Wednesday, 12/24/97

Christmas Eve. We're about to leave for the candlelight service at eleven, and Pam is singing in the choir again for the first time since March. She has about an inch of hair now and it's gray and curly. She had straight brown hair for forty-four years and now it's coming in like a poodle's. She says she'll take it.

Megan is home from school for three weeks and sleeping till noon. Luke grew two inches this fall. I don't know when. I was looking right at him.

The shoebox on top of the fridge is two shoeboxes now. I'm not going to think about that tonight.

Thank you for reading this all year. Megan says a couple hundred people have looked at this page. I don't know most of you, but a lady in Kentucky with the same kind of lymphoma found it in the summer and wrote to Pam, and now they e-mail every week and call each other their chemo sister. That alone was worth all my typing.

Merry Christmas from the Lutzes. All four of us.

Sunday, 10/26/97

Pam is doing good. She's back at the school two mornings a week and says the kids didn't notice the wig, or were too polite to, which in the front office of a middle school she doubts.

I'm going to write about something else now, because Megan said this page is supposed to be honest.

A letter came from the insurance company. Our plan through the shop has a yearly maximum, what they'll pay in one calendar year, and with the hospital in May we went past it in September. So anything since then, the scans and the checkups and a stack of summer bills they hadn't gotten to yet, they don't pay. Not any of it. Not till January 1.

On top of that there was already our twenty percent on everything before, which was more than we had.

I added it all up at the kitchen table Friday night. Right now we owe the hospital, the cancer center, two labs and the radiologist about $23,000 that insurance didn't pay. Every one of them has a billing office, and every billing office has a nice lady who says, "We can set up a payment plan." If I set up every payment plan they've offered, it would come to more than my paycheck.

I don't want anybody sending money. Please don't. I'm writing it because it's the truth and it's what I think about at three in the morning. We'll figure it out. Lutzes pay what they owe.

Friday, 9/19/97

THE SCANS ARE CLEAN.

Dr. Mahajan said "complete response," which means he can't find any cancer anywhere. He wants to see her every three months for a while and scan again in the spring. We went down to the car in the parking garage and sat there twenty minutes before I started it. Neither one of us said anything. Then Pam said, "Let's get a Frosty," so we did.

Megan called from school tonight and screamed so loud I had to hold the phone away. She's doing fine down there, by the way. She has a roommate from Evansville and a chemistry class she hates.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, God. I don't know what else to type.

Thursday, 8/14/97

LAST ROUND OF CHEMO WAS TODAY!!

When it was done the nurses came over and sang to her, a little song they do, and Rosemary, the nurse who's done most of her rounds, gave her a card signed by everybody in the infusion room. Pam cried. I went out to get the car.

Now she rests and gets her strength back, and they do scans in about a month to see where things stand.

Megan leaves for college next Saturday. Pam is coming along to make up her bed in the dorm whether anybody likes it or not.

Sunday, 7/27/97

Round 5 was Thursday. One to go. Pam's tired a lot more now than at the start; the doctor says it adds up. She sleeps in the afternoons on the couch with the fan going and the ballgame on.

Megan was going to put off college a year to help at home. Pam said, "Over my dead body," and then said, "Bad choice of words," and the two of them laughed till they cried at the kitchen table. So Megan's going, two hours south, to be a nurse. She says it's because of the nurses this spring. I believe her.

I've been working some Saturdays. The shop has been good to me; Ron told me to take whatever time I need, and I did in May, but I'd rather be at the press than sitting in the house worrying. And the bills. I'll just say we're keeping up for now.

Luke and I watched the pictures from Mars on the news this month, the little rover. He asked if they'd find anything alive up there. I said I hope so.

Sunday, 6/29/97

Something I didn't know about cancer: it comes with mail.

Every day there's an envelope from the insurance company that says THIS IS NOT A BILL on it. That's an Explanation of Benefits. Then there's an envelope from the hospital, or the lab, or the radiologist, or the anesthesiologist (that's a separate bill, from the biopsy in April!) that IS a bill. You have to match them up. So after supper I sit at the kitchen table with the shoebox and a yellow highlighter and match them up.

The six days in the hospital for the fever came to $18,400. Insurance pays eighty percent after the deductible, so our part is still a lot for us, but we'll manage. I called the insurance company twice this week about a lab bill they say they paid and the lab says they didn't. Forty minutes on hold the first time, listening to the same four bars of music.

Pam is between rounds 3 and 4 and feels pretty good this week. She went to the grocery store in her wig and ran into a lady from church who told her it looked "so natural." Pam says it's the first time she's ever been complimented on something that came in a box.

Friday, 6/6/97

This was a scary couple of weeks and I didn't write because I didn't want to type it.

After round 2, Pam's white blood count went down (they warned us it could), and a week ago Tuesday she ran a fever of 103. The doctor said go straight to the hospital, don't wait, so we did. They kept her six days on IV antibiotics in a room by herself, and everybody who came in had to wear a mask. She's home now, tired but fine. They pushed round 3 back a week to let her get her strength up.

I slept in the chair five nights. Megan graduated from high school Sunday, and Pam had to miss it. My brother Rich drove down from Fort Wayne with his camcorder, and the nurses found us a VCR on a cart, and we watched the whole thing in Pam's room. Pam cried at the part where they said Megan's name. So did the nurse.

Please keep praying. It's working.

Sunday, 5/18/97

Pam's hair started coming out this week, right when the doctor said it would. Friday night she said she wasn't going to let it take its time. Megan got my clippers out of the garage, and the two of them did it right there in the kitchen with the radio on. Luke wouldn't come in at first. Then he came in and held the dustpan. I don't know what I did. I stood there. Pam looked at herself in the side of the toaster and said, "Well, I've got a nice-shaped head," and she does.

Round 2 was Thursday and went OK. The ladies at church have us set up with a casserole every other night through June. We have eaten seven kinds of chicken and noodles so far and every one of them was good. Thank you. We'll get the dishes back to you. I've got your names on them in masking tape.

Friday, 4/25/97

Round 1 is done. We were at the cancer center from 8:30 till almost 2:00. They sit you in a big recliner with a warm blanket and an IV, and the nurse runs the medicines in one at a time. One of them is red as Kool-Aid. The nurses call it the Red Devil, which I could have done without hearing.

Pam did the crossword the whole time and made me look up words. They gave her Zofran for the sick stomach, and it mostly worked. She slept all afternoon and had toast for supper. Luke made the toast. He's thirteen, and it's the first thing he ever cooked, and he cut it in triangles.

The lady at the front desk gave me a folder for the insurance forms. It's already thick. I'm keeping everything in a shoebox on top of the fridge.

Monday, 4/14/97

Hello everybody. This is Gary. Megan set up this page on the computer this weekend so everybody out of town can keep up on how Pam is doing without me making eleven phone calls every night. Aunt Joyce in Arizona, Uncle Rich in Fort Wayne, everybody at church: this is for you. Megan says I just type and she'll put it up. (Hi, Meg.)

Here is where we are. In March Pam found a lump on the side of her neck. She figured it was a gland. Our family doctor didn't like the look of it and sent her for a biopsy. Last Tuesday we sat in Dr. Mahajan's office, he's the cancer doctor, and he told us it's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. That is a cancer of the lymph nodes. He said it's the kind that grows fast but also the kind that answers to chemotherapy, and that a lot of people are cured. He said "cured." I wrote it down on the back of a parking stub, and it's in my wallet.

The plan is a chemo they call CHOP, every three weeks, six times, starting April 24th.

Pam is doing better than me. She made a list. That's Pam.

Prayers are appreciated. Cards too. Pam says no flowers, she can't keep them alive, which is a joke, because she can keep anything alive, including me for twenty-one years.

— Gary