SEATTLE V.I.P.'s

More than a week ago now, Granny Ernestine came to visit "her baby" Vanessa for the weekend. When she arrived by train, we were in the middle of our day of mourning the loss of 18 year old freshman, Morrey Brown. We spent the day with his parents, brother and grandparents, and his roommates, team mates and class mates. Jack worked with Morrey as a 16 year old high school student in Seattle, so Morrey came to college in a large part to train with Jack. He made quite an impression on us and all the people he met in his one month in California. We felt honored to be part of his life and included with the family.

For the rest of the weekend, Jack spent time with Vanessa and his wife and mother. Luckily Granny has a bit of billy goat in her, so she hoofed it down the bluff at low tide with us for a 2 hour anniversary walk. Later we went to the Farm Stand and petting zoo and watched our little pumpkin head examine the real McCoy.

After Granny left we had thee days at home then headed north to Seattle. This was Vanessa's first time back to Jet City since she was thawed, in April 2006.

We very much wanted to visit "Auntie" Maribeth and "Uncle" Allan. They just welcomed their second son, Baby Beckett, into the world. Their first son, Duncan, is pretty much VanNestlekins' first boyfriend.

Maribeth was pregnant with Duncan when she took me to my weekly chemo treatments, which lasted 6 hours each time. Maribeth - and Duncan! - were present when I went into anaphylactic shock during an infusion, and she said, "All I could think was, 'What am I going to tell Jack?' when this happened on my watch." She was so worried about me after that, she took me to all my chemos to keep an eye on me, all big-bellied with baby (Duncan weighed 9 lbs. and Maribeth is 5' 3"). I finished chemo February 5th and Duncan was born February 12th. I carried him around, changed him, fed him, and generally pretended he was mine while I recovered from chemo and wondered if I'd ever have a child of my own.

In addition to flirting with Duncan, Nanners was greatly intrigued by Baby Beckett. When I held him to introduce them, she let out a monkey screech and a line of intense babble, then demonstrated her first ever poke with her index finger. She poked his nose. Then she gave him a flat-handed slap on the belly and started tipping over towards him. Knowing the size of her magnificent head, I intervened and tucked one month old Baby Beckett safely away from our bruiser Hurculena. He's not ready for full-on Vanessa just yet.

Back to Duncan. He had been part of the plan to baby-proof the house for Vanessa's stay. He took it to heart and shouted, "Don't choke! Don't choke!" every time she selected one of his toys to taste. He meant well. She probably heard, "You go, girl! Eat up!" Who knows. She did not choke, but she did take a shine to his foot-propelled taxi and rocking horse. Not bad balance for a nine month old with a massive cranium. And oh yeah: she saw their beautiful staircase and immediately climbed up 8 steps without help. She's never seen stairs before.

Duncan gave up his nursery, moved into a new room with big boy twin beds, and got potty trained for Baby Beckett's arrival. What a sweetheart. His parents hung the planets of our solar system from his ceiling recently, so he memorized them in order. He's 3 and a half.

Another big reason to visit Seattle was to be present for the dedication of the Seattle Pacific track to Jack's coach and mentor, Dr. Ken Foreman. Daddio wore VH1 on his chest during the official dedication, as well as all the official photographs. Close to 100% of the people present had known about and prayed for Vanessa, in a huge outpouring of Christian support for Jack that extended to me and Nessa herself. And here she is in the flesh, after so many years of being a pie-in-the-sky prayer request. THANK YOU, GOD!

Ken is a highly decorated track and field coach, especially for women athletes (See Doris Brown-Heritage? Ken coached her to be number 1 in the world when there was no women's team and she wasn't even allowed to be seen in sweats on campus. Try googling Doris Brown-Heritage.) There are no decorations for compassion or motivation, just achievement. If compassion and motivation were recognized, Ken would have to be bronzed or perhaps gilded.

Ken is also a cancer survivor. Jack and I flew to Hawaii to stay with him and wife Denise in Kona when I got the devastating news my cancer had recurred and was chemoresistant and "untreatable." We had just gotten home from my father's funeral. We needed some space to clear our heads. While we were in Hawaii, Uncle Jimmy arranged the radical surgery that saved me. We stayed with Ken and Denise not knowing if it would be the last vacation I'd ever have. One year later, after a year of treatment, we vacationed with them on a Mediterranean cruise. That time I already knew I had cancer a third time, and was scheduled to step off the ship and slip into a hospital gown for another cancer surgery and chemo. Of course Denise knew exactly how Jack felt, facing the mortality of a spouse. They were a true comfort to us, and were able to have fun despite an atmosphere heavy with gravity. How nice to see them without any surgeries scheduled and with a fat baby in hand!

Vanny was not invited to the official luncheon with Ken and the president of the university. So while Daddio hung out with the big wigs, Van hung out with her closest cousin in age, Seattle Pacific sophomore, Julia. You may recall Vanessa closely resembles Julia in looks. See them here, discussing college grass.

The third reason to visit Seattle last weekend was to introduce Vanessa to the two doctors who had the vision of a baby in our future, Dr. Letterie and Dr. Muntz. Jack and I and Dr. Letterie got misty, catching up. Aside from the obvious contribution of diagnosing me with cancer with a pathology report that stated "No Evidence for Malignancy" on it, Dr. Letterie is important to me because he worked closely with me for nine months to get to that diagnosis. THAT saved my life.

Now I tell people, "Oncologists don't diagnose cancer. They treat it. Other doctors catch cancer." Thank you Dr. Letterie for catching my cancer. And oh yeah: thank you for facilitating the life of this child, Vanessa. You helped make us parents. (Jack has introduced Dr. Letterie before as, "The man responsible for getting my wife pregnant.")

Dr. Muntz has carried the torch for our being parents and my carrying my own child from the beginning. In the very beginning the tumor board advised me to have to have a total abdominal hysterectomy. I agreed to it at at a time when I still thought I just had a "suspicious" ovary, not a cancerous one, after Jack said, "I think if an oncologist recommends a surgery we should listen." But then we got the call that we could go to Plan B, which was fertility-sparing surgery plus a cycle of IVF to freeze embryos as insurance against chemo, which is known to sterilize.

Dr. Muntz had the skills and confidence to engineer this treatment plan despite a very aggressive cancer. Let's just say mine was not a standard treatment plan. See Vanessa here, hanging out with Dr. Muntz like he's an old pal. Maybe she's checking out his teddy bear tie.

In between these V.I.P. visits, we jammed some more V.I.P. introductions into our two day Seattle trip. See here "Auntie" One Fried and her new man-friend, Hayden.

Jack took Vanessa and "Uncle" Chris and "Auntie" Nell to visit Morrey Brown's parents while in town. Jack gave them Morrey's new track shoes to pass on to another aspiring high school athlete. They let Vanny bang on their piano and tried to show her a few chords while there. Morrey loved the piano. See?

We were also lucky to sneak in an introduction to Great Aunt Helen, Jack's father's sister. She somehow kept Vanessa sleeping on her lap. Aunt Helen and Cousin Jennifer laughed and laughed at us describing how Vanners is surely a genius. You see, Jennifer is a child psychiatrist and Aunt Helen raised three geniuses. They were very encouraging of us as first time parents.

We've had many a Thanksgiving dinner with Jennifer and her family in Seattle. The year I was in the middle of being diagnosed, we hosted Thanksgiving and tried to make sense of the pathology report I had in hand. Three physicians and three nurses couldn't make sense of it. But Jennifer helped me to accept how hard it can be recovering from a laparoscopy, even if it's supposed to be an outpatient procedure. I had hosted Thanksgiving for 23 people and couldn't understand why I had to lie on the couch all day the next day. It wasn't like me, back in the days when I still had world class stamina.

Also present that Thanksgiving 2001 were niece Jessica and her brand new husband, Kasra. Kasra brought his sister Galyle and her husband Brian and parents Fereshdi and Nadir. We met the extended family for the first time. Two weeks later I had a second surgery and was diagnosed with cancer. A year later, niece Jessica gave birth to baby Noah then stepped forward to volunteer as a surrogate mother for our embryos.

Since then, Jessica, Kasra and their whole family have prayed their socks off for us. Fereshdi was diagnosed with Parkinson's and has had several brain surgeries herself. See her here, blessing Nessa with a kiss. Fereshdi means "Angel" in Farsi. Ness means "miracle" in Hebrew.

We visited Jessica in her new home. Noah and baby brother Evan were there, as were Galyle, Fereshdi, Jack's sister Auntie Kathy and her husband, Uncle Allan. Uncle Allan had a brain aneurysm two years ago while enjoying a weekend at Whidby Island. He nearly died. The nice doctors at Harborview patched him up and he's doing quite well now that his skull has been closed up again with a prosthetic. Allan's neurosurgeon was one of our bowling partners years ago when we were hanging out with a large group of medical residents.

Vanessa may not realize it yet, but Auntie Kathy was there when I was having girl problems, and she was there when I had trouble recovering from my first surgery. She was in the waiting room with Daddio when I was diagnosed with cancer, and had the post-op discussion with Dr. Muntz and Dr. Letterie because Jack couldn't speak. Auntie Kathy has been there for us every step of the way, even though she's been facing her own life challenges. Last month, she got a new job as an oncology nurse at the Swedish Breast Center. After 25 years of nursing at Swedish, she says this is the first time she can say, "I love my job!" I've been privileged to be on the receiving end of Auntie Kathy's unofficial oncology nursing, through all my years of treatment.

It is so fitting that niece Jessica will host the Seattle Thanksgiving from now on. See Baby Nessa here, with her first cousin once removed Noah, who is 5 this week. They were conceived at exactly the same time.

We failed to see so many friends - none of my coworkers from Harborview, none of my cancer girlfriends, none of Jack's athletes and friends from college, save the ones who attended Dr. Foreman's field dedication. Vanners also missed seeing Auntie Judi and meeting big cousins Sam and (Iraqi war veteran) Daniel, as well as extended family Matt and Lizzie, Chris, Kasra, Brian and Nadir. We'll have to bring Vanessa back for a week next visit.

When we did arrive home, V. seemed to have picked up a few new tricks. She located Daddio's backpack on the floor, unzipped it, and rummaged through to find what she wanted. She pulled out her two board books and started flipping through them. Independently. She also climbed up on the hearth and back down again, surely thinking it was a poor excuse for a staircase. She touched a statue of Buddha on the nose with her index finger. I had purchased her a xylophone-type toy last week that befuddled her. But last night we caught her banging on the keys carefully with the hammer. Maybe that little piano lesson at Morrey's house had some impact after all.