Brothers and Sisters

We have been watching the fourth season of Brothers and Sisters.

(CAUTION:  Spoilers to the show if your haven't seen it yet...)

This season Kitty Walker has cancer.

They did a really good job portraying the different stages of the process.  (It's funny how nearly every show now is about cancer.  Tom says I'm probably just more tuned into it  now.)  I find myself (of course) rooting for Kitty.  Saying things like, "YES...that is exactly what it's like.  I'm so glad to see that others want to stop the chemo too."  or "You GO writers...you did your research on that one." when Kitty says at one point that she is so full of steroids that she finds herself up in the middle of the night cleaning the entire house and her mother doesn't even realize it happened. 

I found myself crying with her when she is shaving her hair off realizing again that this is just something everyone that does chemo is going through.  (Hated her when she was so cute bald.  Wow...they really picked the right actress to have cancer.)  When her husband sees her with no hair and acts like nothing has changed and tells her she is beautiful.  Only later, when he is talking to her bother, finding out that it hit him really hard and he felt he couldn't let her know how it made him realize how close to death she was.  I am glad that my husband was honest and didn't try to tell me I was beautiful (even though I teased him about that during the show saying, "Why didn't you tell me I was beautiful?"  HA!).  I am always ever thankful for his honesty.

This show has been good for me to realize that this affects my family as much as it does me.  I seem to go through each day thinking it is all about me when really, it's all about the whole family.  Maybe they aren't here and they aren't really seeing the ravages to my body but they are seeing it in words and experiencing it virtually.  (I'm making sure they get a fairly accurate picture here on the blog...HA!)  Some, like my sister, have been going through something similar with her husband, who has Multiple Myeloma.   She is a great source of strength to me and I'm sure she doesn't even realize it.  Her experience keeps me remembering that others have experienced this and lived to tell tales about it...so get over myself.  8-)

I don't think they did a really good depiction of the husband's role in the show.  My husband is having to handle the mean chemo drunk girl and pick up my slack around the house when I just can't do it all anymore. (Kitty is so nice and perfect to everyone through the whole thing...is it just me or is that possible for anyone to really be nice and perfect all the time while going through chemo treatments?  It could be I just have flaws that others don't have...hmmm...pondering that one.  NO WAY.)   Tom does most all of the shopping and cleaning up after meals.  Rob Lowe just continued to be a California Senator while Kitty's family took care of her.  He came home every once in a while to make love to her (not seen but implied in the show) which is a plus for him but did she really care about sex while going through chemo?  Considering chemo wipes out all your estrogen, it is hard to believe her libido was really into that.  Other than that, it was pretty much business as usual for him.  Of course, you find out later, that he was getting some mental health counseling which made me think that maybe Tom could use some of that too...I know I have to be driving him crazy with the ups and downs.  

I did find myself a little jealous when the chemo wasn't working and they decided to do a stem cell transplant.  One surgery and all of a sudden she is in remission.  No more chemo or anything.  Of course, it was a very risk filled surgery and they had to find a donor but still.  POOF and she's gonna be fine. 

Oh well, I just have to get through 5 more treatments and POOF, I will get to recover from it all and be fine too.  Come February, I should be going around the corner into recovery too.  8-)