I have been reading the book by Mitch Albom, titled Have a Little Faith. The main character in the book is an elderly Rabbi, who has summoned Mr. Albom, and asked that he be the one to write his eulogy. Over a number of years, Albom visits the Rabbi, much in the same way he visited with his college professor, Morrie, in his book, Tuesdays with Morrie. These visits help in understanding the man Albom must eventually eulogize. This story is incredibly spiritual and very emotionally driven. I think I feel it more so with "Have a Little Faith", because of what I am experiencing in my life.

Since Jeff’s illness was diagnosed over two years ago, and then his death, it has been a constant barrage of adrenaline fed events. There has been so much to handle, to care for, to nurse, to nurture, to pray for, to fix, to pick-up, to clean-up, to repair, to fear, to fight for, and to love, that my life has been in a constant sense of urgency. I rarely eat sitting down, because I feel like if I don’t clean something or pay a bill or make a list, even while eating, that something will slip out of my grasp…my control…and my world will spin off its axis again.

It all feels very surreal sometimes. Like the times when you are about to say something that you feel is important, but something or someone interrupts you, and by the time it is your turn to speak again, you have completely forgotten that amazing idea you had wanted to share--one that you were certain was life changing. It makes you crazy trying to remember what you wanted to say and you know it’s right there at the edge of your memory, but then it just slips away out of your grasp, and you feel a sense of fallibility and frustration that you let such an important thing go. A sense of something left uncompleted, left unsaid.

This is how I describe my life. And perhaps, my life has been this way long before the words cancer were uttered.

My Faith could be described as little right now. My Faith that there isn’t anything out there to be scared of, as I tell my little girls when they hear an odd noise at night. My Faith that I can handle anything that comes my way because look at what I have had to handle and survived. My Faith that I can have peace and know that God is guiding us through the storm. I tell people I am close to, that I plan on having quite the talk with God when I pass through on my way to who knows where. I need to understand why children die at the hands of beasts; why cancer is allowed to run rampant through our midst; why money is what controls who gets what is needed in this life on this earth; why innocents are injured and the guilty go free; why people can be careless and make horrendous mistakes and not be sorry; why those who makes mistakes and are deeply sorry cannot be forgiven and are judged; why people cannot put themselves into the shoes of those they judge and see for an instant a pain never imagined.

But there is the good that is plentiful. It is overshadowed quite often by the fear and bitterness we are served. The good is there. The Faith is there. God is there. Not how we demand it, or expect it, or desire it. The good is just there. And we cannot see it until we can be humble enough to receive it in the simplest gifts. I know what my “good” is. I cannot tell you and expect you to feel it too, because my interpretation of good is going to vary from yours, and rightfully so. Each and every one of us needs to seek out what is good in his or her life and focus on that good. Soak it up, digest it, and take in every second of that good. That is what is life changing. That is the spectacular idea that you wanted to share. Look for your good, your faith, your peace—it’s there in the storm or the still of night when sleep evades or when fear keeps you from taking another breath. God gives the good—He gives you the faith you need, whether it’s little or big. And He is always there and does not slip out of your grasp….

Father' Day

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Some folks are scrambling to buy last minute cards and gift--others have planned out a day full of events for his or her Dad--some fathers will be forgotten or overlooked. Father's are an incredible gift and far too often overlooked. My Dad was a huge force in forming the person I am today. I lost him when I was only 24 years old. It's been a void that I will never fill. My girls lost their Daddy when they were only 8 and 5 years old. Yet they are so strong, so brave--they have the best parts of their Daddy with them all the time. Ashtyn has his athletic prowess--being an ace at basketball and soccer. Lauren has his quick wit and intelligence. Both have a sassy streak that I am sure comes from Jeff, too.

I know you are proud of them, Jeff. They are your gifts to me and I cherish them everyday--even the loud screamy days! I want you to know that they love you, they miss you and they carry you with them in their little hearts everyday. I promised you to take the very best care of them and love them enough for us both. I think I am succeeding with that promise. I guess we'll know in about 15 more years when they begin lives of their own and have children of their own. I wish we were going out to buy you some cheesy tie that you would wear to please the girls--remember the SuperDad t-shirt and hat we bought one year? Yeah--that was a wardrobe malfunction! Sorry for that one...you deserved the world. All we could give you was a card and a lot of hugs and kisses and a few hours to watch a Cardinals game on TV. But it was all you ever wanted.

You loved your girls madly while you were here with us on earth and I know you continue to love and cherish us. We will always, always love you, miss you, look for you in a crowd...you gave us so much. I am so grateful that we had you--though for too short a time--in our lives.

Happy Father's Day our beloved and cherished Daddy....

A Year Later

I was just cleaning up Lauren's room--making her bed, picking up dirty clothes--and my eye caught her bulletin board. A typical nine-year old would probably have a bulletin board with pictures of friends, posters of movie stars and singers, awards ribbons from soccer...Lauren does have some of these. What she also has is a bulletin board with her daddy's picture, his medical i.d. bracelets from his last visit to MD Anderson, his funeral program and two pins that say "Cancer Sucks".

This shocks me--that my nine-year old has had to experience this kind of pain and loss. How does this happen? Eleven years ago Jeff and I were married--we talked of the little children we wanted to bring into this world to love and care for and watch grow into beautiful adults.

I am watching the girls grow--they are amazing, resilient, brave, funny--my saving graces. My gifts from Jeff and God.

I am shocked at how fleeting it all was. From the time Jeff first asked me out, "I don't know what your deal is, but if you want to hang out sometime, that'd be great..." (a true poet) to our "I do's" in Hawaii, to "honey, can you get the baby this time" to "Mr. Melton, you have metastatic melanoma cancer, stage IV. You need to go home, get your affairs in order and just spend time with your family. If you are lucky you may have nine months to a year to live." How does that happen? I blinked and it changed. One night I went to bed, blissfully unaware of the changes about to rain down on us--then I woke up and Jeff had been gone over a year.

I kept thinking--well, after the first year, I will feel more normal, it will feel less raw. It is different--a different kind of rawness. I am stronger--that I do know. Maybe a bit braver--just a bit. But I am still unable to make sense of it all. I can remember people telling me--"God has a reason for this." I just can't make sense of that, though. Really? God takes your loved ones in order for the events of the universe to make sense?

There aren't any more answers today than there were a year a half ago, when Jeff and I heard those words from the doctors. There is life--it does go on. There are tears--they do keep coming--usually when least expected. There are happy times--Ashtyn shooting hoops, Lauren singing like an angel. The days turn to weeks and then to months--the time is passing. I talk with Jeff and tell him how much I hope his new experience is filled with all the good and peace and joy he so deserves. I try to live to make him proud--some days I succeed, some days I fail. Everything and nothing has changed.

Letter to the CEO

Dear Robert H. Bezanson, President and CEO of Cox Health
Kim Day, St. John's Health System President / CEO:

My Dad always told me that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. I remember thinking—oh Dad, how cliché! But I am willing to put this theory to work.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!

I have four words for Cox and St. John’s hospitals—Urgent Care Cancer Clinic. Yes, it’s me again—and I will keep this squeaking up until there is progress for cancer patients in Springfield.

I am very excited to see progress in constructing a new Emergency Room at Cox South, and it sounds like Cox hospital has given very serious thought about expanding and improving its ER facilities. The O’Reilly Cancer Center is a gift and a blessing. It appears that both organizations are addressing many needs in the new facilities, but there is still one glaring omission. We are still lacking a place for Cancer Patients to receive urgent and emergency care. Even a designated room in the ER area would be a step in the right direction.

This is not rocket science. An Urgent Care Cancer Center is feasible. Please don’t tell that cancer patient who needs urgent care at 2 a.m., or the cancer patient who has just been sent to the ER because the oncologist office is full, that a 24/7 cancer clinic isn’t needed. Please don’t tell them that the CEO is hard to get a hold of to discuss such needs. Please don’t tell them that it just isn’t in the budget. By all means, please don’t tell them that it will just take time.

We need Urgent Care for Cancer Patients. We need Urgent Care for Cancer Patients. We need Urgent Care for Cancer Patients. Squeak, Squeak, Squeak…


Very truly yours,

Holly L. Melton, Founder
Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation

Happy Birthday, Jeff! January 22, 1959

Happy Birthday, Jeff--today you are the big Five-Oh! It's not the way I thought we would celebrate your 50th birthday--there will be no surprise party, no birthday cake, no presents. No smiles and well wishes from your friends--no jokes about being "over the hill." The day will be filled with quiet reflections of our years together, memories of your stories from your youth, I will see you in our children and wish you could hear them sing "Happy Birthday, Daddy." I still can't bring myself to visit your grave--I know you are not there. I created a headstone that captured your love of sports--it reads "Forever in Our Hearts." I think it is what you would have wanted. This is not your legacy--just a marker of where we laid your body after the fight with cancer was finished. You won by the way...

Your legacy is the gift that we will give other cancer patients. The Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation. It will take work and patience--like your journey through the cancer. It will happen, though--and life will get better for those fighting like you fought. It will be better for them because of what you experienced. It will be better because it has to be. It will be better because our community has a heart of gold and knows how to reach out to others to make the impossible possible. The goal of the foundation is simple really. Our mission is to bring a higher level of skilled care to the oncology medical community in the Ozarks. We plan to accomplish this by providing incentive to bring more nurses and doctors to Springfield that specialize in treating all cancers. Currently, our oncology specialists are few in number and their demand is great. We have a goal of starting with the educational process at the medical and nursing schools. To help guide new nurses and doctors that when caring for urgent care patients, they way we address, speak to, touch and help those dealing with and fighting the effects of cancer must be done with a special level of care. Improving technology to include one's list of medications and available cancer-specific protocols, enlarging and creating a more efficient Angel Network and helping to provide a financial network to ease the concerns of patients and family members are other areas of concentration for the organization. A mobile cancer care unit could provide a level of care unprecedented in the Midwest.

The Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation is the official name--I prefer to call it simply "Jeff's Hope." Our hope is to eliminate the external stresses created by ineffective care and unanswered questions. We need to bring attention to what a cancer patient experiences so that we can improve conditions and therefore improve survival rates. It's true--no one knows until they experience cancer. Not even the oncologists and nurses. I believe that our medical communities can accomplish the goals of the foundation. We must start by demanding the changes that will make it better for those in the fight for their life. Become a patient advocate--insist on changes--ask questions--nothing can ever improve if we don't speak up--how can we not do this for those we love?

Foundation Progress

Merry Christmas--that is important for me to say. I believe Jeff would never want us to experience anything less. I see him every morning leaving the house at dawn to go Christmas shopping before work and before the crowds. It was his favorite thing to do--even last year when he was sick. Jeff loved Christmas. I feel his presence so much. Especially when I put up all the Christmas decorations. It was like he was right there saying, " now plug that one in there and stake the inflatable with extra stakes because the wind will take it out--now don't put everything into one socket or you'll blow fuses again!" Jeff's outdoor Christmas display was famous! He loved to put up as much as our electrical system would allow. Many nights I would try to use the treadmill only to find out that the Christmas lights could not in any way be unplugged for the use of the treadmill, as that would just be crazy--the lights had to stay on no matter what! The use of the treadmill AND the lights just resulted in a total blackout--so needless to say, December was declared a work-out free zone. Sometimes I would think to myself that people are going to mistake us for the parking lot for the floats from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We had more inflatables than the kiddie pool. I tried to live up to that as well as I could this year for the girls' sake and for Jeff.

I have also been looking for ways the foundation can help cancer patients and their families. There have been some opportunities to reach out and help with travel expenses for a couple of local families. I just feel a huge need to pay forward all of the support and kindness we received. In addition to trying to get the clinics to become a reality, I feel we need to make sure everyday life is bearable for cancer patients and their families. Travel can become a huge obstacle. We really need to work on making the Angel Network more accessible in the Ozarks. There are too many private jets just sitting on the runway out at the airport. We were blessed with a private flight once in all of our travels to Houston. I can't tell you what a remarkable difference that made in Jeff's life. He was safe, he was warm, we were certain to reach our destination and he was able to have his little girls with him. Stress levels play a huge role in how successful a cancer patient is in his or her treatments. Sometimes Jeff's stress was through the roof when we had to deal with uncaring and uncooperative airlines. There were a few times he was bumped because he had paid a slightly lower "compassionate" fare and a passenger who had paid full fare took precedence. Nice.

There is much to be done for those dealing with cancer. We have to help. It is not a question of whether or not to help, but how. There is so much to be done--clinics, equipment, research and data bases, help with travel and lodging--the list goes on. Please join us and help. Officially the title of the foundation is the Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation. For me I call it Jeff's Hope. If you can help please send your donations to the Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation c/o the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, 425 E Trafficway, Springfield, Missouri 65806. Messages left on this blog will reach me or email at jeffshope2008@gmail.com.

There are plans for fundraisers in 2009. We've got to do this. The goals of this foundation are not cancer specific. Cancer doesn't care if it is in the lungs or breast or skin or brain--it just hits and hits hard. We have to help--it is our responsibility to help--how can we look the other way--how can we not help?

24/7 Clinic Opening at Siteman Clinic at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis

I wanted to get this posted to the blog. I haven't had permission from anyone to reprint this and for that I ask forgiveness. I am so excited about this clinic. There is a huge possibility that a group of us from the Jeffrey A. Melton Urgent Care Cancer Foundation will be going to perform a site visit in the spring. The target date for the clinic to open is March of 2009. Come on Springfield--let's do this! I would prefer for all cancer patients to be seen, regardless of where they are a patient. For example, when Jeff was home from MD Anderson, he needed help here locally, too, for urgent care situations. Please read-on...



Siteman to Open 24/7 Clinic for Patients Needing Urgent Care

Contact:Jason Merrill314-286-0302
Read aSt. Louis Post-Dispatch story on this subject.
Sept. 24, 2008 – Going to the emergency room can be stressful enough, but for cancer patients, an emergency-room visit takes on a different meaning.

For instance, cancer patients with lowered immune systems may wait in emergency-room lobbies near patients with infectious diseases such as the flu. In addition, given the complex nature of many cancer regimens and clinical trials, some emergency-room staffers may be treating patients who are taking medications they’ve never heard of.

To provide around-the-clock service for cancer patients in need of urgent care, the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine will open a 24/7 Cancer Care Clinic inside the hospital's north campus. The clinic is scheduled to open in March.

“We’re trying to get oncology patients out of the emergency room because for cancer patients, being around sick people for eight hours can be deadly,” says registered nurse Amy Determann, manager of the 24/7 Cancer Care Clinic. “It’s a paradigm shift in care.”

The need for a 24/7 clinic was identified from records showing a number of Siteman patients in need of urgent care on a daily basis. For example, in 2006:

A total of 1,438 visits to the Barnes-Jewish Hospital emergency department among Siteman bone-marrow transplant patients and patients being treated by a Siteman medical oncologist resulted in a hospital admission (approximately four Siteman patients per day).

An average of five Siteman patients per day were either inside Barnes-Jewish or at other hospitals waiting for an inpatient bed.

An estimated 20 Siteman patients each week arrived at the Barnes-Jewish emergency department and were treated and released.

An estimated 15 Siteman patients were directed to local community hospital emergency rooms weekly.

Those cancer patients, who most often need fluids or infusion, can now be treated in the 24/7 center in an outpatient setting rather than a lengthy emergency-room visit or an admission to an area hospital. Nurse practitioners familiar with cancer treatments and Siteman’s clinical trials will work with Washington University hospitalists in staffing the clinic.

Barnes-Jewish is spending $994,000 to build the clinic, which will be comprised of seven infusion chairs, three private treatment rooms and one negative-pressure room. Siteman’s bone-marrow transplant weekend clinic will also relocate to the 24/7 clinic.

The clinic is not available to cancer patients seen by non-Siteman physicians. “Those patients may be on treatment regimens we are unfamiliar with, and it’s important for those patients to work with their oncologist if they need urgent care,” says Determann, who adds that the clinic is not a general emergency room but rather for Siteman patients with symptoms related to cancer. She says those with acute problems like heart attack or stroke need to visit an emergency room.