Sept. 3rd – No Limits- Chapter 8- Chris Ritchey
September 3, 2020 at 12:31 pm 1 comment
No Limits- The book
Forward: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/01/02/jan-3rd-no-limits-the-forward-chris-ritchey/
Chapter One :https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/02/03/feb-3rd-no-limits-chapter-1-chris-ritchey/
Chapter Two:https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/03/03/march-3rd-no-limits-
Chapter Three: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/04/03/april-3rd-no-limits-chapt-3-chris-ritchey/
Chapter Four: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/05/03/no-limits-chapter-4-chris-ritchey/
Chapter Five: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/06/03/june-3rd-no-limits-chapter-5-chris-ritchey/
Chapter Six: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/july-3rd-no-limits-chapter-6-chris-ritchey/
Chapter Seven: https://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/august-3rd-no-limits-chapter7-chris-ritchey/
After the Wedding- Chapter 8
All during the trip to Europe I was in a state of panic . I tried not to show my fear, after all Nikki was pregnant it was a time of celebration, of being with family and supposedly moving forward with hope and happiness. No matter how I tried I could not quell the terror that would shake me awake at night or in unguarded moments transport me to a dark place.
I wasn’t alone in this thing called premonition, Chris as a little boy had dreams and premonitions too. They faded as he grew or maybe he just didn’t pay attention to them. The day I brought my son home from the hospital, I sat gazing at his little flushed faced and those eyes , new to the wonder of a world experienced for the first time and my mother admiring her new grandson , I heard myself saying as I looked at my miracle and said out-loud as my mum sat with me – he will have a sad life! I don’t know what made me say it, I put it down to post-partum nonsense but I was always, in hindsight, since that utterance tried to make sure Chris’ life would not be sad. I spoiled him and loved him, laughed with him, enabled him and tried everything I could to protect him.
After Chris had completed his radiation treatments and we were finally over our “European Flu” , my husband and I were invited to the newlyweds apartment for dinner. I hadn’t seen Chris in a couple of weeks he had been travelling out of state for Wyse Advertising in his position as an Art Director. He had the Meineke Account and they were shooting a new ad based on Chris’ ideas which would be aired on CNN and on the Meineke Bowl December 27th 2008.
As I walked into their apartment that evening in November 2008 my arms full of wine and flowers , my son was sitting in “his” chair – one he had purchased after the wedding- men always have to have “their chair”. I stopped short as I looked at my son – something was wrong, his eyes, dark circles , pallor I knew it was not good, but he had been through a lot and was back at work; logical reasoning’s flooded into my thought process but I knew all the while knowing this wasn’t good. I smiled and said:
I will just give these things to Angela, talk to your dad, I will be back in a second.
I joined Angela in the small kitchen , I had hoped that my wariness of her , which I had felt from the first day I was introduced to her, would have dissipated now they were married. But no! it hadn’t, there was something that made me uncomfortable around her, something that made me try too hard with her, not be me. I remember thinking:
she is like her mother in so many ways but there has to be something I am not seeing in her that Chris does.
I knew from Chris’s own lips, Sue Lombardi, the mother in law, was an irritant to him and didn’t gladly suffer her. There were times my son used the cancer and fatigue as an excuse NOT to go to the Lombardi gatherings, and yet was well enough to join Jim and others at the Irish pub.
Angela, Chris does not look well to me is he OK…. is this the after effects of the treatment?
Oh No! she said
he caught cold on the trip for Wyse – flying you tend to pick up stuff and his immune system is down because of the chemo and radiation. He is on antibiotics from the Dr. at South Pointe.
I felt somewhat relieved, after all she was now a resident, the hospital staff knew Chris and his situation and so we sat down to dinner. I couldn’t take my eyes off my son, even though I was careful not to let him see I was looking and the quiet fear became a deafening roar.
Thanksgiving 2008 came, Angela was working (supposedly), I am not sure to this day that I believed that .. I felt that she wanted to spend Thanksgiving with her family and Chris with his, so they decided to each go their own way and Chris would go to Lombardi’s for dessert.
Chris sat as his usual place at the dining room table. I realized I hadn’t really seen Angela but a couple of times, and then only briefly, since they had been married. Chris would come to Nikki’s every weekend but never did Angela stay, she was usually with her family.
I had cooked Chris all his favorite dishes that Thanksgiving Day but they largely went untouched. After he left to join Angela at her mother’s, Nikki was worried:
We have to do something, Mum, something is not right with Chris, I don’t care what Angela says he is ill. .
Chris had been scheduled for a PET Scan but he didn’t want Christmas to be a blow out so he scheduled the scan after Christmas. We had a Christmas , Nikki and I treading on eggshells and swallowing our fears like they were broken glass.
Angela stayed at her parents and Chris as usual stayed with Nikki, he had his own room. I went over Christmas morning and Nikki was very worried Chris looked dreadful .
Angela duly arrived that morning in her pajamas and coat , she called up to Chris to
get up and come on she was waiting ,
they, the Lombardi Clan were all going to the cemetery where the little cousin who had been killed by the falling tree branch that September was buried in their pajamas with gifts for the grave , opening Christmas stockings and decorate a tree.
I heard my son say
“No that is sick I am not going to be part of that ,you go but I am NOT!
Angela’s face darkened , you could tell she was angry and that Chris had disagreed with her in front of me and his Nana . I heard her say as she left the room
” things will be different next year”
I remember my mum looking at me and saying:
you know that girl has a coldness in her I hadn’t realized….
prophetic words indeed.
Dec 27th, Chris was still at Nikki’s where we all tried to help him, Angela pretty much stayed away sulking somewhat after the Christmas morning incident, Chris explained . We duly sat around the flat screen to watch the Meineke Bowl for his ad.
I was sitting on the couch and Chris slowly started to slump over his head on my lap , like he did when he was a little boy and I knew…… time was not going to be kind…..
Chris, had the PET Scan January 3rd went back to Dr. Abraksia , the oncologist, who originally over saw the chemo treatments and eventually the worst fears materialized. Less than 3 months after being pronounced cured of the curable cancer Hodgkin’s Lymphoma morphed into Refractory Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Nikki was around 6 months pregnant when Chris called me that January evening with the news the cancer was back. I knew I had to tell Nikki in person – her being pregnant was something unexpected and we were treating her like crystal, as just 4 months before her pregnancy Drs. and specialists told her she would not be able to have children. But I knew she was pregnant before she did , I told Chris , he got angry with me
Mum, stop it you know how much Nikki wants a baby that is wrong of you.
I said ,
well I just know she is....
and when she came over with the scan I said
Oh Nikki I have to tell Chris……
there was such excitement
I knew that Nikki had to be told carefully so got into my car and drove to her home. It was snowing and icy and I nearly took out a mail box . Jim answered the door, one look at me and he knew things were bad- I told Nikki what I knew and she crumpled in two, just sort of folded up.
her baby brother –
she wanted to go to him right away but we convinced her otherwise- tomorrow we said .
Nikki and I went to Best Buy on the way and purchased a small flat screen for Chris’s bedroom- knowing he would be shut in that room whilst new treatments were tried. Chris was waiting for us, I started to unpack the TV whilst Nikki and Chris went to the bedroom- I heard him say-
Nik- I did everything they told me to do, why is it back it is supposed to be curable?
My heart was in my mouth- I stayed out in the living room giving Nikki and Chris space” to be”. It was always the two of them against the world.
And so another medical chapter in the journey of the obscenity of Cancer began. I will write of that journey of stem cell transplants, trials the hope and the horror , the circus that is cancer . However, this book is not about the journey of medical treatment but that of life and connection.
Entry filed under: Chris Ritchey, Christmas, death, Doctor/Physician, grief, health, Love, NO LIMITS the book, weddings and funerals. Tags: Angela (Lombardi) Ritchey Murphy, Angela (Ritchey) Murphy DO, Angela Murphy Westlake, Chris Ritchey, Christmas, Christopher D. Ritchey, christopher ritchey lorain, death, grief, hodgkins lymphoma, Lombardi-Lorain, Love, mothers and sons, Tim and Sue Lombardi Lorain.
August 3rd- No Limits- Chapter7- Chris Ritchey Oct. 3rd No Limits Chapter 9 – Chris Ritchey
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1. Oct. 3rd No Limits Chapter 9 – Chris Ritchey | That Woman's Weblog | October 3, 2020 at 12:00 pm
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