A Kick-Ass Fairy: A Memoir (36 page)

To Family and Friends:

I would not have been able to live to tell this tale were it not for my children, Kimberly and Bradford. Their precious souls, their personalities and interests were the spark that lighted my fire every day. I thank them also for their tolerance and for loving me in spite of my flaws.

My deepest gratitude goes to my husband, Doug, who lives all of our marriage vows every day. You are a great man, honorable, loyal, and have been my Steadfast Soldier. Your unwavering support allows me to soar and your provocation inspires the fighter in me. You have allowed me all and loved me unconditionally. You held me up when I couldn’t walk, fed me when I couldn’t feed myself—relieved my pain when I couldn’t do for it myself. You took it all from me and gave it back transformed. I love you on the cellular level.

I am grateful for and appreciate my parents Bruce and Frances for sharing their greatest gifts, for dropping everything and coming across the country to be there to support me and my family and for being at the top of the list of my greatest life teachers.

During a life of crisis some friends come and go and even family members turn their backs when they can no longer tolerate the crisis. They seek relationship elsewhere. To those friends and family—I thank you for the support and love you just for being you and for what you were able to give, for as long as you did.

To the friends that stuck by me through thick and thin for close to a lifetime:

Nancy, I thank god I didn’t listen to my mother. We’ve walked together through the fire many times. I love you, my heart of hearts.

Clara, my California soul sister/surrogate mother/friend, what can I say? Many times it was only because of your willingness to hold space for me and listen that I was able to face another day. We’ve shared it all, love, death, joy, laughter and I love you, my Ethel!

My love to Robert, you have been my brother and friend for so long. Thank you for being just what I needed all these years—you—true, kind, and cherished.

For my friend Lyn, you have been such an angel and a prominent color in the thread of the tapestry of my life for the last twenty years. You are so much more to me than a friend. I am grateful for you and our group, The Hidden Assets, Mary, Jane, Kelly and Jan. Our friendships and gatherings and celebrations are the infrastructure that holds together the entire year, year after year. There have been many laughs, the sharing of life’s trials as well as good fortune with this tribe. Thanks to each of you for holding up the mirror and helping me to grow in ways beyond imagining.

Many thanks to my friends at book group who offered too many flowers, cards, casseroles and cheer as well as ongoing friendship and help above and beyond: especially Joanne, Susan, Kathleen, Lynne, Leslie. A special shout out to Mary M! Twenty years of thanks to Jacqui, another great teacher, kind, loving and true. I thank you all as well for your support and early critiques of my manuscript.

For the Health Care Community:

During this journey I have encountered and dealt with many physicians. I appreciate them all for their years in training and dedication to their profession and for the challenges they face every day. You are heroes. There are some doctors that I have met who I consider exceptional. Not only are they extremely knowledgeable and current in their fields, but they also connect and see the whole patient, and that has made an extraordinary difference to me while facing extreme challenges. I want to name them here and thank them for being over and beyond the norm. The Exceptional Doctor awards go to (in no particular order):

Dr. Donald McKean

Dr. Margaret Tempero

Dr. William Hoffman

Dr. Henry Ward Trueblood

Dr. Bradford Prescott

Dr. Peter Carroll

Dr. Thierry Jahon

Dr. Roseanne Gorey

Dr. E. Shelly Hwang

Dr. Susana Ortiz-Unda

Dr. Orlo Clark

Dr. David Jablons

Dr. Harvey Young

Dr. Stephen Rothstein

Dr. Matthew Sirott

Many thanks to all the doctors behind the scenes, the anesthesiologists, pathologists, and especially the researchers for their innovation, passion and the hope they give the world. Little by little, they work to make sense of our biology so that someday soon their research may lead to a cure and there will be no more patients with cancer.

Of course I want to shout out thanks to the hundreds of sister/brother nurses who took care of me when I couldn’t care for myself. You are angels here on earth! You are now nameless, but I remember your faces. I see you as incredibly awesome—the heroes of all the heroes. I want to give a special shout out to Brian, Anna, Elizabeth and Shane.

I want to acknowledge the psychotherapy community for its commitment and desire to facilitate healing. I accessed your skills often. I especially want to thank the therapists that support the population of cancer patients and their caregivers, usually on a volunteer basis. You are also unsung heroes. I want to give a special shout out especially to Trisha, Erika, Frances, Ron and the many other professionals at the Cancer Support Community of the East Bay.

Hospitals are like a town with many people working separately to create the whole. There are the people that bring in your food tray, the pharmacists, the stockroom people, the transport people, the radiology assistant, the phlebotomist and lab assistants, the admissions clerk, the discharge planner, the medical records person among many more. I’ve visited your town too many times to count, but I thank you for your dedication and hard work. I want to acknowledge first UCSF Medical Center for being truly a center of excellence in all that they do. I want to acknowledge Stanford Hospital for excellent care. I want to thank John Muir Medical Center for the care its staff provided when times were simpler.

Also, my thanks to all the practitioners of non-Western body medicine I have seen. The acupuncturists, Chinese medicine doctors, somatic energy workers, massage therapists, cranial sacral therapists, myofascial release specialists (shout out to you, Dana). You help to complete the circle of healing that was and still is necessary.

Please see my Resources page for the many books that also helped me on my journey.

The Craft of Writing:

With respect to writing, I took only one English composition class in college. I never gave any thought to being a writer. So besides having many stories to tell, I want to thank all the incredible authors I have read for helping to open a door into other worlds and perspectives.

While I never set out to be a writer, I worked hard to learn the craft. I want to thank Caroline Goodwin, a poet, former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, and a Senior Adjunct Professor in the MFA writing program at California School of the Arts and a continuing studies instructor at Stanford. She watered the seed of an idea that I could write a book. She encouraged me to ford the stream and bring my story, “a story that needs to be told,” into the world.

I want to thank Adair Lara for her humor, for being a great teacher, for hosting a wonderful writing salon, and for the early critiquing of my manuscript. Brave, compassionate and experienced are you. Thank you for helping me to focus on what’s important to the reader and to me. You helped me to re-pot the plant and inspired me to not get out the chainsaw.

For members and mentors on my pro team:

Thanks to Alan Rinzler, my developmental editor, for taking me on and helping me to prune and water the tree to encourage it to grow in the best way. I appreciate your direct sharp wit and wisdom and all the support you’ve provided since then.

For pruning, I thank Leslie Tilley. Thanks for what you do, and how you do it. It’s been great getting to know you. For precision pruning, I thank Nan Fornal for being a bonsai master.

I want to acknowledge special appreciation for Kimberly Glyder, my cover designer, for her patience, and stick-to-it-iveness and for wanting to read the book before designing the cover. Thanks also to Joel Friedlander for sharing his knowledge of book design and publishing and helping me to
move the ball over the finish line.

Finally, I would like to thank Skye Wentworth, my publicist, for her inspiring creativity and extensive knowledge. Her ideas generated bursts of outright giggles and delight for me. Her long experience in marketing and publicity have been invaluable in bringing this book into the world.

My Furry Friends:

I want to add my love and gratitude for my papillons, Indigo, Sienna, Bailey and Kenyon, for their unconditional love and comfort when a teddy bear just wouldn’t do.

Linda Zercoe

July 30, 2013