Rest in Peace, Riotous Richie

My dear friend, RicHard Makepeace, passed away mid-July.  Why, you wonder, is the H capitalized in the middle of his name?  Because, as he explained it, it was HARD to be RicHard. This was especially true during the last two years of his life. He struggled with depression and PSTD on top of multiple health issues, including diabetes, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea and being on blood thinners.

Richie had an exceptionally difficult childhood. He was the eldest son born to a couple of abusive grifters. Both his mom and his dad used to beat him.  When Richie was about nine years old he had been beaten so badly by his mother, that he had to be resuscitated.

During the Vietnam era, Richie ran away from home and enlisted in the Marines. One day, when he was coming off the shooting range, he was told he was going to be sent overseas. He became a conscientious objector on the spot. He argued that he wasn't going to go overseas and shoot at people who had never harmed him.  Because he refused a direct order, he was sent to Leavenworth. His girlfriend contacted the American Friends Service Committee, and they helped him receive a general discharge.

Many years later, Richie  changed his surname to Makepeace, because it occurred to him that his calling was exactly that:  to make peace.  Prior to making that commitment, he  struggled with alcoholism.  He used to steal from people, much like many people who struggle with various addictions.  He regularly attended AA meetings which was essential to his recovery.

By the time our paths crossed, Richie had been sober for many years.  He became my mentor as well as my friend. He started me on a path towards peace and away from rage.  Although we only saw each other four times, we talked on the phone fairly often.  And, although I continue to have anger issues, I am much more able to get my outbursts under control.

Back when I first knew him, he referred to himself as Riotous Richie.  He had a great sense of humor.  Richie used to poke gentle fun at his upbringing.  Given that he was born and spent his early years in rural Ohio, he used to talk about what he called "hillbilly ebonics."

Richie had a way of putting people at ease. Making them laugh. He almost always had some interesting observations to share. Richie was probably the least judgmental person I ever knew.  He always had a way of seeing another person's point of view.  He helped me gain perspective on a number of occasions.  He did more than tolerate someone else's viewpoint. Regardless of where a person was on their life's journey, he accepted all people for how they were.

As Richie aged, he started to feel as if he was more of a burden and believed himself to be useless. I couldn't convince  him otherwise. During the last two years of his life, I ended up giving him a lot of emotional support.  When Richie and his  wife moved from New York State to Washington State, that cross country move took him away from friends, family and, more importantly, from his AVP (Alternatives to Violence Project) community. Richie felt terribly isolated.

The work that Richie did for AVP gave his life purpose in a way that few other things did. Richie felt very energized in his role as an AVP facilitator at prisons. Because he spent his pre-teen and teen years living across from projects in New York City, he was able to cross cultural and racial divides in a way that most white people could not. Richie used to joke that he was really an old black woman trapped inside a white man's body.

When Richie finally connected with the Washington State AVP communities I thought he was going to pull out of his downward spiral, but it wasn't meant to be. Instead, Richie turned more inward. He started dwelling more and more on his abusive childhood.  Although he stood by his decision to separate from most of his biological family, there was still  part of him that wished things had been different.  When he heard that one of his sisters had passed away and that both his mother and father had also died, Richie regretted that he never had a more concrete way to come to terms with them.

Because of the shame he felt from the verbal and emotional abuse heaped on him by his wife, Richie could not bring himself to ask people for the emotional support he so badly needed. He felt that, as a former Marine, he ought to have been stronger and much more self contained. I couldn't convince him otherwise. I am grateful that, as his friend and chosen sister, he at least felt comfortable enough to reach out to me.

It was hard to watch him struggle. I understood implicitly that Richie had to help himself, and I felt, for the most part, that he was either unable or unwilling to do so. Because I had no access to the AVP community,  I was unable to do more for him. From fall 2015 until the end of his life, he was focusing more and more on just wanting to leave.  Not just his home but the planet.

One thing that Richie always said to me was, "love them more."  He always kept his side of the bridge open. He always kept a door open.  Regardless of what people thought of him, he always loved them.  Since then, I have tried to do the same thing.  There is always a path towards both forgiveness and redemption.

I wish that Richie had applied "love them more" to himself the way he did to other people.  He could not forgive himself for weaknesses he perceived himself to have. During a particularly tumultuous time he was having with his wife, he considered staying with us for a while.  He abruptly changed his mind. Later on, Richie told me that he was sure I'd end up disappointed with him.  It saddened me that he couldn't trust that our friendship was strong enough to overcome any disappointment or disagreement we may have had.

I repeatedly told Richie, he wasn't heavy.  He was my brother.  And, so, my brother, I hope that you have finally found the peace that eluded you during your lifetime.

Cancelled on Account of Drool

As days and weeks go by, I discover that this becomes a humbling experience for me.  Chemo is arduous, but at times a meditative experience. I may have it easier than some, but certainly harder than others.  At first I am thinking, if you have Stage One or Stage Two, don't even talk to me about it.  I feel an odd sense of self righteousness about it.   I yell at Cancer Center of America commercials. Stage Two breast cancer?  Don't whine about it, damn it.  But then as I email and tweet and post on Facebook about cancer and chemo, I have people come up to me.  Either they tweet at me or they direct message me.  Husbands confess to me that their wives have breast cancer.  A long distance friend who I don't email often tells me his wife has a cancer blog and is going through all of this a second time.  She is writing a blog which I have only visited once.  I need to email him again, I keep telling myself.  I feel like a lousy bum.  I get mad at people who do not keep up with me as I would like.  I really ought to practice what I kvetch about. Kvetch being the more legitimate term because I grouse in private more often than not as opposed to being a better friend.  I like to think I am a good listener and a good friend but having cancer has made me realize how often I have gone through life as a self centered jerk.  I am no different from many others who make things all about themselves.

Shortly after my fourth round of chemo, I am on Twitter reading and reacting to the unsettling news of Robin Williams' suicide. I end up throwing up four times.  Just the day before I had been in such a state that I am still ashamed.  I also have a tiny bit of understanding of how he must have felt. Emphasis on tiny bit since I would not presume any greater understanding than that.  Just a general sense, really, as I have had suicidal ideation since I was eleven and three quarters.  And, as I grow older the feelings translate to shame and a sense of uselessness.  I feel as if now as for years now I have let down friends and family.  I am admittedly my worst critic. I hate feeling as if I have to rely on other people especially my husband.  When I feel well enough to go grocery shopping, I am just about thrilled to pieces.

I place a brave face on what I am going through.  When I say that Stage Four people are my new heroes, I am not exaggerating.  I am also not exaggerating when I say how this is far more arduous than it is scary.  It's not the cancer that has brought me to my knees. It's the chemotherapy.  It's the constant fear, "please don''t let me throw up again." It's the fear that this will happen to someone I love or otherwise care about and there's not going to be a damned thing I can do about it.  All I can ask of any of you is please take care of yourself.  If, worse case scenario, you are diagnosed with cancer, please catch it soon enough.  I beg of you, be the biggest hypochondriac if you have to be.  Don't make the same mistake I did and assume this will happen to someone else.  Don't do like my BFF Sue did and ignore all symptoms until it is much too late.  Now, granted, in my defense, my form of breast cancer is very aggressive.  I take a small consolation that I only had Stage Three.  I consider it a small miracle that I did not end up with Stage Four.  I marvel at that daily.  I will always feel grateful that it wasn't worse.

As I engage with people in the waiting room, I start to realize how, yes, lucky I really am.  I am not 78 and struggling with cancer of lung fluid.  I am not undergoing treatment for breast cancer for the second time in twenty-five years.  If I am lucky I will not have to endure this ever again.  I email back a terse but I hope humorous reply to a friend of ours who tells me how courageous I am being.  I worry now that my two word response was a little too terse.  "Beats dying," I tell him.  That is truly my attitude, yet I do wish now I had been tactful about it.  Perhaps I will find a way to email him.

Cancer, I am convinced, has brought out the best and the worst in me.  One moment I am profoundly grateful and the next moment I am profoundly angry and resentful.  I am relieved to find out that the steroids I have to take to prevent side effects, surprise, surprise, produces side effects.  I am by nature an anxious person, and this drug heightens that.  Gives me an excuse for behaving badly, I suppose, but only to a certain extent.  Also explains why this I described this as PMS on steroids.  I don't think I ever felt so out of control in my entire life.  Now, granted, I had times when I felt homicidal during menopause, but this makes menopause feel like a picnic.  Or perhaps I am simply more aware.

Round five causes me to enter a kind of altered state.  I am aware of how strange I am being, yet I cannot stop it.  I find out later this is the result of an anti-nausea drug, compazine.  I am experiencing nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and tremendous anxiety.  I am walking funny.  I have my hands in front of me, as if I could catch myself.  My right foot raises as if I am going to squash a bug.  Makes me think of John Cleese's silly walks, except I am not trying to be funny.

Both chemo nurses look alarmed.  "You don't look right," the one nurse said.  It was clear that there  was something wrong.  I couldn't stop drooling. They were afraid I was going to fall.  I couldn't blame them.  The chemo nurse told me all my blood work was good, but because of what else was going on with me they had to cancel round six of chemo.  I was instructed to return the following week.  Round six of chemo never happens.  The oncologist decides it's better to just move on to herceptin, the drug I will now be on for a year.

I am out of control.  I cannot stop moving.  At bedtime I move from chair to bed and back again.  I sleep in my chair, as I am unable to figure out how to actually get into bed.  I start to, but the positioning doesn't seem right.  This goes on for days until I fall once or twice in the middle of the night.  A friend of my sister in-law's has moved in with us.  She catches me.  I find out later that she was so worried about me that she is also bereft of sleep.

We move my bed to a corner of the living room.  I wake up realizing I have defecated myself.   Housemate, understandably irritable, helps me clean myself.  She explains that this happened because I really hadn't slept in three nights.  That had been the deepest sleep I had had in quite some time.

I am sitting in a wheelchair in the surgeon's  waiting room.  I feel compelled to move from wheelchair to chair and back again.  My husband keeps asking me where  I am going.  I repeat the pattern in the surgeon's exam room, too.  The surgeon and my husband are talking to one another as if it's Old Home Week. The  surgeon is South Side Irish and my husband might have some southsiders in his extended family.  Somewhere in there we discuss my double mastectomy.

The following day I am supposed to meet with the plastic surgeon.  Instead I insist on going to the ER.  Housemate comes with us.  I have a wheelchair again, but I insist on pushing it around.

When I finally ushered into the  ER, I, much to my housemate's chagrin, decide to lie on the floor.  She says I slept for about twenty minutes.  That's probably the longest I was still in days.  I am placed in a gurney.  I am begging to be hospitalized.  I am given benadryl and  then an anti-anxiety drug.  When it's clear that the drugs have the hoped for effect, they talk about sending me home.  The nurse spends extra time with me to convince me that this will really be OK.  She holds one hand.  My husband holds the other.   I feel loved and secure.  I go home.

As days go by, I am starting to be convinced I will be OK.   The anti-anxiety drug helps me sleep.  I am still not particularly useful, but at least I know I am ready for the double mastectomy.