Minnesota – Entry 4 in the story of my sister and me

“I think babies are great. Okay, maybe babies aren’t great – they’re messy, but little kids are tons of fun. I love little kids and it seems they all have to go through the messy stage first. But they’re just so fun when they say embarrassing things to distant relatives. And they can draw really modern art pictures and you can hang them on your fridge with little penguin-magnet-things.” Pat Loehmer

(At the 2011 Minnesota Renaissance Festival, kids being messy.)

1994 – Adventures in Minnesota

For a full year after my sister was diagnosed with cancer, she and her doctors played the waiting game. She had CAT scans, lab work, and regular office visits. Since she had a hysterectomy, the specialists were counting on the surgery having gotten all of the cancer cells. They felt that only time would tell. The family turned it over to God. Prayer would spare Pat and her life would continue unimpeded.

That however was not God’s plan.

Pat and I had always talked about going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in Shakopee. Exactly one year after her initial diagnosis, Pat, I and a friend of hers, Angie, packed up her SUV and drove to Minnesota. Another friend of hers, Phyllis from college, lived just down the road from the Festival and she invited us for the weekend.

Pat had started getting abdominal pain again that week, pain that doubled her over and took away her breath. Her doctor gave her a prescription for Vicodin and made an appointment for the next week. We didn’t change our plans.

I don’t know how other people function on Vicodin, but it quickly became obvious that my sister could not. Luckily, Angie and I were able to find Belle Plaine, Minnesota, without Pat’s help. But when we tried to find Phyllis’s, we were useless and turns out so was Pat.

We hadn’t even brought along the address because Pat kept swearing she knew exactly where she lived, right across from the school. With my sister in her own little narcotic world in the back seat, we thought, it would still be ok, Belle Plaine was a small town and we should be able to find the school.

Wrong. And remember, this was 1994, before cell phones and before GPS.

In the dark, we must have driven up and down every one of the twelve or so streets in town without success. About the time we pulled into a convenience store to ask for directions, Pat’s head popped up in the back seat. As Angie went inside to ask where the school was, Pat, watching through the window, began to heckle the gas station attendant as his arms swung to and fro pointing out the streets we had to take.

“He isn’t even pointing to where the school is.”

“Pat,” I answered as best I could through my giggles. “You don’t know where we are.”

“Oh, you silly, I know we are in Minnesota.”

“Are you sure?” I had to tease.

“Umm, I think so. Unless you guys got us lost.”

“We didn’t get us lost, you didn’t bring the directions. Right now, you don’t know anything.”

“Isn’t it great?” Pat answered and went into a fit of giggles.

Angie returned to the SUV and immediately joined our laughter, without even asking what was so funny. Somehow we found the school, and the house where Phyllis lived. We were still in hysterics as we stumbled down the stairs to her basement apartment.  Pat slept off her narcotics in the spare bedroom, while I stretched out on the couch and Angie curled up on the living room floor. We made it to the Renaissance Festival the next day and were able to have a good time, at least for the first couple hours.

By early afternoon, however, the Vicodin was no longer cutting the pain and was instead causing waves of nausea. Pat wasn’t able to eat anything and started wishing she could just throw up. We drove back to Phil’s, packed up and started the five-hour drive home. Pat spent most of the trip writhing in pain in the backseat.

We debated about taking her straight to the ER when we got back to town, but she only wanted to get home and go to bed. Her husband took her to the ER first thing in the morning.

Her second surgery removed another large tumor. Chemotherapy and radiation followed. At this point, the statistics were grim. Less than 20 percent of women with her type of cancer lived past 18 months.

Pat at Phyllis's wedding in Belle Plaine in 1996