Yesterday, we received a mystery package in the mail. We receive a lot of packages* in the mail, as husband is an avid collector of many things fishing-related. I assumed the small manila envelope contained a fly-fishing tin of some sort as I’d seen several of those make their way through his hands recently. So I did what any good spouse would do and placed it at his work desk for when he came out of the shower.
A half-hour later, he sat at his desk, held up the package and said, “What’s this?”
How can you not remember what you’ve ordered on eBay? I thought.
Well. Because he didn’t order it.
“Mandee’s Lunchbox? I have no idea what this is.”
So I gave a sigh, took the small tin he’d unpackaged and read the text on the back.
Immediately, the two of us fell back to 2017 and our seemingly endless trips to Philadelphia for treatment not only for his rare pancreatic cancer, but to the Interventional Radiology Department of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to check the drain tube that would eliminate the abscess caused by the pancreatic enzymes that leaked into his abdominal cavity after the surgery.
As part of almost every trip we took that year (19 trips in 23 weeks), we stopped either at Au Bon Pain or Dunkin’ Donuts somewhere along the way. Those treats were the highlight of our day, the only part of the whole miserable experience that we anticipated with any small piece of joy. Oh, for a chocolate croissant or a double-chocolate donut in those wretched times!
After reading the description on the back of the tin, we opened his Mandee’s Lunchbox to discover $50 in gift cards to Dunkin’, Starbucks, Panera, and Subway. And then we laughed because we’d thought enjoying those small things was unique to our situation, some small pleasure only we had managed to squeeze out of an utterly terrible situation.
We had no concept that these kinds of small treats could be so highly anticipated by cancer patients around the world. Mandee’s Lunchbox opened our eyes and reminded us, once again, that we’re not alone in our fight against this terrible disease that steals so much, and that even going through the worst of times, friends are still nearby.
Mandee’s Lunchbox sends anonymously, so there’s no way to know who might have sent your name to them. At least, theoretically.
Unless you use your powers of deduction on social media to find out which one of your friends ‘likes’ this organization, and then you realize who probably nominated you to receive a tin full of gift cards and smiles. (Then you send them a direct message full of gratitude because sometimes the smallest actions are the ones that mean the most.)
The last two weeks were rough. After his embolization procedure on the 21st, husband spent a couple of days in pain (which we expected), and then a week and a half running a generally low-grade fever that occasionally went as high as 102F (which was unexpected). He was miserable. To make matters worse? Migraines almost every morning.
We didn’t know whether this was the reaction they’d warned us might happen, whether this was a virus hitting him at the same time as the embolization (The two kids and I had bad colds literally the week leading up to his procedure. We did everything possible to stay away from him so as not to get him sick. We even tested for Covid, just to ensure it wasn’t that making its rounds in our household…), or whether this was a bacterial infection somehow persisting despite being on a prophylactic antibiotic.
We’ll likely never know. As of the last two days, he’s finally been feeling more like himself. (In fact, as I write this, he’s fishing. Yes. For real.) He goes for the second embolization procedure in 2 1/2 weeks, and I suppose we’ll know then if this reaction was more than ‘the norm’ where his body is concerned. I didn’t share most of this part on social media over the last couple of weeks (you might have noticed the increase in pet-related posts as a result) because I don’t know what to say. I don’t have the answers to the questions I know friends will ask. The doctors don’t know the answers. I don’t know the answers.
One of the hardest things about cancer is the sheer number of unknowns. For Type A planners like me, we need to be prepared. And there is no preparing for what’s next because…well…there’s no way to know what comes next. Reading patient studies (because, hey, that’s what I do) is alternately depressing and hopeful depending on the outcome, and each time I find an element that’s similar to our situation, I find just as many pieces that are completely different, thus rendering any comparison impossible.
So for now we’ll do what we learned to do in 2017. We’ll follow what the doctors ask us to do, live our lives, and cherish our loved ones each and every day.
Oh. And now we’ll probably make a few Dunkin’ Donuts trips…
Mandee’s Lunchbox is a local organization formed in memory of Amanda Faidley Layton, pursuing her wish to brighten the lives of other adults and families battling cancer.
If you’d like to make a donation to Mandee’s Lunchbox, you can do so by clicking HERE.
If you know an adult who’s battling cancer, you can nominate them to receive a tin from Mandee’s Lunchbox HERE.
* Not fishing-related. One package received earlier this week? Thanks to local friends of ours, an unexpected box arrived from Harry & David’s, days late, so the pears were a bit…um…squishy. We still found a way to use them…
L. Ryan Storms 