Vicki in Her Own Words

Throughout Vicki's life she focused on making good friends, and being a good friend. Her years attending Furman University in Greenville, SC provided her some of her most cherished friendships and experiences. Shortly after Vicki's cancer diagnosis several of her college friends traveled to our home to demonstrate their support for her. I have included a picture I took at the front door to our house that weekend, and a letter she later wrote to her friends. Here is the letter Vicki wrote:

April 14, 2004

Dear Denise, DeeAnne, Julie, LB, Leanne, and Mary Beth,

I’m finally getting around to writing a letter that I’ve been “thinking” for over a month. I admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by the tremendous gift that you all gave to me by coming up for the weekend to visit. What a fun time of remembering and catching up that was! I’ve often told people that my college years were some of my favorite years of my life. Friends like you are what made those years special. Friendship is a powerful and wonderful thing. I’ve been truly blessed through my life by having good friends all along the way. I’m thankful to be able to count each of you among my friends.

Denise, thanks so much for opening up your home for the crowd to come and stay. (I only wish I could have come and hung out there too.) Thanks for coordinating, chauffeuring, feeding, navigating, etc. for the weekend to help all of the details come together. Thanks to the rest of you for clearing your schedules and leaving your families to come together to encourage an old friend who really needed it. Your sacrifice is noted and appreciated. DeeAnne, how is your Kelly doing now? I was so sorry to hear of her illness and all that y’all went through to get her diagnosed and stabilized. Will she be having surgery soon? Keep us posted so we can remember Kelly and the rest of your family during that time.

Your presence here with me over the weekend reminded my of Job’s friends in the Bible. As Job was getting pummeled with one thing after another, his friends came and sat with him. Knowing that there wasn’t much they could “do”, they just sat there to be an encouragement. (This was before they started opening there mouths and suggesting reasons that he may be going through was he was going through.) Thanks for coming and sitting, talking, and laughing. Under normal conditions, I imagine that we would have been out and about, touring, eating, etc. But unfortunately, I’m not in a “normal” condition. So thanks for adapting and making the weekend special by just being together.

This last treatment hit me hard from the very beginning. I’ve had more pain and, therefore, have been on more pain medicine this time. The medicine helps with the pain but it also makes me very sleepy as well. I feel like I’ve slept (or may as well have slept) through the past month. I began having trouble with the skin on my hands and feet—a result of the oral chemo drug I’m taking. The doctors have had me cut back on that drug some in hopes of eliminating that problem or not allowing it to get any worse. I still have hair on my head so I haven’t had to dip into my hat bag yet. (Thanks for the hats, by the way. It’s good to know that they are there if I need them in the future.) Julie, I wanted you to know that Lauren wore the hat and scarf you made to church one Sunday and also to school one day. She looked very chic in her attire and got compliments from several people. She was very pleased.

I go back to the hospital on Monday, April 19th, for my next treatment. I’m having a hard time getting psyched up for it. Each one has been worse than the one before. So I’m trying to prepare myself for that. But…how do you prepare yourself for that? I just have to go through it one step at a time. We don’t know yet what the doctor will be doing this time. He doesn’t know until he gets me on the machine what he’s going to find and what he’s going to do. They did a CT scan in the hospital after my last procedure so I haven’t had another one midway between the treatments like I normally do. Therefore, I don’t have any new news since Paul’s last e-mail following my treatment. The radiologist and liver surgeon were supposed to meet to discuss me and bring the team up-to-date. Hopefully that meeting took place.

Please continue to pray for these doctors to have wisdom in how they treat me. Also, please pray for more and more tissue to die in the right places so that it can shrink away from the vital veins and allow the surgeon the room he needs to get rid of this cancer. Please pray for our family—that we can encourage each other and prop each other up during this challenge. Paul has been an excellent care giver to me from the time I was diagnosed. This is an unusual role for him to play but one that he is doing so well. He is a huge encouragement to me. He encourages me to cry when I need to and he also reminds me that we still have reason to hope for a positive outcome. Please keep him in your prayers. He’s tired from all that he has going on but he’s trying to be strong for me and the rest of the family. (I can’t remember if I told you in an e-mail that Paul’s dad’s lymphoma cancer has come back. He was several months away from being declared cancer-free when he began to feel bad. The cancer is all through his stomach and lungs. He’s undergoing extensive chemotherapy right now. They cannot cure it but they hope to control it. Paul has been helpful to them in interpreting some of the medical mumbo-jumbo that they’ve been getting. He’s armed them with a lot of questions to ask the doctors and empowered them a little more in this devastating situation. Paul is going to St. Louis at the end of the month to spend a long weekend with his parents and brothers.)

Kelly got to spend spring break in Canada with some friends of ours who have a house up there. We visited this family there this past summer when we took a family vacation up there. Kelly was excited about learning to snowboard. (She thought she knew how to snowboard when she used a neighbor’s board during a snow here in February. She could snowboard without falling from the front of our house down to the road. So she was confident that she could snowboard now.) She was in for a rude awakening as she attempted to board down the slopes at one of the largest ski resorts on the east coast. I think she ate a bit of humble pie, which is a good thing to do every once in a while. The house was quiet without Kelly here to pick on Lauren and fuss with us about everything. Did I mention to you that Kelly is pre-adolescent? Moods going every which way. Sometimes she's still like a kid and sometimes she thinks she’s 18.

Mom and Dad helped me put together a good week of activities for Lauren. She had friends over, went shopping with Gramma (her favorite activity—thank goodness I didn’t have to go!), went to a movie, went on an outing with her Brownie troop, went to a pet expo and an Easter egg hunt. She enjoyed getting all of the attention but by the end of the week, she really missed Kelly. She declared that she was glad she wasn’t an only child, that she was glad she had a sister and that she didn’t want any sister but Kelly. How sweet! That did this mother’s heart good!!

Mom and Dad took a trip back to SC the last week of my last treatment. I was glad that they could go home to get some things done and to have a break from stuff here. Our family enjoyed having the house to ourselves and having a sense of normalcy here. However, it was good to have them back again for the next round. They lighten our load so much with all they do—big stuff and little stuff. We’re so grateful that they can be here and that they share themselves with us this way. They plan to leave again at the end of May through early June. My nephew, Randy, will graduate from high school in early June and mom has doctors appointments that same week. If I’m still on the same treatment schedule, they’ll come back up here for a couple of weeks before we (hopefully) head to the beach in SC for a week at the end of June. I sure hope all of that works out.

I’ve rambled on long enough, I guess. Just wanted you to know what all is happening here. I appreciate all of your expressions of interest in what’s going on with me. Thanks for the e-mails, cards, calls, etc. They mean more to me than you’ll ever know. They are reminders that someone is “praying me through”. You all are so special to me—each of you for various reasons. I enjoy wonderful memories of times we spent together and am glad to have our recent weekend to add to the memory bank. I pray for each of you, too, when you come to mind. God has connected us together for a reason. Please stay in touch with me and with each other. I hope to see each of you again. I love each of you very much. Take care!

Vicki