POSSIBLE EARLY USE

There is a possibility---a good one--- that I will be eligible to get the drug I need (before it is available through the FDA on May 15) now through a program called Compassionate Use. God's fingerprints were all over how I heard about this. I won't go into all the drama and detail of how it came about, but let me just say that I have passed Steps 1 and 2 out of 4 for final approval. Next Friday I will have brain and chest MRIs, as well as 4 other tests/labs to get an idea of my condition for the research team. If I pass, I could have the drug as soon as 12 days from now.

You may ask what the benefit is of getting it so close to the day I could get it on the open market. I realize there will only be a 3-week differential and perhaps to some it isn't worth going through all this protocol to get the drug early.

Let me tell you, when you have been sitting idly waiting since Feb.1 for the only drug that can extend your life, you grab at ANY advantage. The saddest part is I would have been eligible for Compassionate Use back on Feb.1. Needless to say, I fired my doctor and have hired a new oncologist. 'Nuf said on that.

I trust in God's providence for me. If I am supposed to be approved, I will be. If not, I wait. God is the same either way. When you trust God to order your steps, you have a peace that passes all understanding.

I remain hopeful and I will let you know if I am approved!!

LIVE AN UNSTRAPPED LIFE

I am not a person who cavalierly recommends things to others. I do so primarily with books, and not even just good books. For me to recommend a book, it has to be a great read. I may have recommended a terrific movie or two over the years. But this may be the most excited I have been over suggesting something.

Dick and I have just finished watching a 4-part sermon series called Unstrapped. The preacher is a pastor from a large church in Omaha. Even though we have loved every one of his archived sermons, I wasn't sure I wanted to watch four about money. We almost chose not to delve into this series, but something in our spirits compelled us to start the first sermon. And we were totally hooked.

We finished the series in about 8 days (watching about a half hour a day) and the fourth sermon was as good as the other three. Friends, I urge everyone to listen to this series. It is about so much more than money. It is about a new lifestyle choice, your heart, what you worship, your stewardship, obedience, tithing, the way you view your life, and blessing yourself and others.

Dick and I agree that we have NEVER heard a sermon about money like this one. Six decades, and finally, a series of money sermons that felt like fresh oxygen. Each one touched us down to the marrow. We could hardly stop watching the streamed video each night. Pastor Les is so easy to listen to, so authentic, and yes, funny too.

If more believers (and non-believers for that matter) could hear this, how different things might be. We could see altered lives, and marriages coming together and restored families. If these principles were taught in churches, we would have a revival which could change the lives of many people in our fellowships, and by extension, in the community.

Friends, I am inviting you to try out the first sermon. If you don’t buy into it, don’t watch it. If you finish it and felt as inspired as we were, share the series with others. Tell people at your church about it.

Living the unstrapped life matters. Check this link out and please let me know what you thought.

http://discoverlifegate.com/messages/unstrapped

PATTY

I waited in the shade in front of the cafe for her. When she walked up to me, after 33 years, we fell into each other's arms. We both had tears. Nearly simultaneously, we said "I would know you anywhere." I looked at her and said, "252-2218." And not skipping a beat, she answered, "252-4598." Our childhood family phone numbers. Decades later, fresh on both our tongues.

My long-awaited reunion with my best friend from grade school was the highlight of my trip to Florida this year. Life and careers and distance kept us apart for all that time, but to hug Patty was coming full circle.

Patty and I met on the first day of kindergarten and became best friends. Our parents were going to send us both to the small parochial school in town so we maintained our close friendship all through school. Together, we did life through spelling bees, sleepovers, grade school dances, piano lessons, dance lessons, 60's music (the best ever), 6th grade boyfriends and the horrific day in 3rd grade when JFK was shot. 

We spent lots of time at each other's houses playing....she had the most awesome Barbie set-up under their basement stairs complete with a Barbie and Ken house and car where we spent hours. My Barbie and her large case of clothing was always in transit between houses. She remembers thinking our basement as the coolest thing ever. Until she told me why, I had never realized that Mom and Dad had, indeed, designed a perfect 2000 sq ft space for kids and teens downstairs. As a kid, I had taken it for granted.

She spent summers with her mom at their lake cabin and her dad would often bring me out on weekends. We played "house" in her bunkhouse and spent time on the beach.
As we got older, we had crushes on lake boys and would take her boat and cruise around the lake. 

One day, the girl next door said she couldn't go swimming with us and we pressed her into telling us why. That was the day Patty and I learned all about menstruation, which sounded really gross. When the 4th grade girls had "the talk" with their moms, Patty and I had a pact to act dumb so our moms wouldn't be upset that someone else had told us.

Oh, yes, we shared many secrets. Isn't that a hallmark of a bestie?

Patty considered Mom and Dad her second parents. She was a later-life bonus baby with 4 siblings much older than herself so I think she enjoyed being part of the chaos at our house. When Dad was dying, she wrote a letter to my parents telling them how much they meant to her growing up. It meant the world to them, because they always had loved Patty. Dad never did stop telling the story of scaring her to death when he jokingly told her that if she didn't eat her creamed peas, he would give them to her in an IV. Patty well remembers it. He loved to tease.

Patty and I were best friends but we were friends with others. Colleen and Mary Kay were another set of best friends that we did things with together and individually. But we always gravitated back to each other. In the 8th grade, our school closed its high school, which meant for 9th grade, we would be going to the huge public high school. The only thing that made that less daunting was knowing Patty and I would navigate it together. Going from a class of maybe 25 to a class of 350 made me tremble. I was so shy by nature. I needed her for this big transition.

Weeks later, my universe shattered. Patty was moving to a city 90 miles east. I will never forget sobbing in my mom's arms the day she told me. It paralyzed me.

We tried to stay in touch as much as possible. In those days it was mainly by a monthly phone call and written letters. Lots of letters in the beginning. We both made other friends in our new high schools and our connection got stretched out. We saw each other a few times during college years, but didn't really re-connect again until I moved to Minneapolis (where she was living) for a 3-month graduate internship. She was newly married (yes, I was her maid of honor) and we started seeing each other regularly again. 

I got a faculty position at the University of Northern KY and moved there. And eventually landed back in Duluth which was only 3 hours away from her, but our careers, life, kids and commitments got in the way. I had no idea that my wedding would be the last time we would see each other for 33 years. 

At the cafe, I pounded her with questions about everything in those intervening years. Tributaries of our memories came rushing forth. She has experienced so many losses but Patty exudes a joy about her that is infectious. I couldn't get enough of her. She was always my leader and I always looked up to her for wisdom. Our lives have taken very different trajectories, but that didn't matter at all.

My beautiful lifelong friend Patty

Our reunion was indeed the high point of my week in the sunny south. After being with Patty for 15 minutes, I knew that if we had continued to live in the same city, we never would have lost our connection. For at its foundation, it is deeper than the roots on a North Dakota oak tree.

On that day in 8th grade, when my heart cracked open at her leaving me, a hole was created in me that I didn't even know I still had. In Florida 2 weeks ago, she returned that piece of my heart to me. For me, Patty was and always will be home.

WOW

I interrupt this programming to shamelessly share with you a clip of Sam's play-by-play in a quarter final game in the state MN basketball tournament yesterday. He got the call for the game involving the #1 seed in the 4-A division. The game's last half was especially good, but the last 5 minutes were really good, and the last 15 seconds were great. Sam's call is of the tie-game's last 2 seconds.

The clip has had 90,000 views and has been on ESPN and WCCO and a Sports Illustrated website. The way the whole thing came together has God's hand prints plastered all over it. I take great comfort in knowing God has a plan for Sam's life.....a plan to prosper him (Jer 29:11). Who knows what could evolve in Sam's future someday from someone who heard him broadcasting yesterday? 

It is pretty cool clip. Tears spring into my eyes every time I watch. Note that the last scorer had not scored the entire game. Check it out.

https://twitter.com/mnprepspotlight/status/844590880933605376

FLORIDA 2017

So thankful to still be able to travel to Florida every spring break. Richie and I spent a week alone and then Sam and Gretchen came the second week. Had a very fun time. We followed through with all our "traditions".....Der Dutchman restaurant (where you leave when you are finally in a food coma), Kilwin's ice cream cones, Smuggler's Cove mini-golf, shuffleboard and pool. Lots of walks on the beach. After 30 years, we finally went and saw the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.

My chemo prevents me from sun exposure so I had to be completely covered at all times, but I just put on my long-sleeved swimsuit and big hat and went to "sun" myself around the pool.The heat felt wonderful. After being bald and even now, having ugly kinky hair that doesn't grow, I am really beyond caring what others think of how I look. Cancer frees you in the realm of self-image.

The first day I laid out, I was 100% covered, except for the bottoms of my feet which I gave no thought to. Well, 15 minutes later, they were very burned and we had to run to CVS for lidocaine to try to deal with the pain. (it didn't help) Thus, shoes needed.

Here are a few pictures of our week.

Shuffleboard

Mini-golf

Ice cream cones at Kilwin's

My most-beloved family

Celebrating being alive!!

THE REST OF THE STORY

After Mom came, my parents spent a second honeymoon in Paris. Their reunion was joyous. They moved into the 300-year-old house, but ate many of their meals with Madame Salm at the inn with other American army families. They moved a bed and Mike's crib into the kitchen to keep warm because the kitchen had an oil stove. There was no central heat. "Mike slept in his snowsuit between us the first night. It was that cold," Mom told me.

While Dad was at Captieux, Mom took long walks along the promenade and went to the market in the square. Her favorite friend was a vegetable farmer, Monsieur Garliss. He had a turtle that Mike loved. Garliss would take Mike behind his store and call for Fifi and the turtle would come. Mom was in her glory with all the beautiful flowers sold in the market.

I was in this picture!!

Neither of my parents were big wine drinkers, but the water wasn't safe so they drank more wine. When in France....  Mike was given evaporated milk diluted with chlorinated water. They bought bread and meat, fresh every day, at one of the market stalls.

When the Tour de France came through Bazas, as it still does to this day, they went to the highway to stand and watch the cyclists.

Life in Bazas was rich. They never felt that the "lacks" in their life were significant. Bed in the kitchen? So what? No indoor toilet? No problem. They were so content.

When the car arrived from the US, they felt their time there really took on a new level of excitement. They put 23,000 miles on the Chevy by taking trips all over Europe on weekends. They made up their own itinerary and just took off. They saw Spain and Italy and Netherlands. They spent time in many locations in France. They took in England and Germany and Switzerland. In the wintertime, they'd go to the ocean-side city of Biarritz and get a motel "so we could take a hot bath."

Traveling all over Europe with a toddler was easy-breezy in the '50's. No seat belts. "We'd plunk him in the back seat with a pile of books and a few bananas and we never heard a peep out of him." When they stopped for the night, they would have Mike run up and down the motel halls. He was speaking French quite fluently before they left just by playing with other children.

I wrote a book about (from interviews with them) their years in Bazas and I cherish knowing the details about this time they spent exploring another continent. Mom wrote details from every trip to her parents and Dad's and most of those letters still remain.

They stayed in touch with Madame Salm. She sent a dress and bonnet when I was born. I don't know if they stayed close to the Garliss family.

"I'd go back to Bazas tomorrow," Mom told me. "I don't know if there was ever another time in our lives that we were more carefree and we were surrounded by all that awesomeness of Europe."

Were the 2 years in Europe the highlight of their married life?

"Other than the joy of our children, it was. Absolutely," Mom confirmed. Dad echoed, "It was such a wonderful experience. I would do it all over again in a minute."

When I wrote the story of their life in France, I learned the "rest of the story," but I had never read these letters to Mom that Dad wrote to her. It filled in those missing months of Dad's life when they were apart.

I come away from all these letters from Dad knowing that my parents had an incredible love for each other. They lived a love story. I feel so lucky to have been born into that love and raised inside of their nurturing arms. 

Thanks, Dad, for leaving these letters for us. The journey with you through them has been a joy.

LAST LETTER

I am finished with 800 pages of letters. 400 pages, 2-sided. It has been a great journey with my dad, full of his angst and delight and worry and adventuresome spirit and longing. I have brought so very little to these little installments, so much less than what I have absorbed through his words. I just had to leave out so many wonderful details and anecdotes due to time and space. But I have loved reading his every long-hand stroke. And it has been fun to share the trip through the letters with my blog readers.

These last week of letters are filled with many housekeeping details about the trip. It takes away from the richer anecdotes about his work and life. I am sad to see this journey ending in such a mundane way, but all those travel details just means that Dad is getting closer to having his family with him again.

Dad asks Mom to send a trunk full of civilian clothes before she embarks. Why he didn’t bring them when he shipped over is beyond me. “At the moment, I am wearing red sox, grey flannels and a blue wool shirt and I feel like a million bucks. You can’t imagine how tired you get of army uniforms.”

I smile when Dad tells Mom about all the letters he gets every day…..from his parents, her parents, her aunts, his grandmother, his dad’s associates, friends from Jamestown (where they lived), and his little brother Bobby. Bobby came along 18 years after Dad. I’ve never asked Uncle Bob if he was a “bonus baby” or planned, but their middle brother was born when my dad was 10 so Grampa and Grama had some wide gaps in child rearing. Dad had already left for college at UND when his baby brother was born but they became close. Bobby, age 9 or 10, would write Dad in France these long one-full-page letters with details about life back at the home place and it delighted him.

“I had another letter from Bobby today. He sure writes good letters. He wants a letter just to himself so I’ll have to write to him.” And a week later, “Got a couple more letters from Bobby again. He sure is good about writing and writes the best letters. I really enjoy them.” Dad would be crushed if he knew that his brother would, 60-years later, be fighting cancer.

He is talking with his buddy Bob about how they would love to begin a small medical practice together when they return to North Dakota. Problem was Dad was already hired at Jamestown Clinic and they were paying a portion of his salary as an incentive for him to return there, so the idea lost steam.

The last letter is dated Saturday JANUARY 28,1952, and under the date he writes, 16 DAYS TIL CHRISTMAS. Seeing my mom and brother was a Christmas morning present that he couldn’t wait to open in February! He ends with this:

Darling,

I am getting so antsy I can hardly wait for you to get here. I am in a new room at the Hotel Lion D’or and am very happy about it. Madame Salm moved me into Hans Stibold’s room. I’m alone now and have the nicest room in the hotel….new bed and all. Am very happy to be alone. Storment and I were incompatible (as roommates). Can now go to bed and get up when I like.

Gee, Darling, I’m happy tonight. You seem so close. I’m so anxious I don’t sleep well anymore. Meeting you and Mike will be as wonderful, or more so, than when we were married. Sure seems like ages since I left you weeping at the Fargo airport. Sometimes I get such an anxious feeling, I think I’ll bust before you get here. Hope our boy makes the trip OK. Hang on to him tight, honey.

Not much in this letter, darling, except that I sure love you with all my heart and it won’t be long now. Kiss for Mike.

All my love, Ed

One last post to come: The rest of the story