Photo by Alison Hathaway, Red Shoes Photography
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We Ain’t Right
8 DecTeam Kennett takes Christmas cards quite seriously. Always have, always will. It hit me over the summer that with Crosby’s due date being December 3rd, there was no way I could possibly lose all of my baby weight, take family photos, and have cards designed, produced and in the mail in time for her to be a part of our Christmas card. So I decided our card would just have to include Chip, Joe and me, but professional pregnancy photos kind of creep me out, and there was no way of hiding the fact I was wicked pregnant. So, me being me with my warped sense of humor, I finally landed on the idea that our card needed to poke fun at my belly.
Again, searching for that piece of inspiration, it hit me one day when my iPod was on shuffle and Robert Earl Keene’s “Merry Christmas from the Family” came on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P37xPiRz1sg Chip, sharing my same sense of humor, LOVED the idea of our Christmas card photo being a play on Robert Earl’s holiday favorite, and it all went downhill from there.
We discussed props and outfits for a solid four to five months in preparation. We just needed to find the proper photographer. You know, someone who would really get into this with us and appreciate what we were doing. I think we took this decision more seriously than we would finding the right surrogate to carry our child. We invited Ginny and Clete Johnson over to dinner one night and after the perfect amount of bourbon and wine had been consumed, we asked them if they would do us the honor of shooting our Christmas card picture. After they stopped laughing, they said they were in, so we scheduled a date and time for the magic to occur.
A week later, we received Chip’s diagnosis. The following morning Chip said, “We can still do our Christmas card, right?” Well, hell yeah we can!! I so loved where his head was and besides, we ain’t right.
Feliz Navidad!!
Close-up – can’t miss Joe’s pout!
It’s a Girl! F@%$!
8 DecWhen I was pregnant with Joe and people asked Chip or me if we wanted a boy or girl, instead of giving the PC “healthy baby” response, we both unapologetically responded with BOY! Why? Well, boys are easy. They are a simple sex. They are sort of like dogs. You can pet them any which way, and they love it. Their needs are few and their emotions are in check. Clothes are easy, toys are easy, coming of age is easy, and decorating for them is easy. Basically, I love being a boy mama. Once again with this pregnancy, we both hoped for another boy.
When we told Joe we were pregnant, he flung himself on the floor Days of Our Lives-style and repeatedly wailed, “No, only me! Only me!” There was no doubt he fully understood what we had just told him. After several weeks, he slowly adjusted to the news, and we started to talk to him more about the baby and him being a big brother. Every time we brought up the baby’s sex, he insisted there was a girl baby in my belly. It didn’t matter who asked him, he never waivered from girl. Chip and I were still holding out for a little boy though. At my 20-week sonogram, the doctor confirmed Joe was right and we were indeed having a little girl. I started crying right then and there. Again, I sweat the small things. Chip kept telling me it was going to be ok, but I continued to cry for the better part of two days.
You see, girls are like cats. We have to be stroked JUST right in order for us to respond. Girls have periods, bad bangs in 6th grade, low self-esteem, body issues, and … I can barely type it much less say it aloud … WEDDINGS! Oh, I pray Crosby comes to us one day and tells us she has eloped. I don’t know a single girl, including myself, who is mentally stable. Show me one. You can’t. We have issues; we like to talk about our feelings; we are an emotional sex. Friends, colleagues and family members tried to console me by telling me how CUTE the clothes are. What is “cute” about the color of Pepto Bismol or ruffles on the ass? No. Thing.
I decided to shelve clothing and how to properly navigate a daughter through her teen years for another day and focus on decorating the nursery instead. Well, everything I found was pink and had ladybugs all over it. This wasn’t going to work either. I kept searching and searching for something to inspire me, when it finally hit me while visiting Amsterdam with Mom and Dad over the summer. Vincent van Gogh’s painting of almond blossoms!! It’s my very favorite painting in the world. It’s peaceful, it’s inspiring, AND it’s not pink or purple. That was it. I had it.
Almond Blossom, 1890, Vincent van Gogh
Thankfully Joe was willing to share all of his nursery furniture with his baby sister, and I called on two of my extremely talented friends who had helped me with Joe’s nursery to now help me pull this project off. Nancy Twomey of Finnian’s Moon Interiors in Old Town, Alexandria helped me select some beautiful fabrics for custom-made drapes, crib bedding and a hassock. One of my dear friends and sorority sisters from college, Bethany Tompkins, is a gifted artist, and she painted her own modern version of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom and made custom drawer pulls for Joe’s former change table for me. I love how it turned out. Crosby’s nursery is perfectly her.
Oh, and Chip and I are simply smitten with Miss Cros. I now love being a girl mama, too.
Please visit Nancy at http://finniansmooninteriors.com/ or http://finniansmooninteriors.com/blog/ and Bethany at http://bethanytompkins.com/.
– Sheila
You Were Made for This
22 NovAfter Chip was diagnosed, people kept telling me I was “made for this.” Chip told me I was made for this. I even adopted this phrase and started telling people I was made for this.
Well, after Chip’s prognosis, I started to think, what the fuck? I was MADE for this?? I had a starring role in a really, really bad Lifetime movie. I was made to have a three year old son, to be within weeks of my due date and for my husband to be diagnosed with terminal Stage IV cancer? I kindly began to take offense to this.
I mentioned this to my friend, Ginny Johnson, one night, and her take on it was that it meant I was made for Chip. That I was the perfect spouse for him. Hmmmm…I still needed to chew on that one.
Anybody who knows me very well knows I do tend to sweat the small things. If Joe drops a banana slice on the kitchen floor, I am immediately on my hands and knees with a wet paper towel cleaning it up. If something gets thrown into the dryer with a stain on it causing it to set, well, I can truly lose it. If a bag of chips is opened from the wrong end, I can’t eat them. If a pillow is out of place on the couch or the throw blanket is on the floor, I can’t go to bed at night until everything is back in its proper place. It’s a problem but to quote the great Ke$ha, “We R who we R.”
On the flipside, I can handle, and I mean REALLY handle, the big things. I am cool as a cucumber at my what is supposed to be a stressful job. I can schedule for the Senator with my eyes closed. Joe can tumble out of the back of the car and crack his head open on the corner of a concrete curb, and I never break a sweat. Our connection through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia en route from Bamako, Mali to Arusha,Tanzania can suddenly turn into an unexpected overnight stay, and I embrace the adventure.
So, when Chip was diagnosed with cancer, I pulled up my big girl panties, channeled my inner Steel Magnolia and decided to make the best of it. What other choice did I really have? As one cancer victim wrote to us, “I can’t always control my circumstances, but I can control the way I experience these circumstances.” Wow. That’s pretty powerful stuff.
People keep telling me how strong I am, and I do appreciate the compliment, but I am just being the person my parents taught me to be. I also think my Southern roots are coming into play. I may not have learned to pump gas until Jenny Hassell taught me how my freshman year at Ole Miss, but Joe Boyd sure taught me how to change a flat tire and check my oil. I can barely choke down a beer, but I sure can take a single malt or bourbon down neat. I may not know how to cook it, but I’ve got a really good shot and could probably bag one and bring it home if I needed to.
So, I guess everyone was right. I WAS made for this, because cancer, you sumbitch, you have messed with the wrong Steel Magnolia. Game on.
– Sheila
KRAS, ALK, EGFR … WTF?
21 NovSince genetic mutations can often occur with adenocarcinoma, Chip’s test results were sent to The Mayo Clinic for further analysis. The oncologists had both laid out similar treatment plans for us based on various scenarios–intravenous chemo if there were no mutations at all, approved drugs if it were this particular mutation, what clinical trial was available if it were this mutation and if it happened to be the KRAS mutation, well, that was just not going to be good at all. At this time, Chip is not eligible for radiation or surgery, because the cancerous tumors are widespread throughout his abdomen.
After several long days, the results finally came back, and it turns out Chip has a genetic cell mutation which affects 2% of adenocarcinoma victims called ALK translocation. It’s all relative these days, but we were ecstatic with this news, because both oncologists had said there was an approved and effective drug called Crizotinib or Xalkori to treat this particular mutation. 2%. I always knew Chip was special.
We were desperate to start treatment, so we were elated when Dr. B, the oncologist at Johns Hopkins University, e-mailed us over the weekend, the day of Joe’s 3rd birthday party, indicating how great this news of the ALK mutation was. She was going ahead and submitting the prescription to the pharmacist so the authorization process with our insurance company could begin, and asked us to come in to see her in a couple of days for blood work and an EKG and to pick up the prescription. Hallelujah! The ball was once again in motion. In the meantime, the tumor in Chip’s eye was starting to cause him significant pain and he had undergone his first of what will be monthly bone strengthening infusions, which ended up making him quite ill for a couple of days.
It’s game on now, cancer!
On Thursday, November 15th, after spending another full day at Hopkins, Chip popped his first pill at home that evening. Just for good measure, we decided to celebrate by washing it down with a shot of Pappy Van Winkle’s. Within hours, he was throwing up, and it was another long, long night in the Kennett household, but Chip is slowly adjusting to the medication. The pain in his eye has fully subsided, so we are hopeful this means his body is responding to the treatment.
Xalkori is considered to be a “smart” drug. Intravenous chemo poisons all cells–healthy and unhealthy ones. Smart drugs only target the cancerous cells. They basically open the receptors or “doors” to the diseased cells, and allow the poison to travel in and eat the cancer.
Chip takes his medication at 8:30 AM and PM each day. Every single time, I visualize those little doors opening up, the poison traveling in and EATing the cancer. Eating it all up. Isn’t that just the best visual??
– Sheila
Team Kennett 