The Magician

Does anyone know

how Brent and Jan

could get all this stuff

plus the river stuff

and three bedrooms, a porch, deck,

and a garage full of stuff

into one van?

Is Jan a magician?

Brent & Jan came to Utah for the month of July. They spent most of their time at reunions and on the river. Still, I was a bit overwhelmed. As they were getting ready to leave, I told Amanda and Naomi, their 15-year-old twins,: “Before we left Mama’s house, we would wash the sheets and make up the beds, vacuum and mop all the floors. Of course, she was 70 years old.

“Wait! I'll soon be 82.  

“Of course, she had cancer.

“Wait! I’m in cancer treatment.”

The difference is, Mama’s malignant tumor was in her brain and eating away at the bones covering her skull. My tumor is probably non-malignant and is outside my ear canal and while it took my hearing and balance, I do not have the terrible headaches that she endured for so many years. One thing we have in common is the loud roaring in the deaf ear. (My cancer is breast and thyroid.) She went to California for surgery once that was for naught. Then Dr. Roberts at the University of Utah, who successfully separated Siamese twins connected at the skull a couple of years before, drilled through her skull to try to extricate the tumor. The first time, he missed the tumor; the second time he attempted surgery, he hit the tumor but he couldn’t remove all of it.  This was in the 70’s. In the 60’s and 70’s she had cobalt treatments. They would put her in a glass tube and pump it full of oxygen to enhance the treatment. We could talk to her through speakers to try to alleviate her fears of the “coffin”. She was especially relaxed when I would take Brent or Jeanne with me to make her smile during the hour-long treatment. (Most of the time was spent getting the oxygen level up and down. The cobalt treatment itself was only like 12-14 minutes.)  In the later years of 13 years of treatment, I had five kids, two of whom couldn’t walk, so DeRay would take her for treatments. They no longer used the oxygen coffin but the treatments were still hard on her. Dr. Plenk did her cancer treatments. I’m pretty sure she had the fattest file in the hospital.

In October, 1976, Jane, a cousin, whom we hired to be with her since none of us lived in Orderville, brought her to Salt Lake to see Dr. Roberts. He squeezed her in but was very busy so after he examined her, he invited me to walk down the hall with him so he could give me instructions on her care. I asked him how long she had to live. He thought she would not live through the holidays.  It was on this walk that he reminded me that pneumonia is a friend of old people, and that if she should contact pneumonia that we should not let the local doctors give her antibiotics. I only told Verla. (When I got back to her room, she was crying. She thought I had abandoned her or gone with the doctor to plot another surgery.  I promised her that she would be consulted on any surgery and that I would never forsake her.  He did offer a procedure that would sever some of the nerves in her head to lessen the pain but I knew she would not want surgery of any sort, regardless. She was through.)  In March, when I called him, he was dismayed. “Her pain would have tripled by now,” he lamented. He couldn’t believe she was still alive. She  died in May 1977 at age 73. (Daddy died in May 1947, barely 43 years old.)

That’s why Verla and I would go down every summer and spring-clean her house. We never got the windows as sparkly as she did but we did the best we could. When Verla moved in to help her the last few months of her life, we would try to leave the house as we found it to ease her load.

Where was I in my story about how unbelievably a van can hold a whole household full of stuff?  You'll have to forgive me, I'll soon be 82.

River report next.

Brent, Amanda, and Jan leaving for the river.

Amy was already down there.