When Bad Things Keep Happening to Sort of Good People

Perhaps I am stretching it by putting myself in the Good People category.  I know so, so many people who are far stronger, braver, charitable and admirable than I am.  That is why I qualified it a bit, I am sort of good.  Pretty good.  Relatively good.   I do try.  However, those Bad Things, they just keep on a-comin’.

I found a lump in my breast several months ago, but with all my health problems and hospitalizations, following up on it took a back seat.  I finally had a biopsy last week and within a few days the results came back.  I have ductal carcinoma in situ, or, in lay terms, breast cancer.  It is the most common type and the chances are high for a complete cure after surgery, chemo and radiation. 

The problem is that the treatment protocol takes a tremendous toll on the healthiest of people.  And me?  I am not the healthiest of people.  Multiple sclerosis has sucked all the ‘life’ out of my life.  Secondary to MS I have developed crippling lymphedema in my legs, causing relentless, excruciating pain and severely limiting my ability to take more than a few steps, essentially confining me to a wheelchair and to my home.  Getting out of the house is simply too darn hard. 

Limited mobility means no exercise.  I carry the genes of Irish peasants who survived an Gorta Mór (the Great Potato Famine).  So no exercise means horrific, depressing weight gain by just sitting here and breathing.  Oh, and breathing?  Yeah, that would be an issue too, as MS has caused a partial paralysis of my diaphragm which has compromised my ability to take deep breaths.  Surgery to remove the lump will require anesthesia.  There is considerable concern that my lungs would not be strong enough to recover from the anesthesia.  I might end up with a tube in my throat attached to a machine that would breathe for me for the remainder of my days.

What on earth did I do in a previous life?!?!  Holy mackerel, it must have been really, really bad.

I am trying hard to keep a positive outlook, but it is very tough.  I’m awfully scared.  On the plus side, I have a great team of health care providers who are truly skilled, concerned and compassionate.  I have found someone who might be able to help treat my lymphedema at home.  I trust my oncologist, who I will meet with on Thursday to discuss plans and realistic expectations.   My respiratory therapist has referred me to a physician who specializes in preventing post-op vents.  

My friends have rallied around me with a tornado of caring and love.  It is my children I am the most concerned about though.  I do not want them to be burdened or to watch me suffer.  I am praying for them, that they find solace in each other and that we can be a happy family once again.

So, I soldier on.  I believe things always work out one way or another.  They may not work out the way you want or the way you intended, but they do work out.  I have always rolled with the punches, dusting myself off and reinventing myself as I’ve needed to.  Even when I didn’t want to.  I am not ready for it, but ready or not, it is time for a new adventure.

Wish me luck.

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Sadness and Miracles

I am so relieved to be home, but there is no getting back to normal as there is no normal left.

I had been in the hospital for three days while the options for surgery on my gall bladder were batted around.  That third day my surgeon, a local superstar wunderkind, previously all good cheer, came to me with an absolutely stricken look on his face.  An ultrasound, x-ray, MRI and CT scan, all done while testing the gall bladder, were showing a mass on my liver.  It did not look good, he told me.  In fact, it was probably a worst case scenario.  I was pretty stunned, but not as upset as I would have expected.  I didn’t cry or anything, I was just numb.  Fortunately, my friend Christine was with me the first time he broke this news and that made an enormous difference.  Thank goodness I was not alone.  He had already been concerned about doing gall bladder surgery because of my compromised breathing.  Now the surgery I needed for a liver tumor was so complicated and serious, I actually had to be transferred to a different hospital where he worked with another surgeon who specialized in liver surgery.  And there was no question of not doing it.

When I posted this on Facebook, the response was staggering, with comments and encouragement and support from almost one hundred people, some of whom I didn’t even know.  Father David, our wonderful Interim pastor, visited and prayed with me, but to be honest, my own prayers were hollow.  I was dazed.  I sent final messages to my children and funeral plans to my friend Louise, to be given to the kids as needed.

The night they transferred me I had a final CT scan before they organized the surgery.  The next morning the surgeon was in my room again, this time almost speechless.  He felt like an idiot, he said, because the CT scan from the night before showed no tumor on my liver anymore.  There was nothing there.  Nothing.

I did not believe the surgeon was an idiot, although I don’t think that was the most appropriate approach to the news he had.  I also do not believe several doctors could have misread multiple radiology studies.  On the other hand, I had had no expectations of miraculous healing.  I just wanted a peaceful death.  Full of self-loathing, which is cheerfully supported by the people I love most in my life, I never considered myself a miracle candidate.  But it seems that might be exactly what I got.

I have sign hanging on my bedroom wall that says “Count Your Blessings”.  I bought it long ago, before I got sick, when I was leading what I felt was a charmed life.  Four fantastic kids who were wonderful, fun company, a terrific, rewarding career, my little dream cottage, travel, back in school for my Master’s, there were almost too many blessings to count.  Then they started falling like domino’s when I was diagnosed with transverse myelitis and, ultimately, MS.  My family relationships are now in a shambles, with most of them not even speaking to me anymore.  My career is finished and I will lose my cottage anytime now.   Travel?  I cannot even travel to my back garden.  My friend Marc, the Wheelchair Kamikaze, likens a diagnosis of MS to a personal Hiroshima. (Read his moving post here)  It may seem like a histrionic and hyperbolic reference.  But the comparison is apt in that the destruction of your former, healthy life is complete.  Our lives are ultimately shattered as thoroughly as that city was by the atomic bomb. 

Despite what turned out to be incredibly good news about no tumor, it is very, very hard to keep positive.  It is a gorgeous spring day today here at the shore and my family just left for the beach and the Ocean Grove flea market.   In my previous life I would have been there already.   I long to sit in the sun and listen to the ocean, to stroll around the flea market and people watch.  But I can’t get there myself anymore and I wasn’t invited to join them.   I am too much trouble to take along.   The logistics of getting dressed, getting me and my wheelchair into the car and then getting onto the actual sand are overwhelming. 

I am simply so weary of being ill.  Anyone else would have had the simple gall bladder surgery already and would be on the road to recovery.  I sit here, a bundle of complications, with a tube in my abdomen, playing a waiting game until someone is brave enough to take me on.  I have already been told I can expect to wake up from surgery with a tracheotomy and on a vent (a hole in my throat and a machine breathing for me).  They anticipate that I will not be able to breathe on my own as I come out of the anesthesia.  The prospect of living on a ventilator makes me feel physically sick.  Yet I feel tremendous guilt for being so miserable, because I know there are people who are far worse off than I and I am still fortunate in many ways.  I still have many, many friends, each a blessing in themselves.  I suppose my ‘miracle’ is another blessing, put in my path to ponder.   I continue pondering…but mostly I ponder my lost son, how incredibly sad I am and how much I miss my old life.

____________________

To while away the idle hours I have been doing a lot of embroidery and some sewing. Whilst my familiar perches at my head. 

 

I loved these little sailboats from Sew and the City.  I had saved the pattern for my youngest grandson, but I think he has probably out grown them already.  So I stitched them up for the baby of a dear, dear friend who is coming to visit.  I stuffed them lightly, the easier for bitty hands to grip them, and I tied together a few bells and put them inside each.  If the little nipper managed to somehow open the toy, they are too big to choke on in a bunch like that.  My Resident Critic, my daughter, felt they are too girly.  But babies love primary colors, so I stuck with scraps from my Depression-era fabric patterns.  I think they are cute.

The only problem is it made me think of my precious little grandson, who I have only seen twice since he was born eighteen months ago.  I have lost so much, did I have to lose him too?  So I ended up crying the whole time I worked on them.  Tears are supposed to be cathartic.  They are not.  I simply feel worse than ever, bereft and utterly broken by the casual cruelty of this inexplicable estrangement.  

The birds and pansies came from a pattern that I got from an embroidery designer who is based in Cape Town, South Africa.  They were inspired by a Victorian gift book published in 1896.

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A Member of the Club

My mother has told me that I adored the original Mickey Mouse Club, which came on around supper time in the New York City area in the late 1950’s.  I was a real Disney kid, weaned on all the fairy tales, and I can tell you they did not serve me well.  Even though I perpetuated the game with my own daughters, anthropomorphizing animals and advising someday a prince would come.  Why should my therapist have all the fun?

I watched so much television as a child it is a wonder I ever learned how to read.  Before the Mickey Mouse Club was other children’s programming, such as cartoons, and horror shows like Queen for a Day, which my mother would make me turn off if she found me watching it.   But I would be glued to the set for the Mouseketeers.  I especially liked the serials, such as Spin and Marty and The Hardy Boys. 

But Annette?  I was not a fan.

Even at that age, four to about six, I was unimpressed by her 'talent’.  To be honest, I really thought she was a wimp.

I never was into the beach blanket movies, I hated the giggly, girly-girl, manipulative behavior they promoted.  I never wanted to be that sort of girl.  If I couldn’t get a boy with my brains I didn’t want him.

Needless to say, I didn’t get many.

But that was ok.  I didn’t want to be Annette.  By the sixties I was heavily into the counterculture.  (wait a minute, I need to give anyone who knew me then time to laugh).  Let me amend that.  I was heavily into a suburban, white, Irish Catholic, unbelievably naïve, adolescent girl’s version of the counterculture.  I hung out in New York City.  But not too late.  I went to demonstrations.  But only with a friend.  I watched depressing movies (Panic in Needle Park was a fav), but I still read Sixteen magazine.  I dressed in jeans and cotton peasant blouses.  Unless my aunt was treating me to a dress from an exclusive boutique.

My friends and I did actually hang out with drug addicts.  Our CYO project was dancing with them at the local mental hospital, like some kind of deranged USO Canteen.  I still can’t believe my parents let me do that.  Although it did put me off serious drugs forever.  When I learned that heroin addiction could cause you to lose your teeth, it was like taking the WCTU Pledge. 

So, I had no interest in Annette, except as a vague nostalgic memory.  She was a boring goody two shoes. 

When she revealed her diagnosis of MS, I had other things on my mind then as well, she still barely registered on my radar.  That year, 1993, was the year my husband died.  I hadn’t worked in 15 years, I had four children to support and no life insurance.  Annette was the least of my worries.

Even when I found out I had MS as well, I did not feel any kinship.  I was in the club alright, but the one no one wanted to belong to.    MS is funny.  Many people assume that just because you have the same illness, you automatically have a bond.  People with and without MS assume this.  I still felt I had as much in common with Annette as the man in the moon.

But, ironically, her death has linked us.  She died of the infamous "Complications of MS".  MS does not kill you by itself, it allows one of it's many henchmen to do the dirty work.  It could be a systemic bladder infection, paralytic illeus, pneumonia, infected bed sores or any of a slew of other miserable, painful, things that induce gratuitous suffering.   

Annette was only 70, twelve years older than I am.  Her grandchildren will not know her, she will not see them grow up, graduate from college, start families, all things my kids benefited from, as my grandparents lived till their nineties.  With MS, we do not have that gift.  We have pain, weakness, disability, limits.  I know that may sound like I have a bad attitude, but that is the reality.  I do enjoy my life and I am grateful for what I still am able to do.  But I hate being the Sick Grandma, the one who can’t run around and play.  Sheppy, 6, hugs me gently and pats me like I am breakable.  Maddy, 2, is always sticking bits of tape on me to fix my boo-boos.  I don’t know my other precious, year old grandson at all, my son declines to include me in their lives.  While it is like having my heart wrenched out, I miss them so much, maybe it is better that way.

Now that Annette has died, I finally feel a connection with her and I am so, so sorry for all she lost and all she will miss, for all who loved and will miss her.  I am counting on God’s promise that we will all be healed with Him and I like to keep an image of her shaking her cheerful, perky little head and saying, “Oh, no honey, it’s fine!!  All better now!”   Oh, Annette, I so hope so.  That’s the club I want to join.  See ‘ya real soon.

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Accentuate the Positive

A week plus and I am feeling stronger.  It seems as though something unlatched a little and I can breathe a bit better.  PT and OT are definitely helping.  And I cannot say enough good things about the therapists themselves.  There is respect and caring for each patient as an individual.  They are very skilled but still earnest and encouraging.   My primary physical therapist laughs at my jokes, so he was an instant win.  Truly, almost everyone else working here is incredibly pleasant and helpful.

Because they are only people, there is the odd one or two lacking that balance of expertise and warmth.  I was sent for pulmonary rehab to see if it would be helpful.  Four of us were wheeled into a therapy room and pretty much ignored while the therapists discussed their plans.  Finally the Leader spun around and said, as if she was addressing imbeciles, “Ok, who remembers what we learned yesterday?”  Of course, ever the wise ass, I started to answer with a grin, “Not me!” (I hadn’t been there the day before).  Before I could get out two syllables, she said loudly, without even looking at me, “Except you Mrs. Cooper.”

Well hush my mouth.

She clearly found me irritating and, correspondingly, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.   I won’t be going back.  Besides the fact she is the only flat-out surly therapist I have encountered,  it really was redundant to what I was doing in PT.

I have to deal with many tiny aggravations every day.  There are big ones, too, including facing the fact that my health is failing.  But there are highlights that stand out from the past few days, things that seem minor but actually are huge in the scheme of things as far as making a difference goes.  They are small acts of kindness that provide proof of the goodness of most people.  Referring to them as small seems like a slight, although these ordinary things are often unnoticed or unseen.  But they carry so much power.

While I was in the first hospital the aide was in the room taking my vitals at about two in the morning.  A tech ambled by in the hall and she called out to him.  He backed up and was clearly pleased to see her.  “Hey girl!”  She went into the hall and I watched the two of them talking and laughing.  He was adorable and funny.  When he left, she came back and told me what a sweet guy he was.  I told her how cute he was.  A few minutes later, he strolled by again.  “Lamar!” she called, “My lady here thinks you are cute.”  He shot to attention and put on an exaggerated flirty performance.  He danced like Conan O’Brien and made up a rap song on the spot singing my praises.  The aide and I were in stitches and it really raised my spirits, he was so young and so sweet.  She chased him away and as he left he gave me the ‘call me’ sign. Too funny.

The first night I was here in rehab, I was literally too weak to even clean and dress myself.  My nurse’s aide bathed me in bed and changed the bed at the same time, totally matter of fact and kind.  I am used to feeling mortified and bereft when I am so helpless, but she was so sweet it felt like an ordinary, everyday thing.  And let me tell you, having someone one third of your age say “Ok, honey bunny!” as she finishes getting you dressed is in no way condescending.  It made my day.

My first roommate was very infirm and uncommunicative.  I suppose people thought because she didn’t say much, she was deaf.  Which she wasn’t.  But people yelled at her all day long.  “Mary (not her real name) eat!!”  “Mary swallow!!”  “Mary pick your head up!!”  “Mary, what is the matter with you?!?!”  “Mary, do you want a Xanax?!”

One night, the night shift nurse brought in her meds.  She quietly asked Mary how she was.  Mary replied, “Not good, I’m very nervous.”  Instead of screaming at her did she want a Xanax, this nurse sweetly said, “Well, we have something I can give you to make you feel better.  Would you like that?”  Mary said yes please.  The nurse returned and helped her with water.  And then she said the most incredible thing:  “Would you like me to sit with you until you feel better?”  Her demeanor seemed to have made all the difference, because Mary calmly said “No thank you” and drifted off to sleep.

And then there are the visits from my friends!  People who lead such incredibly busy lives, taking the time to come and sit with me, bringing me fruit and tea, my two favorites!  Sometimes my PT/OT schedule conflicts with visits, but that is the primary reason I’m here, so I have to do the therapy.  But people are even coming back if they have missed me!!  Incredible.  Our new interim Rector, who I had not even met, has visited me several times.  So generous with his time and prayers.

My granddaughter is two and obviously doesn’t understand why I am not home or what this place is.  But she was SO happy to see me when she came to visit!!  She hugged me and hugged me, saying “Grammy!!! Grammy!!!” over and over.  I can’t wait to get home and be with her again.

Can't wait to be home with her again!!

These ordinary people and ordinary actions are really what make a difference in our lives.

So there is a lot of hard stuff going on, but a lot of good to balance it.  Despite the hard stuff, I am a very lucky person.

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Desperately Seeking Breathing

Last week, while we were all already dealing with a terrifying hurricane and no power for days, I began experiencing dramatic shortness of breath after only taking a few steps.  I struggled and struggled, trying to convince myself it was just something I was imagining, even though I was taking deep, prolonged gasps for air with the least bit of exertion.   I was attempting to persuade myself that I was simply deconditioned and if I pushed myself just a little bit harder I would end up with Olympic level lungs.   Finally on Sunday, Mary Kate announced she couldn’t watch anymore and she called 911. 

I actually conceded to ride in an ambulance, because I knew I wouldn’t have made even the few yards to the car.   And I agreed to go because all through that whole brutal week, one particular exchange had loomed in my memory.

Two weeks before Christmas in 1993, my husband Dennis offhandedly mentioned his past bout of pleurisy was bothering him.  What do you say to someone who you have been married to for 17 years and who is notorious for not taking care of himself?  “What are you telling me for?  Call the doctor.”  And he replied, “I will, right after the holidays.”  Well, he never made it to the holidays.  He died of a massive heart attack on December 20.  He had no idea he was mortally ill.  He never would have left his kids behind if he had had any choice in the matter.  These are the things that went through the head of this particular notorious patient, over and over again, as I struggled to breathe.

So off I went, sirens and all.  I was too scared to be mortified.  Well, I was too scared to be really mortified.  I truly was more relieved than anything.

I suppose because I grew up with a world class hypochondriac who I never believed a word from, I always assume that I will not be taken seriously.  And, as a matter of fact, I often am not.  Part of it is, yes, due to managed care and the time constraints that limit practitioner revenue.  But I think it is far more because healthcare providers are jaded, bored and do not listen.  (My PCP is an incredible exception, but more about him another time).

I lay on the gurney in the ER, wearily waiting for the first in a series of MD’s who would ask me the same questions, few of which would be apropos and who would not listen to the answers anyway.  Then curtain discreetly opened enough for a young voice to ask “Mrs. Cooper?” And he leaned his face in just a crack, with a raised eyebrow.  He was the most adorable thing I had seen in a long time and I nearly told him that.  Way to start an assessment by being defined as a dirty old lady.

He was cute, as I said, but mostly he just exuded niceness.  He was polite and sensitive but not smarmy.  He listened to my responses and then repeated them back to me in different words!!  Agghhh!! He got it!  When he came back with my lab results, which indicated I was in dire need of a blood transfusion, he looked so concerned I thought he was going to cry.

I was going to be admitted, so I was taken to a new unit the hospital had just opened to facilitate patient back-up.  Because oversight of this department was my job at another hospital, I knew what they were trying to do, but they were failing miserably.  Beds in our local hospitals are like gold.  When you have a high population of elderly and poor, as you do at the Jersey Shore, ER’s get backed up very, very quickly.  A hospital only has so many beds.  Most of them are dedicated, such as orthopedic, surgical, or mother/baby.  You can only place that kind of patient in that bed.  If your patient has a co-morbidity, such as a communicable disease or infection, they have to be isolated or put in a room with a patient who has the exact same diagnosis AND is the same gender.  So your bed possibility is reduced even further.  It is a constant juggling game.  Sometimes, the Gods smile and you can fit everyone together like a Chinese puzzle.  Other times, it is a nightmare of vast proportions with 20 seriously ill 80-plus year-olds languishing in the halls of the ER.  Within hours you have family members in your office, who you completely sympathize with, screaming at you to get their grandmother out of the ER corridor where she has been for 20 or more hours.  But you literally have nowhere to put them.

So up pops the Transition Unit idea (that is what we called it at my facility, it has other names, such as the Discharge Unit, which confuses the hell out of everyone because the patient is only being discharged from the ER to the hospital).  Anyway, the thought process is to get the patient completely assessed and prepped and tied up with a little bow so they simply have to be moved into the proper bed when it becomes available. The patient gets to wait in a comfortable bed in a nice little curtained cubicle.  Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it?

Only it doesn’t work, except as a sort of a highway rest stop, without the tasteful souvenirs .  The patient continues to suffer in limbo.   Patients are not discharged from the main hospital any faster, and that is where the backlog starts.  So patients aren’t stuck in the hallways anymore, but they do get stuck in these way stations.  They are uncomfortable and there is no privacy.  When you are already sick, you feel simply miserable.  Patience frays, family members lose their tempers.  Frequently with each other.

I ended up in the Discharge Unit for about 24 hours.  Every conversation with every specialist who came to talk to me was overheard by the entire place.  The space assigned to each patient, divided by curtains, is approximately 8’ by 10’.  And I am being generous.  The guy in the cubicle next to me snored all night long, interspersed with shouting out obscenities.  Charming.   The little old lady in the cubicle on the other side of me was enduring the pain and confusion of dementia and she whimpered the whole time.  And periodically snorted violently.   I spent the night in contemplation and prayer.  I contemplated holding pillows over their faces and prayed for forgiveness for wanting to kill them.

Two members from entirely different families came to actual physical blows as long simmering issues exploded over their sick, elderly relatives.  Mom always did like you best.

So by the time I was sprung, everyone else had already been moved along with the indelible memory of when my last menstrual period was, if I was having difficulty urinating and if I was sexually active, among other delightful tidbits.  For, additionally, the subtext in every single solitary consult was Fat.  Did you know you were Fat?  How long have you been Fat?  Did you know being Fat can make you sick?  What are you doing to stop being Fat?  Fat, fat, fatty fat fatty.  Fat.  I am ready to stick my head in the oven, but I know if I ask where the kitchen is they will think it is because I am Fat.  I turn on the television power for the Internet and notice for the first time the screen is personalized.  Name: Marie Cooper, Room Number: 6007, Overweight.  WHAAAT?!?!  It’s even on the effing TV?!?!  Then I see this is the weather: OverCAST.  Oh. 

For a horrible minute, I thought even the Internet was on my Fat Case.

 

 

On the plus side, my room is spacious and bright.  I am getting great care from kind people (for the most part).  Mary Kate brings me flowers, and better still, brings me Madailein, who charms everyone by saying “Hi Da Da!” when my male tech walks in the door.  He did turn a trifle pale.  My dear friend Kathy from high school comes by.  Deacon Gail brings me Communion.  Christine comes by but I am at a test.  She comes the next day in a blizzard!!  I am surrounded by love, including virtually on Facebook with dozens of kind and encouraging thoughts.

I go for test after test, but I am still so short of breath it is almost incapacitating.  While talking to the pulmonologist, I realized that the litany of symptoms is a mirror of the transverse myelitis I had eight years ago. I suggest that to her and she happily agrees it is a possibility.  I started the IV steroids yesterday, too soon for any improvement, but fingers crossed.  On the other hand, I am feeling overwhelmed that the MS is causing such significant and crippling symptoms.  The prognosis will not be a good one.  People who have lung involvement end up on respirators.  I am so scared.

One of the people I encounter here is a jolly woman who brings me my dinner tray.  I am very down about the whole Fat thing and I say so.  She puts her hands on her hips indignantly.  “Honey, you are a lovely looking woman!  Beauty comes from the inside.  No one has a right to make you feel bad about yourself and you need to tell them that.  You need to say ‘That makes me feel bad. Don’t talk to me like that!”  I don’t care who it is!”  She shares some of the incredibly overwhelming circumstances she has struggled with and I am so touched by the generosity of her spirit.  I feel better simply from being exposed to her spontaneous kindheartedness.  It is such a gift to have someone like this placed in your path when you most need it.

And then there was the blizzard!!  A week after the Jersey Shore was devastated by Hurricane Sandy, we are hit with a pre-season blizzard.  People who have just gotten their power back after six days lose it again.  No one is prepared for eight inches of snow.

The view from my hospital room on Wednesday.  I know it says Thursday, but I am not operating on all four burners right now.   So that is a big FAT mistake, ok?!?

And the view this morning approximately 5:30:

Looks like that pesky demon may still be there.

Continuing to pray for strength and grace and praying the same for all of you, my wonderful virtual true friends.

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A Generous and Thoughtful MS Donation

My wonderfully talented cousin Steve is a skilled and versatile photographer. He (and his generous cohort, Bill Guy) recently supplied some of their photos of the 2011 One Lap of America to MotorTrend Magazine for the accompanying article. (I made a brief visit to the 2010 One Lap of America, brief because I got so lost in Southern New Jersey I was gone nearly as long Gilligan and his pals: http://www.nourishourselves.blogspot.com/2010/05/day-at-park.html)

The MotorTrend article is great and of course the pictures are the best!:

http://www.motortrend.com/features/performance/1106_the_2011_tire_rack_one_lap_of_america/viewall.html

Well, Steve and Bill, with incredible generosity, have donated their fee from the article to the MS Society in my honor!! I am so touched and flattered!

Steve, some of you will remember, was my childhood Howdy Doody companion.  We watched Saturday morning TV together every week after my dreaded ballet lesson (I was an appalling little ballerina). One year older than me, Steve has been like a big brother to me my whole life, only nicer. One example: when we were about 10 and 11 he was teaching me how to play a card game, but I misunderstood the rules. Essentially, I was totally cheating with every hand we played. But he never said a word, he just let me gleefully win game after game. That is the kind of guy he is.

Steve as he always looks to me, no matter how old we get:

Steve in real life (I told you he was a photographer!):

Thank you dear, dear cousin for being so thoughtful and for being a constant source of goodness in my life.   




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