15th Post. Farewell tour

We are two weeks away from my surgery.  We have our logistics locked and loaded.  We are going to head to Palm Springs the following weekend for Easter as planned.  My family has been completely devastated by our news, so at least I can see my mom and two of my three brothers there.  Proof of Life sort of thing.  Plus my kids love to go there and play with their cousins.

We have decided only two family members are required, presence wise, the week of my surgery, in our home.  My mom, and Will’s sister Ellis.  He needs her.  I need her more.  I need someone who is going to watch over Will while I can not, and will make sure he is okay and getting the support he needs.  Ask any Ketcham…Ellis is the ultimate caregiver, mother, aunt etc.

Ellis calls me and says “I don’t want to be an imposition”.  I tell her that I am going to beg her to please come if she doesn’t stop it.  We want her here.  We need her here.  Her brother needs her and I need my mom.  It’s as simple as that.  My sister is going to come the week after the surgery for 7 days, and we needed Ellis for the week of the surgery -because I am going to be in the hospital and Will is going to be home with the kids.  She is part of our master plan.

Caren, my amazing friend who saved my life by insisting I get a second opinion, is going to stay with me in the hospital.  I mean, seriously, she could make a lot of money doing this.  She is my little pit bull despite being the size of a chihuahua.  She is so delightful and such perfect company…until someone comes into the hospital room “did you wash your hands”, “don’t get close to her”, “do any of your kids have colds right now, you might be carrying a bug around”.  She is awesome.  She is large and in charge inside this sweet little pint size body.

So we are set on support.  Sylvia is going to be at the hospital with Will while he waits.  Sylvia has known my mom for 30 years…so it’s nice for my mom to get time with Sylvia as well.

Janet, Ellis and Sam are going to our son Will’s Fourth Grade Performance for Family and Friends…an event I chair with my friends Cara and Kylee…they are the best.  Clearly they understood why I couldn’t be there that day.  Will may have had the hardest job of anyone that day.  He knows that while he is performing that his mommy, at that very same moment, is undergoing brain surgery.  We’ve explained in great detail how it happens.  It’s not pretty.  He is nervous, sad, worried…to say the least.  And now he has to get up in front of a room of 150 parents, grandparents and friends and perform a solo, sing, dance, play an instrument…while in the back of his head, he is thinking, “is mommy going to be okay?”

We have a plan for that as well.  As soon as I come out of surgery (benefit of being first surgery of the day – I would be out before his performance was complete), we would text Uncle Sam and he would be able to deliver the news to Will that mommy is finished and everything went great and you can see her this evening!

So we are totally locked and loaded for the few days we are home after Easter and the two weeks that followed.

Now to have some QT with some friends before all hell breaks loose.  We had dinner with our four wonderful friends on Sunday, March 25th.  It was the perfect six some…the women, Anne and Hilary are two of my very favorite (Anne is one of the two that insisted I should not write thank you notes, Hilary is the one I feared was poisoning my young family the first morning we arrived in Seattle with those Dangerous Fresh Baked Banana Nut Muffins!).  Equally important were the husbands…because these are two of Will’s “go to” guys.  One is his “brother from another mother” and the second is a wonderful, incredibly smart, successful, awesome guy that Will loves and admires and trusts.  They sit on a Board together and Will always comes home and says “I just like how he thinks.  It’s that simple”.  He is also the guy that insisted over Christmas – that we do a sleigh ride and go to dinner with carolers (I have a real fear of carolers)….Okay, that is way too great a digression…save that for another time.  What I am trying to say, is this a special group to us.  And I knew I wasn’t going to die or anything like that, but it was sort of our “farewell tour” because we would be in “repair and recovery mode” for weeks to come with no visitors.  It was emotional and wonderful and an evening filled with lots of laughs.

Now if you want to know what a living angel is….I can only think of one person and I know everyone who knows her agrees.  Her name is Rachel.  She is one of the senior grief counselors at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  There is NO ONE in the world better suited for the HARDEST job in the world.  The families that work with Rachel are in a world of hurt, but I know they have some light surrounding them and loving them and guiding them through, because she is their counselor.

Rachel, Kainaz (I know…it sounds redundant, obnoxious etc. to keep gushing about everyone and everything…but she too is beyond amazing.  Best hair ever, brilliant, beautiful, working mom, funny, irreverent and bar none the best set of legs you’ve ever seen (and she never shows them), Julie (my friend who wants to cancel going to the most spectacular wedding in Egypt because it was over the time of my surgery – crazy girl!) all go to dinner the next night.  It’s just nice.  We talk about IT but we talk about anything but IT as well.  It was wonderful.

One last girls dinner with Kerri, Julie, Allie and Caren.  My dinner club girls.  Granted only three of us really are always ready for our monthly outing…but it’s okay.  We know Caren hibernates in the winter so she isn’t coming out until the sun is consistent, and Alli, despite being married to an awesome guy, plays single mom a lot because her husband has an awesome big job…based in Paris.  Ouch.

Walks with Kari, Lynanne, Kara, Cara and a whole host of others go on this final week before surgery.

Then there is my whole other group of friends – my non-mom friends from outside of school.  Martha “I will show up at your door every day with a new food item”…chocolate chip cookies, barbecued chicken platter (her husband should be on Iron Chef BBQ), beautiful Cobb salads that could feed 10…or yourself for a week…..

Jessica, who herself has gone through the unspeakable, and gives me back a medallion I had given to her…to get her through a very sad and troubled time…so generous.  Patrice who made me the most beautiful glam doll out of a Pez dispenser (it is her specialty) make me smile, Claire, who literally went out and bought me an apple iPod and downloaded it with literally about 40 songs she loves so I could sit quietly and just chill or listen on my walks…to Lynn who just every day sent a text asking for a walk or a talk or whatever I needed.  She reassured me virtually every day – she was here and ready to go.

To Lee.

Lee is a three time cancer survivor.  Lung.  Gone.  Only has one left.  Started a company that gives 10% of its gross sales to unrestricted cancer care.  She is a force. She is brilliant, passionate, opinionated, beautiful and willful.  She is willing me to get through this and whatever else is to come.

She picks up my kids one day and takes them to her store.  She says to them “pick a glassybaby for each of your family members…every aunt, every uncle”.  Pick them based on the name or the color  – and they did.  She shipped them overnight to our family around the country. The kids wrote a note on each and then asked each family to please light the glassybaby wherever they were at 10am on April 5.    She promised my kids it would work and mom would be okay.

Who does that?

Finally, the day before the surgery, Wednesday, April 4, I ask a handful of the moms in our daughters second grade class if they would be willing to have breakfast with me at a local favorite breakfast spot.  I assume most will be able to make it, or will possibly change their plans to be there as I have surgery the next morning.

Yes, I did want to see them all.  However, there was an equally compelling reason at work in my head.  Earlier, I alluded to a situation that was/is terrible in our Sally’s second grade class.  One of our wonderful parents died.  It was BEYOND AWFUL.  So now, ONE OF US, is a widow and not yet 40.  And has a second grader and a 3 year old.  They are not from here.  They don’t have the massive network I have in Seattle.  They actually have a far more impressive network and had friends flying in literally from all over the world – India, Singapore, London, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, China…..to be there to support them.  It is such a show of how sensational this man and this couple were.  But their friends have to return to their lives -thousands of miles away.  Our friend, now widow, needs support.  She doesn’t ask for it – never would.  But we know.  We know because we are all moms and know how hard it is when you have two parents or you are a single parent and have someone to help you when you need it. On top of this, she too is extremely bright, and wickedly funny.  And humble, and quiet, and oh so very lovely.  And the entire school is chomping at the bit to somehow help lift some of the burden – change light bulbs, plant flowers, take out the garbage.  Anything but what of course she really wanted, that no one can give her.

She too is part of our breakfast.  And so we all have breakfast.  I get to say “goodbye” to my friends, and then we all shift gears and focus on our friend and brainstorm and INSIST that our friend please lean on us, let us help with car pools, playdates, getting her out for a movie, for dinner, for breakfast, for anything.  Even if it is only a few hours in a week…we all want and need to do this.

It was a great morning.  Surrounded by awesome smart women…making things happen! All before 10am.

I left after breakfast, and went home absolutely GIDDY.   I could focus on tomorrow and what was coming.  Everything was now in order.  All my boxes were checked.

It’s time.  Game on.  Is it ridiculous to almost say I was excited for the morning to come? at 5:30am??

I was.