharon this weekend, the appointments made that impossible. We are hopeful I will be up to going next weekend before the radiation treatments begin. Once those start, it will be daily (five days a week) for about seven weeks, and I probably will not be up to travel during that period.

Now I just need to muster the strength to get through all of this. I know I have a small army of people rooting for me and praying for me, and will be forever grateful for your support over these coming months.

Love,

Rebecca