Christmas At My House

By Judy T. Lloyd

The Christmas Holidays brings out some of the best memories and some not so nice memories. I will first start with this Christmas.

It is Christmas Eve in the year 2009. To many this year Christmas will not for many be a happy holiday season. Some of that is the times, some is because of sadness and death and for others is is a seasonal depression disorder. For me it is a time to reflect back on the last twenty Christmases before this one. I can see the question in your minds, why twenty years?

This is the twentieth year that I have had cancer and right now that is precious to me. It was twenty five years ago that Relay For Life was started. I have celebrated twenty of those years having cancer. Cancer is not a disease at the moment that you cure, you kill it with treatment. There were plenty of times that I thought cancer would kill me. It almost did more times than I really want to count. This year in the county where I live we did our first Relay For Life. Now that was tough, but it was not as tough as dealing with cancer.

Along the way in my walk with cancer I have met some fantastic people who I would have otherwise have missed if not for my diagnosis. I do not wish to soft peddle anything but I hope to encourage others to do what I have done and that is to keep a journal of your cancer memories. This is why I write and I once wrote a poem on Why Ask Why? It was on a cold January day in 1990 that I learned a previous PAP smear test done in December showed that I had carcinoma in situ of the cervix. Let me tell you that I was very angry over that and refused to believe the local doctor.

I was at the time still hoping that my husband and I would have another child but it was not to be, plus losing what I considered part of my feminity was hard to bear. Later I would learn that there were other children that I could nuture and this leads to the story of Noey Jeffreys. Herndon and Kim Jeffreys became my adopted family after I met them in June of 2006. They had a three year old daughter named Hannah and this child was a true gift to me. Herndon and Kim lost a newborn baby son to Tay Sachs3 disease. He died ten days after birth. Kim lost other babies as well and Hannah turned out to be their only natural child. During that period of time they decided to try to adopt a baby from the Methodist Children Homes.

One of the countries the agency decided to send them too would be in Mongolia. However after a two year delay in which they faced frustrating delays and investigation Mongolia closed its doors to overseas adoptions. So they had to find another country to adopt. One that would accept parents in their early forties. One that would allow a prostestant minister/lawyer to adopt a Muslim child. Of course we felt that since the child was in an orphanage it should not matter if the little girl found a home. All the paperwork was done and so we waited. My husband and I took pictures for the social worker to review. In mid 2007 word came through that Noey which is short for Katmanodo was theirs. Still it was a waiting period that seemed to go on and on.

Finally after a lot of other problems that had to be worked out the call came last week. Noey was theirs and they could come to Thailand to get their new daughter. Hannah has the best gift now although she only asked for chapstick. Noey will take the name Sarah Noey Jeffreys. She is a lithe child very small for her age but we hope she will thrive here. Noey wants a pink dress for Christmas, how child like and now instead of one princess they have two. I feel very blessed to be a part of this my extended family. This Christmas is different from that first Christmas where I faced numerous tests.

Christmas 1989

What a contrast that first Christmas where it was suspected that I had cancer. I knew something was wrong but I did not expect to have cancer. My husband was suffering from depression and that increased after I fell on Halloween night. I fell at a church and I truly thought that I would be alright. It was not to be as I had a head injury and serious bruises.

I went to a local doctor in Blackstone where it was determined that I had a concussion and a back injury. I mentioned that I kept bleeding intermitantly after my menstrual periods. The doctor did a PAP test and told me he would let me know the results. He was rather rough in the test and I thought to myself that he had to be using a poker to do the test. I had several miscarriages in the years before the accident occured but I still wanted another child. In fact I started to bleed heavily the next day after the accident but I thought it could have been a miscarriage. In the meantime the insurance company gave me a hard time in determining the claim. So I hired an attorney in Richmond,Virginia. You would have thought that I was the devil in the eyes of the community. I thought that I was being set up when the call came on a cold day in January.

I have to say that the doctor was rather cold hearted by telling me over the phone about my results. He acted like I was a silly child that he had to scold and demand that I do this and that. I immediately changed doctors and then I went to have a surgical proceedure done to determine if I had cancer. That proceedure did reveal that it was carcinoma in situ. The surgeon was going to schedule me immediately for a hysterectomy. He does not know that his patients scared me to death with their tales. I changed doctors again and looked forward to Christmas 1990 to be the time that I would have a lasor cone biopsy done. I trusted the new doctor more than the others and so I had the surgery.

The doctor told me to wait until another time that year before having anything else done. He did describe to me what each surgery would involve. However we lost our insurance that year and had to fight very hard to get the insurance back. So that one year our gift was getting our health insurance back. Still I celebrated Christmas because I was alive and my only child had moved in with her grandmother. My family at the time consisted of our dogs who were very loyal to us. In the meantime I continued to research my type of cancer, so when the symptoms seemed to disappear I decided to go back to work.

During the years that I worked, every Christmas seemed to be ones that we could enjoy that is until after 1997. That year we lost our house in a devastating fire. The miracle was that my husband survived being blown out of the house but our beloved pets did not. Before the year was out I knew that I was in trouble as I knew the cancer had come back with a fury. However we put up a tree that year and had ornaments on it. A few days before Christmas we were asked to take a young male dog. The dog loved Christmas too much and had gotten into trouble in Richmond. So when Trooper arrived he was six months old and scared. It took patience to get him to get out of the utility room. I fed him dog food by hand. He quickly became spoiled and so we had another great gift in Christmas of 1997.

Trooper would become the topic of a lot of my poems and stories because he was such a character.


Some of the problems were that in his job Herndon would be transferred every five years or so to a different Methodist church. The family decided they wanted a home of their own that they could depend on for later. That and the fact that Herndon's father was extremely ill and had terminal cancer. The grandmother had died from breast cancer the year that Kim and Herndon were married. This made this family all the more important to me as we continued to grow in love for each other. Kim's mother Rosemary lived in California but due to dementia she had to leave her home and move in with Kim. This is another reason they built the house in Charlotte County. Tensions increased as the church where I first met Herndon put pressure on him.

I was definetly angry over that and more than one church member felt my wrath before I left. However it was the church that helped with our first Relay For Life. I still have friends among the cancer survivors there. Some though asked inappropiate questions about the relationship of Kim and Herndon. I felt it was none of their business and told them so. They wondered why the Jeffreys wanted to adopt another child. That irritated me and so I never said anything to it to Kim and Herndon.

I had to have surgery in Febuary to repair a hernia caused by multiple abdomenial surgeries to save my life. Herndon came down to be with my husband. I stayed in the hospital a week before coming home. I had lost my job and it was very tough on us. It still is very tough but when I heard that Hannah only wanted chapstick for Christmas I smiled. This is how they have raised this beautiful little girl who looks a lot like me when I was growing up. She also looks like a young Shirley Temple. Her mother told me that they recieved the phone call on Thursday of last week. The adoption had come through and they will leave on the 31st to pick up Sarah Noey in Thailand, What a wonderful joy this child will bring us all. I can barely wait to see this tiny china doll. But we will meet her in small doses until she adjusts to being here. All she wants for Christmas is a pink dress. She will get that and more.

Trooper
By Judy T. Lloyd

Trooper you came to us in dark times.
We did not know how much you would mean to us.
I did not like the name your other owner gave you.
Snoop Dog Snoop just did not fit.
So we named you Trooper after the State Police.

You lived up to that name more than one time.
You loved to visit your "widows" as you called them.
They loved to see you coming as you were quite the handsome fellow.

When it snowed you thought that God made it just for you.
Running around like a deer and kicking up you heels.
You saw a real deer one day and gave me a what is that look?

Still it seemed that winter suited you because
it meant Christmas was on its way.
That is what got you into trouble the first day.
You would pick Christmas wreaths off of the doors and take them to home to play with.

It ended up that you came to live with us.
Oh and one other thing, cats were open game to you.
The game of undecorating the tree and chasing a wayward cat were your best fund.

Then came the day that we found out that I had cancer.
You and were by my side when I came home.
Never once did you try to jump into me or knock me down.

By the time the next Christmas rolled around you were there with me on the floor.
You slept peacefully content that mama was safe.
I had a vision that night as you snuggled closer.

I can recall that vision even until today.
Alas when cancer came back in 2000 you were still by my side.
I could do no less when in 2001, you too had cancer and you died.

I will always love that dog, he was so special to my family. My mother even thought he was the neatest dog. Trooper ranks up there with the greatest dogs ever. The fact that he was a rescue that appreciated being taken in just added to his charm. Today December 25, 2009 makes it ten years since the Christmas with Trooper was so special.

Noey

By Judy T. Lloyd

Sweet little girl made of sugar and spice.
Your smile makes our Christmas very nice.
You will never know just how much you are loved.
Surely the angels and God sent you from above.

Sweet little girl made of sugar and spice.
Hannah and mommy love you more than twice.
So too I welcome you.
Christmas this year will not be blue.

My mother loved Christmas and she would gather up goodies to put under the tree. Of course she did not know that I had already peeked at the gifts one day that I found in the closet. Still waiting for Christmas morning was very hard to do.
My mother would scurry about and find enough bowls for all of us, there were seven in my family. She would fill them with orange slices,gum drops,oranges,apples,ribbon candy,raisens and walnuts. Of course she added other items as well. We loved how the house smelled with all the aromas coming from dinner.
One year it snowed so hard before Christmas that we were house bound. That year we had a house guest because he had gotten stuck in the deep snow. So we played games especially Monopoly for a few days.
I did not discover that my mother could cheat at games until I grew older but the whole concept of Christmas was dear to her. My father would also enjoy Christmas and he was somewhat of a poet himself. He would ignore mama's indignant looks when he would say to us.
"Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you poot." He would also point out that fruitcake had the same effect.
There is a roast hen cooking now for our Christmas Dinner. We have snow on the ground and it is still cold. However though it is cold we still carry Christmas in our hearts. Just like my mother did up until the last Christmas in 2000. My mother died of brain cancer on March 15,2001. She was almost ninty-one.
The first Christmas after she died was very poignant and sad. I had to go back to the hospital for blood transfusions due to cancer related complications. My very special friend and second mother Doris Vandal Holman was with me when I had to be admitted. Vandal is my Rose in the books that I have written and she has gone to the mat with me on more than one occasion. It is she that encouraged me to start writing. I sent her a special Christmas Card that I wrote for her. Some of the context is this.

My friend Vandal is both a tiger and a lady.
She is a lady with a loving heart and touch.
She is a tiger that does not suffer fools lightly.
If you think so then mistreat one of her loved ones.

She will give you advice and spiritual counseling.
We share a common bond, in that we both had cancer.
Yet she did not play the dancer, rather she said to me.
"I can do this. You did it so will I."

They told us in the meetings of doctors,nurses,therapists that we could pick our team players to help us deal with cancer. So I chose Vandal and I was never sorry. We are as close as any two people can be without being blood related. Cancer is a journey and sometimes it seems like the winter of your life. In many ways it was the winter in my life but after winter comes the spring and life renews. Every day after cancer is a good one, each little victory is a gift. I do not ask why anymore but rather I ask why not me?
The answer is that someone has to write the story for all those who are survivors and honor those who have gone on.

To this end I wish you all a very Merry Christmas from our house.

Impressum

Texte: All of this material has implied copyright, parts of it were copyrighted in 2004. No part may be reproduced without my permission.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 25.12.2009

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Widmung:
This book is dedicated to the following who helped to make it possible. Donald Rae Lloyd Doris Vandal Holman Samantha Cecil Goode