One year check-up for Anne today, and she is still cancer free! Immensely grateful. 

Celebrating! 

I was catching up with our dear friend Alice Spickard after church service today, and it struck me how wonderful it was to linger and catch up with friends.

“You know what just hit me?” I smilingly said to Alice. “We are here, hanging out after worship. No ducking out quickly to get Anne home and into bed.  How fun is it that I’m having to wait on her?” as I glance over at Anne chatting it up with a few friends.

“It’s those little things that remind you how far you’ve come since last year,” Alice rejoined. “You put a hard year behind you, and now you’re savoring moments that we so easily take for granted,” a look of compassion and joy on her face.

“Ooooo! Maybe that should be a blog post. I’ve been meaning to write…”  Alice nodded.

Hardly a day passes that something doesn’t remind me of what we lost, but are now regaining.  Little sign posts of restoration. Sometimes you don’t remember what you’ve lost until it’s given back to you…

Lingering after church service.

Anne running down the beach with our Goldendoodle.

Catching up with Anne after a busy day.

Going to the movies together as a family.

Anne belly-laughing.

Coming home to a family dinner.

Hearing about Anne’s great haircut.

Making up the bed, tag-team style.

Anne’s enthusiasm to serve as a room mom for Sarah’s first grade class this year.

New picture frames on several chests of drawers.

The sparkle in Anne’s eyes.

And Lord, thank you for the sparkle. May it continue to shine brightly from those big brown eyes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting beside Anne at our children’s end-of-year music concerts tonight, I leaned over and whispered to her, “This is a better day than this day a year ago.”

Sure, I should have probably waited until the song was finished, but I simply couldn’t hold back.

Her eyes fixated on our sweet kiddos, Anne stole a quick glance my way, just long enough for me to see that my words registered with her in the way I had hoped.

One year ago today, we learned that she had been officially diagnosed with breast cancer.

Today?

Boy are we in a better spot. We’re not staring down the barrel of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. We’re seeing the sun begin to rise.  Day by day, Anne’s walking the path of recovery.

Today was a better day.

With great gratitude,

Van

I thought I’d share a fun little story because it reminded me how life is slowly returning to normal as each day passes. 

But before I tell you, an update on our Anne: As you might guess, she’s still beat. I’ve heard her describe herself to others as an electric car. Runs for a while, then she’s got to plug in (with a nap). When she’s discouraged, I say things like, “babe, you just punished the living day lights out of your body for the past year. Of course you feel whupped.” 

Actually, all of us feel whupped to one degree or another. It’s been on my mind as I ready for the coming weekend’s event.

This very weekend I will be competing in the U.S. Masters National Swiming Championships at North Carolina’s very own, state of the art Greensboro Aquatic Center. Through all of our cancer battle, I’ve managed to keep my training up (thank you, Anne and Suzanne), even if sometimes I’ve felt like a dead weight in the water. I love to compete, so why not right? 

Needing every advantage I can get now that I’ve graduated into the “midlife” age groups as I’ve dubbed them (40-44), I bought myself a fancy new racing tech suit designed to make you sleeker and faster through targeted muscle compression. 

It arrived today, so I pulled it out of the box to show to Anne. Laying it on the bed (pictured here with a razor for scale), I glanced at her eyes to see her reaction (thinking she’d say something about the bangin’ color or style).

Nope. She sat there with big eyes, a perplexed grin, and an evident look of astonishment. 

I read her mind. 

“Yeah, it’s a little tight. Takes about 20-30 minutes to put it on,” as I began miming the act of shimmying the suit on millimeter by millimeter. 

Still no words from Anne. 

“Okay I know it sounds crazy but doesn’t it look cool?”

Anne: “it’s a great color…but husband, how on earth are you going to get that on?”

“Little bit by little bit? You know. You hold your breath, tug a little, rest and repeat.”

“And where do you do this?” asked Anne with a sly, amused look, still not sure she’s believing what she’s hearing. 

“In the locker room. With all the other dudes. Doing the same thing,” I nonchalantly explain.

<Anne chuckling>

“Yep! I call it the first warm-up!”

<both laughing hard>

We swimmers really are a rare breed.  

Wish me luck!  I’ve got the hometown advantage, which is especially neat because Mom and Dad will be there to watch, just as they did over two decades ago. If any of you want to stop in and cheer, I’d love it.  Here’s the meet info: http://www.usms.org/comp/scnats16/

Remember the theme song for that wonderful TV show “Life Goes On”?

 “Ob-la-di ob-la-da life goes on bra…La-la how the life goes on.”

I’m humming that in my head today. One day at a time, life goes on. 

Thankful. 

To my precious Anne,

Last radiation treatment tomorrow. Is there a word to express the relief?!

I’ve been thinking about tomorrow this whole week. Seemed unimaginable only a few months ago. But here we are!

My eyes are wet as I type these words. If I could single out each tear, I think you’d probably see the whole cast of characters from Inside Out…

I thought I would feel a tsunami of joy watching you run across the finish line tomorrow.  But I feel really sad.  I’ve been sitting here at my desk, sobbing, wondering “what’s wrong with me?!  I should be doing high-kicks and cartwheels!”

But it all came crashing through the walls of heart. I hate what you’ve had to go through. It makes me so, so sad Annie. You’ve endured so many losses, small and large.  You lost your hair. You lost quality time with our sweet kiddos. You lost your taste buds. Your energy. You lost opportunities to do things you love like serving at school, art, working with me (okay maybe that’s a stretch :-)). You lost your breasts. The chance to play in the snow with the kids. You lost blood. And physical strength. And the sense of well-being that we all take for granted.

But as everyone can attest, you did not lose your spirit, your spark.

Nor did you ever lose sight of your Redeemer Jesus, who has held your life in His tender care.

I wanted to run this last leg of the race with you in high spirits, overjoyed and charged to carry you piggyback across the line, your arm raised with a defiant clinched fist as you shake it at the Thief.  Maybe tomorrow that’s how I’ll feel.

Tonight, well, I’m grieving. You’ve endured tremendous losses this past year, the weight of which feels heavy on me.

This brought to mind sweet, inspired words penned in a letter by a man who suffered severe hardship throughout his life.  Here’s what the beleaguered, battered, exhausted apostle Paul wrote to his beloved church in Philippi…

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

Annie, despite all the losses, you’ve gained so much this year.

I’m with you to tomorrow’s finish line, and beyond…

K.C.A.!

With love,

Your husband

 

 

Today Anne had her first radiation treatment.

I just caught up with her…and where oh where do I start.

Over the course of the last week, she and I have talked about the startling paradox of radiation treatment.  We grow up being told – and thus endeavoring – to avoid radiation at all costs. It’s scary and harmful and makes us think of third appendages, brain tumors, and Godzilla.

Yet, to kill cancerous cells, the medical profession still champions radiation treatment. In big whopping doses. Which Anne got today. It’s the weirdest feeling, she relayed.

Here are the first two things Anne said to me in describing what it was like:

“It’s the closest thing to an alien abduction.”

“It’ll screw with your head.”

Admittedly, I had formed this mental picture of Anne walking into an X-Ray lab, putting on a fancy lead apron, and sitting idly as a technician pulsed a few bursts of radiation onto her left chest area.

Yeah, good Van.

Nope, not even close. A group of medical physicists painted her entire chest with runes and constellations in various colors, literally strapped her into a large radiation machine made for one, and (through a microphone from another room) instructed her to hold her breath as a huge menacing eyeball roved her body, shooting long 20-second bursts of lethal radiation at her left chest cavity.

Sounds more like a spa treatment for a convicted terrorist if you ask me.

As Anne has learned from talking with a few cancer-fighting friends she’s made during her journey, many say the experience of receiving radiation is the more difficult of the two treatments (chemotherapy being the other).

This surprised me.

“Why do you think that is?” I asked my insightful, ninja-warrior wife.

“The sense of solitude is overwhelming. You feel utterly alone. The doctors are in another room, talking to you over a microphone. Nobody wants to be where you are, in that room. With chemotherapy, you are surrounded by caregivers. With radiation, it’s you and a machine. You lie there exposed and helpless as medical physicists watch from far away. It really does feel like an alien abduction.”

As I sat here, mouth agape, transfixed on Anne’s every word, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that each of her words was wrapped with a smile. I wouldn’t be smiling.  Nope, definitely not.

But Anne was.

Not a fake smile. Not a “this-is-fun” smile. It was a smile that certainly seemed to emanate from a genuine love and appreciation for the advances in medical technology that are giving her hope for a long, fruitful life ahead.  But more importantly – and at a deeper level – I sensed in her smile that she knows she’s not alone.

I think I’m right about that smile. But I’ll let her tell you.

(No pressure sweetheart.)

With hope in this journey,

Van

 

 

We Fletchers enjoyed a beeeeyooootiful day outside playing in the warm Sunday afternoon air. 

As I was shooting baskets with the kids, Anne called timeout and asked them to come sit with her for just a second. She summoned me as the iPhone photographer. For a very particular reason.

Snap. There are my beauties. Sitting on the hot and cold coolers that have received over 180 meals from all of you. 

She asked me to post this picture, with the encouragement to tap into my “creative writing skillz” to express our profuse gratitude for feeding us over the past nine months.

Thing is, I got nuthin’. This picture says it. 

  

Thank you Raleigh. 

Thank you St David’s School. 

Thank you Christ the King Presbyterian Church. 

Thank you friends, here and across the country (literally!). 

We are loved…and we see it, feel it, know it, and are humbled by it. 

With inexpressible gratitude,

Van, Anne, Jack, Luke and Sarah. 

PS – Next week (7th) Anne begins radiation. Pray for endurance, comfort, and effectiveness. Love to you all. 

It’s February!

 I typed that in hopes it would somehow sink in. 

To quote Gary Gnu from the classic 1980s children’s program The Great Space Coaster, “No gnus is good gnus!”

That is, our silence is the unintended byproduct of Fletchers-doing-life-in-the-here-and-now.  

All the more reason to fill you in. So, a scattershot of updates…

Anne has only TWO more chemo infusions remaining! Tomorrow, and next Wednesday. Whoop!

Following a short break, she will start radiation in early March. Everyday, Monday through Friday, for 5-6 weeks. Side effects include mild fatigue, a nasty sunburn, and a heckuva tan on her left side. 

See that too?

Yep. That’s a light. At the end of a very long tunnel.  

Anne’s state of mind seems great, all things considered. There are the latent, lingering fears that the “thief” will not have been fully eradicated by her chemo/surgeries/chemo/radiation treatments, but as we remind each other, what guarantee do any of us have that we’ll be here tomorrow?  

I feel very fortunate to have had a surprisingly busy start to the new year on the real estate front.  January is normally a slower month for me (compared to April-Oct), so admittedly I was a bit blindsided. But thankful. And keenly aware of how my Heavenly Father is looking out for the well-being of my family by giving me fantastic clients. 

My profession as a Realtor does not offer a lick of security nor any semblance of a consistent schedule. Sometimes that wears on my heart, especially when it impacts Anne and the kids. Yet year after year, the Lord provides the Fletchers’ daily bread, despite my thinking that this responsibility falls squarely on my shoulders. He is God; I ain’t. One day I’ll start to get that. 

Jack, Luke, Sarah. Doing great. Such loves. Boy have I seen the Lord’s goodness expressed in their lives over the past year. I think what has really struck me about our children is how they have matured in love, wisdom, kindness, and relationships in spite of the reality that both mom and dad haven’t been quite as available. Anne’s mom Suzanne, our dear friend Manning, teachers at St David’s, our good friends – all have played a vital role in caring for the Fletcher kids during our cancer fight. When I look and listen to them, at times I am humbled to the point of tears because I know their joy and faith have been cultivated by far more than my hands. 

So friends, I fully intended to write more. I wanted to share about sledding, the boys’ basketball, Minecraft (Anne’s hooked, and it’s the cutest thing), and Suzanne’s special award. So much more to share. 

But I’m spent. 

And have miles to go before I sleep. 

It felt good to write this. So many of you care for us. And pray, faithfully. I hope what I’ve shared provides insight into how your prayers are being answered.

These last two chemos will be the toughest for Anne. Pray for perseverance and comfort for her. For healing. And hope. Above all, for her heart to rest in the knowledge that death has no sting, no victory, no power over Jesus her King. 

Good gracious, it’s been two and a half weeks since our last post. What?!

Okay, so there are two reasons…

Anne and I enjoyed a really sweet holiday break with the kids. She had a “week off” from chemotherapy between Christmas and New Years, which was a gift itself. Feeling better than usual, Anne soaked in more quality time with the family, and vice versa.

Second, you know that phenomenon that occurs when the passage of time begins to pile up between you and a good friend, such that you feel both a tinge of guilt for having not called and the added pressure to carve out a bigger chunk of time to catch up?  And…and then you finally cave to the guilt and pressure?  There’s a little bit of that at work here too.

Yet I’m feeling the need to apologize, as I know many of you have wondered how Anne is faring, what’s the latest, and how the kids are doing. Given our context, prolonged silence can easily be construed negatively.

And then I give this blog post that title, one which immediately makes you think “oh no!” while forcing you to read this far without having given you any indication of what it means.

So now I’ll officially apologize. And do some ‘splainin… 🙂

A quick summary of Anne’s treatment to date:

• Diagnosed with breast cancer in late May last year.
• Started chemotherapy the following month for 18 weeks, receiving an infusion of potent ninja medicine every three weeks.
• Underwent surgery in October to remove both breasts, with a follow-up lymphadenectomy two weeks later to remove remaining infected nodes.
• Because she’s young and healthy, we decided to begin a second course of chemotherapy in November with a different drug called Navelbine, which has been shown to work well with Herceptin, a drug specifically designed to attack Anne’s type of breast cancer. Administered once a week for three weeks, followed by a week off. Then repeat. 

*Van, what is the miscalculation for crying out loud?!*

When Anne and I sat down with her oncologist to review the timetable for her current chemotherapy, he told us that she would receive 12 treatments. Having just finished an 18-week course of treatment in which her chemotherapy drugs were administered once every three weeks, we both concluded that her present course of treatment would last a total of 12 weeks. No math required.

Hence, Anne’s celebration in her (fantastic) last blog post that she was 2/3 of the way through her chemotherapy treatment!

But. A big ole but…

The doctor didn’t mean 12 weeks. He meant 12 treatments, or 12 infusions. Instead of her course of treatment running three months, it spans four months.  {3 infusions + 1 week off} x 4 weeks = 16 weeks.

Yep. Anne is just past the half-way mark, not over 2/3 of the way through as we had previously believed. Tack on another month of feeling icky.

Punch to the gut, right?

Well, you’d think so. Though disappointed, Anne actually handled it in stride. Knowing Anne, most of you probably are thinking, “of course she did.” No doubt, my bride is a strong woman with a deeply-rooted faith, but she’s real. Fear is a constant foe. Sadness always wants to creep in, and sometimes it needs to. There isn’t a day when she doesn’t feel weak. A “feeling-good day” for Anne isn’t any better than having mono and is often closer to exhaustion with a nauseated stomach.

Even still, realizing she had yet another month of chemotherapy didn’t rock Anne’s world. There’s definitely been a shift in her outlook, which I’ll try to touch on in a follow-up post.

I recently had breakfast with a good friend of mine, Andrew Kratz, who was asking about Anne. I explained how our “miscalculation” was such a bummer, likening it to running a marathon and discovering the finish line has moved just as you think you’re across it. No stranger to challenges – Andrew is a Special Forces Marine (I say “is” because Andrew has reminded me that while he isn’t in active service, once a Marine always a Marine) – he shared from his own experience in a way that helped me understand why Anne didn’t crumble under the realization that her chemotherapy would go another month.

“It reminds me of how the Platoon Sergeant would occasionally take us out on a five-mile run – a loop we ran daily  – and as we neared the finish line at the barracks, he’d keep running. You quickly realize this was not a five-mile run. Even the next 200 yards felt impossible. Guys would start dropping out…

“Sure, he wanted to see who was tough. But he was really teaching us that in war, there is no finish line. It’s about seeing things through until the job is done. And you don’t know when or what that looks like, so your mission isn’t about crossing a finish line. It’s a mindset. Fight until the end.”

I’m going to use that in my next blog post, I told Andrew. Too good.

Somewhere along this road, Anne stopped being a marathoner and became a Marine.

 

When the going is tough, I think that’s what God’s grace often looks like.  

So said I to Anne one evening last week, when we were both feeling under the weather and a bit beat up by the vagaries of life. A smile, nod and “YES” were all I needed to know she felt the same. Framed in the positive, grace in suffering is doing the next thing in front of you, even when every fiber in your being is saying, “um, no thanks.”

Our pastor has been preaching through the book of 2 Corinthians, a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth. What Paul wrote regarding his own hardship in the letter’s opening captures what I mean:

“8For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

After having had a week off to let her body catch its breath, Anne goes in for chemotherapy tomorrow. Alas, she got my cold, which she’s had a harder time kicking given her body’s weakened state. Even still, Anne’s generally in good spirits, for which I am truly thankful, especially after walking alongside her through intensive chemotherapy, two surgeries, and now this second course of chemotherapy.

Friends, we feel so buoyed by your prayers, notes, gifts, and meals. Thank you, a million times over. You make grace and mercy tangible to us. Put wind in our sails. Remind us that we aren’t alone in this fight. 

I hope to update you again with less time passing between posts. 

In the meantime, please pray for Anne’s healing, for strength to endure, and for God’s comfort and peace, which knows no bounds, to invade her heart daily. 

Ain’t nobody giving up over here. 

Merry Christmas!

Van