My Mom and Breast Cancer Awareness Month

I posted the following on Facebook over the weekend in memory of and in honor of my mom - 

Ellen Jean Keller, 1949-2014. 

It’s October and the pink ribbons are out again for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I went for a semiannual checkup with my gynecologist yesterday and my breast MRI is scheduled for next week.

I love my new dr. She’s my age. Straightforward. No nonsense. When I switched to her last October, I had to give my family medical history. I usually get very pitying looks because of all my risk factors: my mom had breast cancer for the first time before the age of 50; my mom had breast cancer twice and her second cancer was not a recurrence but rather a different kind on the opposite side of her body from the first; my mom died from breast cancer; my maternal grandmother died from uterine cancer; and I’ve had two lumpectomies to remove benign breast fibroids (ages 16 and 33). This doctor just took all the information in stride, held my hand, looked me in the eye and said it’s time to get tested; we need to know what we’re up against.

So I did the genetic testing last fall and I do not have the BRCA genes. Big relief! But that was somewhat short-lived when she told me that my family history puts me at 4x greater risk of developing breast cancer than the average woman. I stopped taking the hormones I was on for menopause (welcome back hot flashes!) because my mom’s second bout of cancer fed on estrogen. I see the doctor twice a year for clinical exams and alternate years for mammograms and MRIs. I’m thankful for the opportunity to avail myself of all these preventative measures.

My mom’s story is far more than just some statistics in my family history. It’s been 7 years since she died and I think it’s important to share the realities in the hopes it will encourage someone else to seek treatment sooner. My mom was first diagnosed right after our wedding in 1999. It was caught at stage 1 and the team at Moffitt in Tampa removed the lump and a couple of lymph nodes to be safe. Mom squeezed in radiation appointments around working full-time. Very few people knew she was “sick” and she never asked for help. She was supposed to take tamoxifen for five years afterwards but I found out later she stopped somewhere around year two. She found it inconvenient to go back and forth to Moffitt for those appointments while working and caring for my grandmother and she felt fine.

I found out about her second bout of breast cancer in April of 2012, but she had actually found the lump at least eighteen months before and told no one (my dad was homebound by then and she was still working full-time and caring for him). I knew nothing until the orthopedic surgeon told us in pre-op for my mom’s broken tibia that it would be a difficult repair since so much of the bone was diseased from metastasis. Mom ignored her cancer, not because she was ignorant or irresponsible, but because she was scared and couldn’t face the idea of being sick and having to be taken care of. I can’t imagine how tired she was after 10+ years of working full-time and being a caregiver for my grandparents and my dad. This time though we had to ask for help because my dad was already gone and I lived 90 minutes away. Mom was continually amazed at the lengths her friends, family and church went to in order to get her back and forth to treatments and to work, allowing her to remain living independently in her home. The amazing team at Moffitt gave us much more time than we initially thought we would get. Thanks to their efforts and treatments Mom lived for 26 months after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer with major bone metastases. She got to meet Davis and live through a year of his firsts with us.

Before she died, when she realized she wasn’t going to get to remission and wouldn’t get to watch her grandsons grow up, my Mom told me how much she regretted her choices to cut her first treatment short and to ignore the lump. She died two weeks after my 38th birthday. I was angry with her for a long time after she died, but I have reached the place of forgiveness and acceptance. My mom was always the helper, and found her value and worth in what she could do for others. She excelled at being a “superwoman” that everyone could depend upon and thrived on juggling all of the things that other people needed. She did not know how to put her own needs first, or how to ask for help, and she mistakenly thought she would have plenty of time for that later.

So here’s the takeaway - this October do more than just be “aware” of the pink ribbons around you. Women, please, do your self-exams. Visit the doctor for your annual exam. Get regular mammograms or other imaging. Take your health seriously and MAKE THE TIME for it. You are worth it. Encourage other women in your life that you love and care about to do the same. Don’t be ashamed or too proud to ask for help when you need it. Your family and friends who love you are counting on you.

Mom's Windchimes

Grandma's windchimes have finally made it up in the front flowerbed along with a spiffy new bird feeder that keeps attracting cardinals. 

It's Finally Official

Grandma and Grandpa's house at 108 Euclid Avenue in Seffner has finally been sold. 

The closing went through late yesterday afternoon. 

 We hope the new owner and her family build up lots of good memories there too.

Goodbye House.....

On Sunday afternoon following the cousins' birthday party, we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa's house on Euclid Avenue for the last time. The house was put on the market in October and we have a contract pending; the closing was supposed to have happened last Friday and should take place within the next week or so. These are the pictures that we used of the house when it was advertised for sale. 

Mom's renovated kitchen that she was so proud of. 

Living room and dining room combination. 

Mom and Dad's room and bathroom 

My old bedroom (now guest room) and guest bath 

TV room (old guest room) 

Home office 

Backyard. It seems so bare without the inground pool and decking that was here for many years.

We took one last look around as we said goodbye to the house. Most of the rooms are empty; the remaining furniture is sitting in the living room waiting to be picked up for donation. Daryl's family have been so helpful in getting things ready for the sale of the house. Uncle Steve has helped with the all the legal stuff. Granddaddy did some of the repair work needed after the house inspection and he oversaw the electrician doing the rest. Plus Granddaddy and Daniel have helped move boxes and furniture, and assisted in getting the boxes and furniture donated to people who can use it. 

It's hard to walk away from the house. For over 30 years it has been THE place that I considered "home." The house was one of the model homes for the Sleepy Hollow subdivision that encompasses Euclid Avenue and Euclid Loop. Dad bought it in the late 70s and lived there for a few years before he and Mom got married in May of 1981, which is when Mom and I moved in. It was the only house that the two of them lived in together during their married life. But it is time to move on. Things will never be what they were again. I hope the house can give another family the same sense of home that we had there. 

Christmas is Coming

So Christmas decorations went up this weekend. We didn't decorate the whole house again this year, but we put up the most special decorations and added some new-to-us ones we kept from Grandma and Grannie. The man cave tree is still in process but should be finished soon. 

On the back of the piano are decorations from my mom/Grandma. 

Our fireplace with Daryl's collection of Santas and all of our stockings. 

My nativity collection in the foyer. 

Our Disney collection in the dining room. 

Christmas decorations from Grannie including the swag over our front door. 

Happy Birthday

August 25th has always been a day of celebration for me because it was my mom AND my dad's birthdays. There were both born on August 25, just two years apart. Last year mom's birthday fell on a Sunday and she came up for worship, lunch at Grace Japanese Steakhouse and then back to our house for presents and ice cream cake.  

This year we spent Monday the 25th remembering and honoring my mom and my dad. We met up with Grandmommy and Granddaddy as well as my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Sparky at the cemetery and Daryl led us in the service of interment for my mom's ashes. Then we went out to lunch with my aunt and uncle at one of Mom and Dad's favorite restaurants - the Columbia in Ybor City. It's actually where Daryl and I had our rehearsal dinner for our wedding 15 years ago. We had a great time talking together over lunch.

And when we got home, these beautiful flowers were waiting for us from my Aunt Susie in Indiana. 

My Mom's Service

Last Saturday we held a memorial service for my mom at the First United Methodist Church of Seffner. It's the church where my parents were married, where I was confirmed, where I met and married Daryl, where I received a call to ministry and preached my first sermon, where all three of our boys have been baptized and now where we have celebrated both of my parents' lives. It was a beautiful celebration of my mom's life and I'm grateful to everyone who attended that day. We were surrounded by lots of wonderful family and friends from near and far, including several of our clergy colleagues and large continents from both our churches, Belleview and Druid Hills (Belleview even brought the church bus!). My cousin Russ and Daryl both read Scripture during the service and in addition to the pastor, my Uncle Roger and I both had the opportunity to speak. Below is the text of what I shared as a tribute to my mom, Ellen Jean Packer Keller.

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My Memories of Mom 

First of all, I wanted the chance to stand up here and say thank you today. My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in April 2012 and the last 27 months have been quite the journey. My mom and I would not have been able to get through all of this without so many of you here. I was here as much as I could be but I live 90 minutes away; so many of you – our extended family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and church family stood in the gaps. When she was still in rehab, mom’s colleagues donated their own time off so she wouldn’t lose her benefits or her job. Her Thursday evening Bible study group moved their meeting to a conference room at her rehab center and ever since she’s been home has met in mom’s house because it was easiest for her. Many of you helped drive her to appointments and treatments, you made sure she had groceries and brought meals over, you brought in her mail and paper, and got the trashcans back and forth to the curb when she couldn’t, you built wheelchair ramps, changed lightbulbs, and did household repairs. And that’s just the stuff I know about. I’m beyond thankful to everyone who helped out.  I am especially grateful to my aunts and uncle for their care in the last week of my mom’s life, not only for her, but also for me. As incredibly difficult as it was to sit by mom’s bedside the blessing that week was the conversations we got to have. Some with my mom and then I got to get to know my Aunt Nancy, Uncle Sparky, and Aunt Susie all over again as adults and that was very healing. 

My mom and I were very close and enough alike that sometimes we rubbed each other the wrong way, but at the end of the day we always loved each other the best way we knew how. I was an only child and so we did almost everything together, especially since for the first nine years of my life she was a stay-at-home mom. But even after she went back to work, she was the kind of parent who volunteered at school and always, always went on field trips. There was this one field trip to a state choir competition when I was in high school – it was a couple of days and she had been planning on skipping that one because she had recently changed jobs. But two days before we left a chaperone backed out and the school needed another adult on the trip or we couldn’t go. My mom took off work and went with us so we wouldn’t have to miss. The kids always loved her on field trips because anything you might need -  needle and thread, bandaids, medicine, breath mint, safety pin – my mom was sure to have it in the giant purse she always had with her. When I was in college at USF, she was always available when we needed extra volunteers for events with the Honors Program, and several of my friends who were from out of town were always glad for the extra mom. A couple of my friends had car accidents and my mom and my dad would show up and help my friends navigate dealing with the police reports and rental cars and of course my dad helped deal with car repairs. And then there was the youth group at church and all my friends growing up here. For as long as we’ve been at this church, since 1981, we’ve lived four doors down and across the street from it. Mom and Dad made sure it was the kind of house that was open for everyone to come hang out at, for a few hours or even a few days if that’s what you needed. I’ve been contacted by several friends from youth group in the last couple of weeks who were reminiscing about how my mom was a good listener for them and gave great advice. 

As much as my mom was friendly and outgoing and loved people – wanted to be around them, wanted to be loved and accepted by them – she was also an incredibly private and independent person, who was always more comfortable in giving or doing for others rather than receiving. She rarely talked about feelings; preferring to demonstrate them instead. So she tried to take care of everyone around her; mom was always available to help out if she could. Daryl and I had only been married a couple of weeks and were trying to settle into our tiny apartment in Kentucky. I remember telling her and Dad on the phone that we wanted to do some painting, but since we were both working and I was going to school it was going to take a while. She called me back 45 minutes later with her flight information and came up that weekend. She painted our entire apartment, including our ugly kitchen cabinets. Later she would be the caretaker for her mom and for my dad’s parents and eventually my dad. 

I am fortunate to have a lot of great memories of doing things with my mom. A lot of them revolve around vacations – Caribbean cruises, a cabin in the woods of North Carolina, road trips to Indiana to see relatives, yearly visits to our family timeshare in Orlando with the obligatory outlet shopping and time spent in theme parks, and lots of time spent on the beach. A true native Floridian, the beach was my mom’s happy place; in fact she had a full size mural on her bedroom wall of the beach at sunset. And the beach has become one of my favorite places as well. 

My mom was a fighter whose willpower was a force to be reckoned with; I think that is a lot of what kept her going these last 27 months. When my dad died in 2011, even though he had been homebound for a while, his heart attack caught us by surprise. None of us were ready to say goodbye. When mom's cancer was first diagnosed it was already in the bones throughout her body and the doctors were not very hopeful about her prognosis. I am incredibly grateful for every extra day that we've had  - more time for us to work on our relationship, more memories that she was able to make with her grandchildren Parker and Wesley and the chance to meet and enjoy her grandson Davis. She retired from her job the day we came home from China last year and was one of the crew who met us at the airport late that night. While I was on maternity leave, she made several trips up to Ocala to be able to spend time with us. As last year came to a close there were a few things she was looking forward to doing this year – one was a family reunion with her brother and sister and nephews and we were able to do that over the holidays. The other two were related to Davis. Since she couldn’t travel to China with us, she wanted to be with us in court in when we re-adopted Davis in the state of Florida. And she wanted to see him baptized. She made it both; Davis was readopted in February and baptized on June 14^th.

Mom and Dad’s favorite phrase to me over and over again throughout the years was “You Are Loved.” They even gave me a plaque with the words on it to help remind me. I hope she knew deep down inside just exactly how much the same thing was true of her – of how loved she was – by her family, by her friends and by her Lord. You Are Loved Mom.

My Mom's Obituary

KELLER, Ellen Jean, age 64, of Seffner, passed away on July 12, 2014. Born in Tampa on August 25, 1949, she graduated from Brewster Vo-Tech in 1967. For over 20 years she worked as an office manager and bookkeeper for auto and trucking companies in the Tampa Bay area. For the last 10 years she worked in human resources, most recently at Mental Health Clinic. An active member of the First UMC of Seffner for over 30 years, she served on various committees and as communion steward. Ellen was preceded in death by her parents, Albert Packer and Helen Washburn, step-father Jack Washburn, brother Albert F. Packer, sister Helen Creamer and husband Robert Keller. She is survived by her daughter, Debbie (Daryl) Allen of Ocala; 3 grandsons, Parker, Wesley and Davis Allen; a sister, Nancy (Sparky) Clark of Indian Rocks Beach; a brother, Roger (Mona) Washburn of Shawnee, KS; a sister-in-law, Susan (Rich) Street of Sweetser, IN; 5 nephews: Russ, Bob and Randy Clark, Paul Perry and Matt Kindley; and other relatives and friends. A memorial service will be held at the First United Methodist Church of Seffner (1310 South Kingsway Road) on Saturday, July 19th at 12pm. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made in her memory to the First United Methodist Church of Seffner or to Moffitt Cancer Center. 

My Mom/"Grandma" Update

My mom, Ellen Keller, passed away peacefully this evening, with her big sister at her side. 

Mom and I - circa 1981

Mom and I - Thanksgiving 2012

Her second battle with breast cancer began for our family in April of 2012. In the last couple of months her health and strength declined and her condition really deteriorated over the last two weeks. My dad's sister (my Aunt Susie) arrived in Seffner from Indiana on July 4th to stay for a few weeks with Mom and help out. I spent several hours with them last Saturday and helped run errands around town to get some things set up. But Grandma had an especially bad day Sunday and after talking to the on-call physician, Granddaddy and Uncle Daniel went over to help get her loaded up in the car for a trip to Moffitt. She was admitted that night to the ICU with extremely low blood pressure and very low kidney function. Daryl and I arrived at different points on Monday (after he took Parker to summer camp in Leesburg) and my mom's sister and her husband (my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Sparky) came over from Indiana Rocks Beach. The decision was made on Tuesday to move her from aggressive treatment to palliative care. After two days of visiting with family and friends, Mom became unresponsive Tuesday night. Moffitt graciously allowed us to remain there with her instead of moving to a hospice house. We can not say enough good things about the wonderful doctors, nurses and techs who made Mom comfortable and tried to make things easier for our family as we stayed by her side.

We appreciate all the expressions of love we have received so far and are thankful for everyone's support, especially your prayers. Details on a memorial service will be forthcoming shortly.

Grandma Update

Yesterday I met my mom at Moffitt in Tampa to see her oncologist Dr. Han. While her bloodwork has improved, her exhaustion and lack of energy have not. Dr. Han believes this is due to a buildup of toxicity in the body from chemotherapy. So there will be no more chemo. Mom is supposed to rest for the next couple of weeks and hopefully her energy levels will improve. She is scheduled for some estrogen blocker shots (her cancer feeds on estrogen) starting July 9th. She can take those monthly if they are helping. Thank you for your continued support and prayers.

Baptizing Davis

For the last several months we've been planning the where and the who and the how of getting Davis baptized. Daryl and I met as children at the First UMC in Seffner and it is where we both received our calls into ministry, were married and had Parker and Wesley baptized. Since our parents still attend there, it was the natural choice. The who was an easy decision as well. The Rev. R. Phillips Short was the pastor at Seffner from 1992-1997, during a very pivotal time in both mine and Daryl's lives. Phillip came back to Seffner for our wedding and also to baptize the two big boys, and he stood up for Daryl and I both at our ordinations. The only real question was the how - Phillip is a pastor at Stuart in south Florida, so he can't just run over real quick when we happen to be visiting Seffner. Since all the pastors were in Lakeland last weekend for Annual Conference, we asked Phillip to meet us at the Seffner church after conference ended on Saturday afternoon, so that we could meet with family and friends to celebrate Davis' baptism. Thankfully, that worked out well. 

Davis at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's house for a pre-baptism photo shoot. We ordered his outfit online from Sears - there aren't too many places that make baptism outfits for 3 year olds! 

The Baptism of Davis Warren Allen 

What happens when you baptize a 3 year old who can talk and ask questions? Well he says things like "Are we done yet?" during one of the prayers and after the water, "Hey my hair is wet!" 

Phillip signing the baptismal certificate - we used water in the font that Daryl and I collected from the Jordan River in 2009 during our visit there. Both Parker and Wesley were also baptized with Jordan River water (for them we used water my aunt Susie collected on her trip to Israel). 

All of the family present for the baptism - in front are Grannie and Grandma. The next row from left to right is Wesley, Parker, Davis with Grandmommy, Aunt Barbara, Uncle Nam, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Sparky. Finally, there's Daryl, me, Uncle David, Granddaddy and Uncle Kelly. 

There were some other folks present at the baptism as well. The back row is is BJ and Russ Herig - BJ used to work with Grandmommy for many years. The front row here is Rev. Ed McWilliams (the pastor now at Seffner) and his wife Ann and Ed's sister Nan. 

We were so glad to see the Black family again and to meet miss Vivi. Tim is one of the pastors at the Presbyterian church where Grandmommy works; he and his wife Kelly brought their boys to Davis' welcome home party last year. They adopted Miss Vivi from China last December. She and Davis looked so cute together! 

It really was a tremendous blessing to be able to celebrate God's grace present in Davis' life as we celebrated his baptism with family and church friends.