Letters from Houston: A Victorious Cancer Journey Musings of Faith, Family, Friends, and Food

By Michele Buonocore

Th is is Michele Buonocores journey. Th e book is comprised of e-mails that
she would write to a large following of friends. She describes in each of the
letters how she felt and what she felt during her treatment. She shares her
spiritual growth and tells stories of her observations of patients, young
and old. Th e stories she tells are very real life stories, with great feelings
for the people she speaks of. Th ere are stories about Houston, the people,
and her love for the homes in Galveston. George and Michele did little
road trips, and she tells of the places and the people they discovered on
their adventures. It is a book of her thoughts, her recipes, her ability to
learn new ways while undergoing such a stressful time. It tells how she
takes all she learns to be a far better person and healthier at the end of her
treatment at MD Anderson and to begin her life in remission

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469167510

Michele Buonocore

Michele Buonocore is sixty-six years old, born in New York City, raised in Northport, Long Island, and later lived in Jackson Heights, Queens where she met her husband George. When she married, they moved out to Huntington, Long Island, and raised their four children till they moved to Naples Florida. In 1975, together with her husband George, they began a business, which is still operating. It is called the Paper Merchant. In 2005, Michele added a children’s apparel and toy store to the Paper Merchant and called it the Little Merchant. Michele is co-owner with husband George. She is the buyer for both of the stores. She loves to cook, write, paint, and walk the beach. George and Michele now live in a 1937 Florida cottage in Naples. In their cottage, her desk sits overlooking the lake across the street. Th is is her favorite place to write.

Book preview

May 10, 2011, 9:59 a.m.

Hi, everyone. News from Houston. Today is day 6. Should be better than yesterday. I felt better, but when I tried new foods, they made me sick, so back to rice cake and mint tea. We move on Friday to our new place. Oh, I want a bowl of my spaghetti. I will be able to cook. George will make me soup, low fat. Anything else, not good. Jell-O may be great. The stories we hear are miracles every day. Met an eighty-two-year-old man and wife from Scotland. He has hotels in Scotland, Fort Lauderdale, and Key West. He lives in Scotland and Florida. He told George, Until you are diagnosed with cancer, you do not have a life change? Dad keeps telling me how he will have to go back and work as usual. I got so mad, I said, You don’t have cancer. I want to live the rest of my life with you. We need to take time to live out more of our dreams and adventures. The man from Scotland may have made him think. He also said to George, Stop dreaming about opening a business in Key West BB—another of George’s dreams. He said, at his hotel, he is full almost to capacity and is so fine-tuned yet still not making a profit. He was so honest and definitely has the gift of the bard. He lit up my day. Both are in remission five years—her breast cancer, he kidney. We watched as they downed their cheeseburgers and fries. Man it looked so good. Till next update.

Love,

Michele

May 12, 2011, 11:24 am

Hey, guys. This morning, as I lay in bed still on Naples time, I came to an understanding of a much feared remedy for all forms of cancer—chemo. Wow. As I lay there, I realized that it at first really scared me, and it also made me feel like its purpose was to kill me. I had no idea how this poison would affect my body, but also, back in Naples, you had a port put in that required surgery and you were told for it to stay in for a long time after chemo is over. So you would have to walk around with a hole in your body for up to five years I heard. Ugh, yuck. I felt, how do you decide that would be the best solution for treatment? I just didn’t have peace about it. My decision to come to MD Anderson was the right choice for me. The first thing I asked was, Do I need a port? The answer was Why? This is your first chemo. Your veins are great. It will not hurt if it is done well, flushed before and after. Back to chemo. As I prayed through my stomach distress, I thought chemo is a gift from God. It is His healing spirit running through my veins, healing me. This is not my enemy; it is my advocate. I know the miracles that are happening all around me due to the people who made it through their chemo. The enigma of the word is a misconstrued conception of what—at the end of this very hard, difficult treatment—is healing. In no other way have we been given such a blessing in this time to combat this terrible disease. So as I laid in prayer early this morning, I thanked God for each day I have been able to receive my chemo and understood such a mean, ugly disease needs a great warrior combating it. Chemo is my warrior. It is my ammo. Ugh, I feel sick. My tummy aches. My body is really shocked I would feed it this poison. I pray in a soft voice to my hurt body, Be grateful for this. You will be well again because chemo really wants to kill every bit of cancer in you.

I love you all,

Michele

May 13, 2011, 10:35 a.m.

Letters from Houston! Hey, you all, I have to say this is a very amazing time in my world. Yesterday George and I went for a nice long walk on one walkway to another, from one hospital to the next. It seemed the best way to get our exercise in. It’s amazing the day we arrived, I could not believe how big the hospital was, but as you navigate and find your way to all the different places, you realize it gets smaller each time. The hallways are strewn with interns bustling back and forth. The offices are filled with waiting patients. Everything so orderly, you never experience the scenes like you see on TV. This place is spotless, and all the facilities have different lunchrooms. The food is either great and good for you or really bad, nothing organic.

On to the next, we were supposed to move today, but they are doing a great job cleaning our apartment, and it would not be ready until tonight. So we decided to spend one more night at Rotary House. We plan to go over to the apartment as soon as the cleaners leave. We will take the shuttle from the hotel. We will live across the street from Hermann Park. It is strewn with beautiful oak trees, so magnificent, with walking paths under the trees for miles. You can circle the zoo and pass the botanical gardens. Just a half a mile are the beautiful Houston art museums. We’ve already seen a wonderful impressionist collection on loan from DC. Houstonians have their own Central Park. My stomach still will not tolerate food. I eat and then I poop. This cannot go on. I’ll try Imodium today; that’s what they say. As I said yesterday, my body is rejecting the chemo. It would be fine if all you ate was ginger ale and pretzels, but my body needs nutrients to get to the next step in this journey. By the way, a young pianist played yesterday afternoon in the atrium. To my joy, he played Cole Porter tunes. I danced in my dreams and sang along behind my sterile mask. He played to the sound of the raindrops outside. The maple trees danced outside in rhythm. The large atrium window splattered with a sound I had been waiting for since I had arrived—rain. It is, to me, the balm of Gilead. It returns me to a place where I can find myself again and renew. I was so grateful to the Lord for my rainy, magical afternoon in the atrium with my most favorite beau, George. It was simply divine, it was.

Love you all,

Michele

May 14, 2011, 8:55 a.m.

Hey, everyone. Today is an early day. We are moving to the new apartment. Wow, yesterday we went over at four in the afternoon, and it is so wonderful, it was immaculate. The room is a room with a view. We overlook the most amazing pool with a waterfall fountain in the middle. We’re on the top floor looking over this garden and pool. It will be a place I will sit and paint, read, and most of all, do my early morning prayer time when the rest of the world still sleeps.

Today I feel so, so much better. Talked to a specialized nurse in bowel problems. I know something you don’t need to hear, but it was so interesting to understand what goes on during your recovery to your digestive system. I went from constipation to diarrhea, nausea to starving. After taking Imodium, she said I was not eating enough of the right foods. I needed foods that would be more bulky in my intestines. She was right. I started eating again and found the problem was I needed food in my body. No food was one of the reasons for the diarrhea. You know, it is the opposite of when you’re sick with a bad viral infection: you’re supposed to not eat only liquids. Not so here. The only common thing is no raw fruits and veggies and low fat. More bulk: potatoes, meat, chicken, fish, fiber. Can you believe she wanted to make sure I kept up with fiber and bulk enough? But it is important for someone going through chemo to understand this.

More about the new apartment. George and I explored all the hallways, which are not closed. They are open-air and open to many magical gardens. We found ourselves in the zen meditation garden, and I knew I would find myself there many times. The sound of the water falling from the fountains and the whisper of the very subtle breeze, blowing through the majestic Martha Washington palms, brought me right to the place of quiet, a place where I can listen and hear the voice of the spirit. The place I have always known since I was a child. As a child, I would run away to the woods and find my secret places where the fairies would play and the lady’s slippers would dance. In those times, I found a sense of belonging—not to what was happening in my real life, but to nature and spirit—a oneness, which, for the rest of my life, has so far been the only way I find I’m able to create. Being one with what you are painting, photographing, or writing. My everyday life is experienced that way. The moment I meet or speak with someone, I feel one with them. As a child, it wasn’t always good. I understood more than I needed. I felt so much of the pain, I hurt so deeply and could not understand why people would deliberately hurt someone or something. All I know is at this time in my life, going through this journey of cancer, I am so grateful to be me. The depth of all I’m experiencing through each person I meet only allows me to share fully with each one of these precious souls their fear, their hope, their great devotion to one another. These people are raw. They have been wiped away of all the masks and illusions we all so well create to survive. They are where the rubber hits the road. I am so blessed to be here, every day a new opportunity to give hope, to show love, to listen, to laugh, to accept concern, to give it, to be loved by a broken humanity. A humble group.

God bless.

I love you all,

Michele (speaking for many truly victorious warriors)

May 15, 2011, 4:40 p.m.

Good morning, Naples. The sun rose in our new apartment. A new day, a new opportunity to create a world full of joy and happiness. Today I guess I’m recovering from a bad night, and I know why. I allowed myself to get way too tired. Yesterday we moved, and we also had to fill the apartment with food. That was a three-hour shopping spree at Whole Foods. I really could not believe George didn’t pass out when we arrived home. He had to carry all of the stuff from the hotel in the morning up to the apartment, and there were some very heavy boxes and suitcases—please don’t ask how we had so much. Anyway, then all the food and water later that day from Whole Foods. There is no way I could be here if not with his support. He is a precious soul. Now I know why I married him. I did need some renewing on that one.

My thought for today is what I learned about myself and how I respond to being way too tired. This has proven to be a very important lesson. When you’re that tired, your mind takes you down. It can create fear where there was none. I lay in bed with thoughts of the mundane. Some stories I had heard the last couple of days were not as positive—hopeful on the part of the person, but overwhelming to me. The mind must always be kept still and at peace. I just cannot allow myself to become so fatigued. One of the great stories I heard yesterday morning was at breakfast as I passed the table of a lovely lady. I’ve been praying for her husband, who was brought in for surgery almost three weeks ago. During surgery, they found he was full of cancer. They removed it all. He was in a coma for at least one week after the surgery. We would speak with his daughter, and she would tell us all about him. He is only sixty-eight years and has many grandchildren, whom he adores. I began to pray to St. Jude every morning and night. He is the patron saint of hopeless cases. He woke up on Mother’s Day and has been recovering since. One more story about the devotion here at MD Anderson to get people well. It’s the same story over and over. If it doesn’t work, try something else. They never give up. They have great hope for you to get well. That’s why their logo has the word cancer with a red line through it. You know the song, Morning has broken like the first morning. Blackbird has spoken like the first bird. Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, praise for them springing, fresh from the world. Today really is the only day we really have to live. We all know that. Still, we hang on to regrets and other anchors that try to hold us back from moving into the new day with no baggage, no anger, no fear. It truly is the only way we can take on the great challenge of living today, every moment to its fullest. So as I begin today, I promised myself to be present so that everything I encounter, I will again be able