Letters From Cancerland: Lasts
As humans, we automatically record firsts: our baby’s first steps, our child’s first day of school, our first apartment. In baseball, a fan can tell you where and when a rookie hit his first home run in the majors. We gravitate towards firsts.
Lasts are harder. With a handful of exceptions – the last day of school, the last day of work upon retirement – lasts blur together. When was the last time that baby both crawled and walked before giving up crawling entirely? When was the last time that child called you “Mommy” before switching permanently to “Mom”? When was the last time a beloved elderly family member with dementia truly knew who you were? Try as we might, we tend to know at some point afterwards that we sailed past that last into now.
I marked a last last month that I realized afterwards was a last, although I didn’t know it at the time.
My husband Warren is the executive director of our local symphony. (He is also its timpanist, but that’s a story for another time.) In mid-May, the orchestra held a concert for some 900 fourth graders from all over our county. This concert, part of the Carnegie Hall national "Link Up" program, is the finale of the fourth grade music curriculum in several of our local school districts. The students learn to sing and play on their recorders many of the pieces featured in the concert. You have not lived until you have heard 900 fourth graders playing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” on a song flute. Our fourth grade concert is loud, energetic, and joyful. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
After the concert, I went up on stage to help pick up. There were stray water bottles left behind by some musicians. There was the rehearsal clock still on the organ where the conductor could see it. I helped the librarian collect music from the stands.
When you are married to the executive director, you are married to the symphony.
Because the concert was a midday, weekday concert, Warren was short on volunteers for stage crew. I pitched in to help "strike the stage."
To "strike the stage" means to empty it and reset it to bare and empty. There are percussion instruments to cover, pack, and roll or carry into the hall to be transported. There is the music cart to roll into the hall for loading along with the percussion. There are music stands to go on the stand rack and folding chairs to go on the chair rack.
I helped fold the chairs and lift them onto the chair rack. I was not the only person helping load chairs, and the work went quickly. Maybe I folded and hung 15 chairs. Maybe. Maybe I spent 20 minutes before we were done with the chairs. Maybe.
I was aching by the time I got home 30 minutes later. I was hurting so much I took two acetaminophen (Tylenol, paracetamol) in the late afternoon, something I rarely do. I knew I was exhausted beyond exhausted that evening and took more acetaminophen before going to sleep.
My body went on strike the next day.
Sore? Holy moly! My upper arms (the chair rack had an upper level and a lower level so I had to lift the chairs to rack them). My hands (from folding each chair and carrying it to the rack). My quads (from the lifting). Every muscle screamed at me. I even had small hematomas on my shoulders and upper chest.
More acetaminophen.
I went to work the next day, barely able to get out of my car once I arrived. I managed to work a few hours before pain and chills drove me away.
More acetaminophen. A whole lot of downtime.
I could not walk up and down the stairs or even get in and out of a chair, soft or hard, without yelping.
When Warren came home that night and assessed my condition, he expressed displeasure that I had helped strike the stage the day before, appreciative though he was of the extra help when he was shorthanded.
I nodded, then said “That is the very last time I will strike a stage.”
So that was a last. I didn’t know it at the time as I folded and hung those chairs, but I knew it the day after. My last time ever striking a stage.
I’ll still help in other ways. I’ll help collect music, I’ll help pick up after the musicians. I’ll help police the concert hall after concerts and pick up stray programs, forgotten umbrellas, and used tissues. (Seriously, who uses a tissue and then drops it on the floor, even unintentionally? A few of our concertgoers, apparently.) I will help in a myriad of ways, but no more striking the stage.
It was my last strike. Ever. And that, dear readers, marks the end of an era.
April Nelson is a multiple myeloma patient and columnist at The Myeloma Beacon. You can view a list of her previously published columns here.
If you are interested in writing a regular column for The Myeloma Beacon, please contact the Beacon team at .
Dear April,
Bless you for your wonderful spirit of “helpful” in your “jobs” as wife of the executive director and wife of the symphony!
I had to smile (read “grimace”) at the phrase “used tissues” (!). As the (volunteer) “pew rack janitor” at my church, I cringe as I remove every crumpled used tissue, thinking, “Who uses a tissue and stashes it in a pew rack in a church sanctuary?” (“They” also remove the visitor cards and offering envelopes, scribble on them, and put them back!)
Congratulations to us all when we realize that the doing of a tough thing, upon which both our peace and happiness, and that of others, has not really depended, can have become “a last”.
Thanks for the interesting column, April, but I am sorry that you overdid it with lifting folding chairs! I know how heavy they are. Sometimes I will be at a meeting or social event at a hall where they are used, as well as tables with folding legs! It's a challenge as we get older to lift those items. I am not supposed to lift anything much over 10-20 pounds due to the injuries to my back caused by myeloma-induced fractures. I found I can carry but one folding chair at a time, whereas some stronger people are hefting around three or four. So I try to help, but sometimes just get in the way! After our last choir spring concert, where there were about 500 people having homemade goodies at a reception afterwards, we were tidying up. A younger woman tipped up a large round table, kicked in the legs, and handed it over to me to hold up! I was bit startled since it is over my weight limit. Fortunately, another choir member came along and rolled the tables away to the edge of the hall.
Yes, after two vertebral fractures before and just after my diagnosis, I realized I had had a lot of "lasts." I still try to overdo it sometimes and pay for it dearly. I had to come to the moment in my life where I realized this was a "new normal" and if I wanted to be able to function at all, I needed to limit my activities. Even as I write this, I have so many sore muscles from a water aerobics class yesterday that I had forgotten how hard my favorite teacher works us. She's been out for a while and I didn't do the class at all because the substitutes were so horrible. But I was so excited yesterday when she was there that I went and probably overdid it. Ugh. But I didn't do too much where I am stuck in bed or on the couch, thank goodness. I will take my acetaminophen and go on with my day. I hope you feel better now, too! Maybe it's an excuse to get out of a lot of duties.
Dear April, thanks for this very thoughtful and timely column. The ‘lasts ‘ are so tough. I much preferred the ‘firsts.‘ For the last 22 years, I have been involved with a summer school for biology teachers. It has been a very rewarding experience. But this one will be my last. Lots of reasons, not all myeloma related. Well done for trying so hard, April; I will think of you as I struggle through my ‘last!‘
April, my heart hears your sadness at this "end of an era," and I am so sorry. You are correct - "lasts" are so much more difficult than "firsts," and they almost always are filled with melancholy. Change is difficult, and sometimes it seems that myeloma brings more change than we can bear...but, I hope that along with this "last," you will find a new "first" that brings you happiness.